Access Your Heart

Earlier this month, American civil rights hero Judy Heumann died at the age of 75. Heumann was a pioneering advocate for disability rights, from the time her mother first tried to register her for kindergarten and was told she could not attend public school because her wheelchair was a fire hazard to Heumann’s own push decades later to be licensed as a teacher in New York City. All her life Heumann advocated for inclusion and access, becoming an advisor to multiple presidents and a board member at some of the nation’s leading nonprofits.

She famously said, “It is not a tragedy to me that I’m living in a wheelchair. Disability only becomes a tragedy when society fails to provide the things we need to lead our lives — job opportunities or barrier-free buildings, for example.”

The month of March is both Women’s History Month and Disabilities Awareness Month, together providing an important lens for our lectionary passage from John 9. I encourage you to read the full chapter from John’s Gospel this week; we’ll read selected verses in worship on Sunday.

What if we apply Heumann’s words to our gospel reading? What new insight do we gain about this story and about the real tragedies in this man’s community?

Consider this as well: In 2005-2006 PPC church member Sarah Nettleton served on a nation-wide social witness advisory committee for the Presbyterian Church (USA), developing recommendations for the denomination in a document entitled “Living into the Body of Christ: Toward Full Inclusion of People with Disabilities.” The introduction includes the following poem Sarah wrote. As you reflect on John 9, let God bring it into conversation with Sarah’s words and Judy Heumann’s witness:

“Access Your Heart”
Please include us.
It hurts to be excluded.
A quick hi and a hug are not enough.
We need real inclusion.
When will you understand?
We are all members of the body of Christ.
Some of us communicate in different ways.
Some of us see differently.
Some of us behave in ways we can’t control.
Some of us learn at different speeds.
Some of us need wheelchairs.
Some of us walk differently.
Some of us hear less.
Some of us never get to come to church.
Some of us are just left out.
We are all members of Christ’s family.
Why can’t you be more welcoming?
We are all in need of a church which welcomes and accepts us for who we are.
We are made in God’s image.
When you forget to include us you are forgetting to include God.
Access is more than ramps and accessible bathrooms.
The hearts of everyone need to be open and welcoming.
When hearts are open we can really be a family in Christ.
Open your heart.
And let us in.
Sarah Nettleton (copyright 11/08/00)

Scripture for Sunday: John 9:1-41