Disability, Part 6

Monday, March 24, 2025

Happy Monday, my friends! Today is my last reflection in this intentional series on disability. Inspired as much by reading about disability justice in the course I’m taking on theological anthropology as it was by the promptings of several people who routinely read Monday Moments, this series has been a blessing to produce for you all. Too often, even in social justice circles, disability justice is left out of the conversation and only included when someone visibly identifies with a disability or discloses an invisible disability. As a result, whole academic and practical fields—such as theology and ministry—with robust and growing considerations of race, gender, sexual orientation, and other areas fail to appropriately discuss disability.

For Christians and other people of faith, perhaps one of the least considered dynamics is disability in whatever life comes after death. In Christian theology, we discuss the general resurrection—when the kin-dom of God is fully at hand—and the personal resurrection of each person as promised by Jesus. Consider Revelation 21:1-4:

Then I saw "a new heaven and a new earth," for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and God will dwell with them. They will be God’s people, and God will be with them and be their God. God will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."

This and other passages have led some theologians to conclude that each person will have a new body free from the pain experienced in life and ostensibly from any disability experienced. However, that theology assumes that one needs and wants to be “cured” of something that was called a “disability.” Remember that disability is a social construction that says more about how society does or does not accommodate its fellow humans than it says about the differences experienced by humans. Not only does that theology attempt to “cure” people who don’t necessarily need or want to be cured, but it can also be used to argue that any “deficiency” in people will be “corrected” in the new heaven and the new earth. Too quickly, heaven can be totally populated by white, cisgender, heterosexual, able-bodied people, which never was and never would be the intention or project of Jesus.

Rather, Jesus offers us the finest clue to what resurrected bodies will look like. In John 20:24-28 we read about Thomas who had not been present when Jesus had visited the other disciples:

Now, Thomas…one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So, the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!” But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.” A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.” Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”

Jesus is the first resurrected body of the new covenant, yet his body retains the marks and scars of his death. It would make sense that the identities that helped define us in life would continue in death. What changes in the resurrection, in the new heaven and the new earth, in the kin-dom of God is that we care for one another. Yes, heaven and earth will have wheelchair users, people with chronic illnesses, and mental health issues, but other people will accommodate those differences and care for, rather than ignore, their fellow humans.

How do you think you’ll inhabit a new heaven and a new earth? How can we accommodate and care for our siblings now on this earth?

Rather than a prayer, I’d like to tell you one of my favorite stories. A man was given the chance to see both Heaven and Hell. Starting in Hell, an angel showed him a massive banquet hall with long wooden tables and every person in Hell seated along the two sides of these tables. In the middle of each table was a large bowl of soup whose aroma was intoxicating as if one could eat this and nothing else for all eternity and still want more. Each person was restrained to their seat and had a three-foot spoon attached to their arm. However, because of their restraints and the length of the spoons, no one could spoon the soup into their own mouths, and everyone went hungry while constantly smelling the aroma of the soup. Next, the angel took the man to Heaven, where he was once again shown a nearly identical banquet hall. The man asked the angel, “Why is it the same in Heaven as in Hell?” The angel responded, “Look closer.” As the man looked at the Heavenly banquet, he realized that the people were happy and having their fill of the soup. The people took turns reaching the soup and feeding the person across the table. “You see,” the angel said, “in Heaven, people serve each other.”

Blessings on your weeks, my friends. Please let me know if there is anything I can do for you.

Faithfully,

Ben