Three Miracles In Capernaum Pt. 3

Belonging, Believing, And Behaving

This is the conclusion of a three part series of posts titled 'Three Miracles In Capernaum'. You can find the first post here and the second post here.

Watch video first:

I personally really don't think we truly get this story in North America. Our society is still blinded by an Ablest mindset making this story about the paralytic and not the real miracles that Jesus was performing that day. I mean, just look at the title most of our translators still give to the story -- The Healing of the Paralytic.

If this story is simply just about a paralyzed man getting up and walking again... I can't help but feel like, how boring is that?! No, I'd rather like to think Jesus performed three miracles that day while breaking down the barriers of Ableism in 1st century Capernaum; the miracles of a radical sense of Belonging, courageous actions in Believing, and an amazing transformation in Behaving.

Belonging

We don't know the motives the friends necessarily have in bringing the paralytic to the feet of Jesus -- whether it was a just a sense of social justice for inclusion to be part of the house gathering, or the hope for healing of their paralyzed friend. It is also likely that this isn't the first time Jesus has seen this man and his friends as he probably passed by them many times in the streets of his home community and spoke to them by name.

But what I can perhaps question and identify with is, what does this paralytic really hope for in life? What might Jesus know about him and the way the world treated him through his past relational encounters?

I've been in a wheelchair since a spinal cord injury from a car accident in 1994 when I was 15 years old. I remember what it was like to walk, be physically strong, and have a sense of full independence; to be normal in the eyes of society.

But since that time, I have seen and had many encounters with a world that struggles with Ableism. If you have never heard that word before, ableism can be defined this way:

• Able -- an expected idealism to the embodiment of a human being.

• ism -- an ideology, value, or belief system.

• Ableism is attitudes and actions that devalue someone based on their embodied difference or disability.

The paralytic and his friends in our story would have encountered ableism daily in their lives while being considered the "unclean" of their society. This label prevented them from being part of the worship in the synagogue. They were probably not allowed or welcome at most social gatherings for fear of making others unclean with disability or disease -- as we saw they wouldn't let them into Jesus's home. They were limited in community membership, set to the outskirts of the village, and spoken to with diminishing tones. And most certainly left to depend on the social financial support of begging to make their means. Their was no way they could possibly have a status or title.

It is hard to imagine that our society today is recognizing a rise in ableism and the impact of its prejudice.

• MAID and the laws of euthanasia are increasing the acceptance for the disabled. As I read one statistic, it said 33% of applicants are considered disabled while many are choosing euthanasia over the threat of poverty.

• Community and hospital care workers are increasingly facing burnout as the need for more workers rises. In fact, they are so short staffed that I have been asked by care agencies, "Is there a family member or friend who might be able to care for you? We have no one to send!"

• Despite there being relief financial supports like AISH and CPP Disability, they are kept at such a minimal level while compared to the rising costs of living that many disabled people are left well below the poverty line.

• Many disabled people face ablism in employment from lack of education and understanding of the needs disabled people have. They also encounter discrimination to their employment due to assumed inabilities or the unwillingness to make accommodations to succeed such as working from home.

The church is not exempt from this ableist culture, by the way. I was once invited to a local church to speak. But when they heard I was in a wheelchair, they withdrew the invite saying, "Unless I was able to get out of my wheelchair and walk up to the pulpit, I would not be able to speak to their congregation."

Jesus speaks some very radical and miraculous words to this paralytic in Capernaum, "Your sins are forgiven." What is he doing here? Jesus is committing a miracle of raising the status of this paralytic and his friends in equality with everyone else there. He's saying, "You Belonging here! You are significant! I value you! You have just as many rights in my home as everyone else here -- the scribes, the religious leaders, the fishermen, the women, and yes, your friends who carried you."

I love the way K. J. Ramsey words this when she says:

“Most of us struggle to rise into our lives with courage and hear that we are beloved because we’ve all been baptized in different water—the stream of scarcity. Most of us learn early in life to stay by scarcity’s stream of striving and strength, where the only way we are given the name Beloved is if we earn it every single day…

Courage is standing in the mud of our ordinary lives and turning toward Christ, who still hears the words we most strain to hear on our own, who stands ready to help us hear Beloved in every mundane and even miserable moment we ever will encounter.”

— The Lord Is My Courage: Stepping Through the Shadows of Fear Toward the Voice of Love by K.J. Ramsey

In the face of a community built on ableism, Jesus breaks down the barriers of oppression through the power of unconditional grace and forgiveness, practicing a radical and miraculous sense of Belonging that leads to a second miracle.

Believing

I shared earlier that I've been in a wheelchair since I was 15 years old. It took a few years but, I worked hard to regain my independence -- my ability to dress myself, do my own care, transfer in and out of my wheelchair on my own, & find my independence. I knew I would get older but, I never really expected anything to change from my position of strength. That was until a few years ago.

After 27 years of being over used, I blew my shoulder out, tearing the muscles and tendons apart. They would have to do reconstructive surgery on my left shoulder or I wouldn't be able to use it anymore. During recovery, I ended up with complications while developing a pressure wound. As a result, I spent the last year and a half confined to a hospital bed on my side, all through the middle of the pandemic, and unable to be up in my wheelchair.

I suppose a state of utter fear is the only way I could describe my emotions during that time. I was scared. I was asking myself:

• Is this it? Is life over? Is this life worth even living?

• Will I loose my ability to get back home to my wife?

• Will I loose our home itself?

• Will I ever get to be around my community again? Around people again?

• Will I have to always depend on others now, for everything?

To this day I still battle a voice inside my head that says:

• "You don't matter."

• "You have nothing to offer this world."

• "It doesn't matter what you do today because it will all be forgotten, you will be forgotten, as fast as tomorrow."

Funny thing is, I'm willing to bet that the paralytic in our story from 2000 years ago faced these same questions; these same battles. And here is this man named Jesus saying to him, "Get up and walk. Pick up your mat and go home."

What an incredible position or decision this paralytic was placed in and had to make! Truth be told, these words were not just an overwhelming challenge for the paralytic alone. The questions of, "Who is this guy that speaks this way?" And, "Only God can do these things, right?" were being asked by everyone there that day. These are questions not about super natural powers but, about where the people in Jesus's home would see authority. Will you believe in the authority of what the world says to you -- the Romans, the Temple, the religious leaders? Or, will you believe and stand courageously in the authority of Christ?

In honesty, I am willing to bet that it didn't matter to Jesus if this paralytic man physically stood up and walked on his own that day. He already had restored him in equality and solidarity with the community by saying he was forgiven, before even healing him. What he did want to do was miraculously remove the illusion of control, the belief that systemic ableism and the religious institutions held over the people there that day. What he was asking and giving them the freedom to answer in was, "Who do you believe has authority and control?"

Henri Nouwen writes that,

"In so many ways, the more we insist on control and the more we resist the call to hold our lives lightly, the more we have to deny the reality of our losses and the more artificial our existence becomes. Our belief that we should grasp tightly what we need provides one of the great sources of our suffering. But letting go of possessions and plans and people allows us to enter, for all its risks, a life of new, unexpected freedom...

Another step in turning our mourning into dancing has to do with not clutching what we have, not trying to reserve a safe place we can rest in, not trying to choreograph our own or others’ lives, but to surrender to the God whom we love and want to follow. God invites us to experience our not being in control as an invitation to faith."

— Nouwen, Henri. Turn My Mourning into Dancing (pp. 22-23). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.

The paralytic, carried by the faith of his friends, chose to believe in the authority of Jesus. He chose to risk everything in that moment -- his dignity in the chance of falling flat on his face, the little bit of security he had on his own life begging from his mat, and the normality of the voices both of the religious leaders and internally in his head that said he was 'unclean' and undeserving -- and he believed Jesus that he was indeed beloved by God. He deserved more in a life of freedom. And he walked!

Oh how I too seek to live every day in life! A life of behaving in wonder and awe!

Behaving

After restoring the community to a place of solidarity and equality through the miracle of belonging; And removing the illusion of systemic ableism's and the religious institutions control through the miracle of faith and Believing that Jesus is Lord; Jesus witnesses the third miracle happen all on its own -- the miracle of Behaving!

Perhaps the shortest statement in our story but it says, "they all were filled with amazement saying, 'We have never seen anything like this!'" Or, I love the way another translation puts it saying, "All were filled with wonder and awe!"

My friend Preston described wonder and awe in his book 'The Bees of Rainbow Falls' when he wrote:

"Humans, for all of their flaws and brokenness, still carry within them this beautiful and strange truth: they are made in the image of God. We reflect, in some mysterious way, qualities and characteristics of God...

... When we begin to see the world outside our front door with new awe-shaped lenses, loving our neighbours is not a chore but a delight. Putting ourselves out there to engage and love our neighbourhoods is not a numbing task but an extension of this deep sense of the beauty that is just below the surface, if only we could see it."

Pouteaux, Preston. The Bees of Rainbow Falls: Finding Faith, Imagination, and Delight in Your Neighbourhood . Kindle Edition.

If we ask the church how it might respond with wonder and awe to the disabled in our neighbourhoods today, let me maybe conclude with the challenge Amy Kenny articulates in her 'Top Ten Disability Dreams':

10 -- Welcome change to become more inclusive and accessible to all disabled people.

9 -- Believe us when disabled people share that something is inaccessible to us.

8 -- Celebrate the holy disruption of disabled body-mind.

7-- Incorporate disability theology into worship practices and gatherings.

6 -- Learn from the prophetic witness of disabled experiences.

5 -- Invite and equip disabled people to lead.

4 -- Budget money, time, and resources to make spaces and community etiquette more inclusive.

3 -- Create community networks to support disabled people.

2 -- Pay the crip tax for disabled people in the community.

1 -- Worship and be in awe of the disabled God.