Accessibility as Moral Mandate
Photo by Daniel Ali on Unsplash
My home congregation (UMC) is taking up the complex, difficult task of building renovation. There are two major issues concerning accessibility in our church building. For starters, our sanctuary is on the second story. We have an elevator and will likely add a second elevator at the other end of the building. The other major concern is the renovation of the sanctuary. When last changed in the 1950s, it is evident that “accessibility” was not on anyone’s screen. The floor level on which pastoral leaders stand is two steps up from the floor of the congregation. Behind them is a choir loft with tiers of seats, so that one needs to be either quite agile or a mountain goat in order to sing in the choir. (We have none of the latter in the choir). We are now, unlike in the 50s, acutely aware of accessibility issues, so that changes are imperative. It is now a matter of implementing concrete plans, and raising the money required to make the essential changes.
In the gospel of Mark, there is no such barrier or impediment until we come to the narrative of Bartimaeus, the beggar who is blind (Mark 10:46-52). The structure of this narrative is not unlike all of the others. The man is in need; he gains access to Jesus. Jesus transforms his condition. In this instance, however, there is an additional factor in the narrative, namely that those around Jesus try to silence his urgent plea to Jesus:
-In Matthew 20:31: the crowd strictly ordered him to be quiet.
-In Mark 10:48: Many sternly ordered him to be quiet.
-In Luke 18:39: Those who were in front sternly ordered him to be quiet.
The phrases vary; but the intent is the same. Those close to Jesus, perhaps his disciples who might want to protect him, do not want him approached by a loudly-demanding needy person. Such a loud demand would disturb the peaceable order of his presence. It might also concern their position of privilege with him. The conclusion to be drawn: the primary barrier to access to Jesus is not a physical block, but it is a humanly constructed hindrance designed to fence off Jesus and his healing capacity from assertive need. Mark 10:46-52 affirms the basic tenets of the disabled people’s movement, that the barriers faced by persons with needs who want access to wellbeing are often humanly constructed barriers. Likewise in the Gospel, the barriers are the work of human agents who want to protect some from having access to the “goodies” of the “presence.” Now I do not think for an instant that the inaccessibility of our church sanctuary in the 50s had any intent to exclude those with disabilities from full participation in the life of the congregation. More likely it was thoughtlessness, the kind of thoughtlessness that goes easily with advantage and not noticing, valuing, or advocating for those with special needs. Attention was not paid; those with disabilities were unnoticed and unacknowledged. Ye of little faith! How like us not to notice or value those who lack the capacity to “run with the pack” and compete in the strenuous contest for advantage and access.
But of course sometimes such exclusion is not thoughtless and accidental. Sometimes it is willful and purposeful, even if covert, because it is easily recognized that gaining access to goods inescapably limits the portion for each of us by that much. Most of us can recall those small, innocent-looking signs in all kinds of eateries:
We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone.
We all understood fully what such a sign meant. We all knew it was racist. But it was quiet and unobtrusive, so we mostly were not bothered. “Refusing service” is so tacit and “given” that non-whites did not object to such a barrier, and so the barrier persisted. Nor did white people who knew better voice any resistance. The barriers easily persisted in local settings. They persisted more broadly in such actions as in GI benefits after the war that were limited to white veterans. In the little town where I grew up (Blackburn), I recall that the single cafe-coffee shop in town served both whites and Blacks. White customers had a commodious place for ease and good company and service. Blacks were served from a different window in a shabby room devoid of décor or comfort. It was the same in the old rural pubs in England where “the working class” was served on the side of the pub that had no carpet or comfortable accommodation. Or back in Blackburn the school bus for Black high school students every day passed right by our school enroute to Sweet Springs to the Black school. (The Black grade school was just down the hill from our school. My brother Ed and I were custodians of that Black school for several years.) We grow so easily and readily accepting of barriers that we do not notice them. And except for an occasional “agitator,” we accept the barriers as natural and given… until we don’t!
In the ancient world of Jesus the big defining “barrier” was one that distinguished Jews from Gentiles. The Jews had dietary laws that protected them from Gentile distortion. Peter, the front man for the community to Jesus, is a case in point. It is reported that he “fell into a trance” (Acts 10:10). Maybe it was a nightmare; it is always a nightmare to have our deep assumptions called into question. In any case he was vulnerable and helpless as the vision crowded in on him. He was a good torah-keeping Jew with all the dietary requirements of his faith. But the voice that commanded him said to “kill and eat.” The offer was exactly what was prohibited by his diet (vv. 12-13). Of course he resists! But his resistance counts for nothing in the season of his nightmare. Peter learns from his vision that his cherished virtuous notion of Jewish privilege counts for nothing in the sweep of God’s rule:
I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears and does what is right is acceptable to him (vv. 34-35).
It is like that amid the rule of God:
Our little systems have their day;
They have their day and cease to be (Tennyson).
Peter had inherited and embraced his “little system” of religious advantage. We are always engaged in the construction of our little systems of advantage and privilege. And they are always being swept away by the spaciousness of God’s rule that refuses to be confined according to our systems. The spaciousness of God’s sweep is so wide and comprehensive that the apostle can offer his breath-taking affirmation:
For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in the place of the two, thus making peace, and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it. So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God… (Ephesians 2:14-19).
What a mouthful! In the awesome gesture of the self-giving cross God has nullified our preferred barriers.
Yet, along with civic society, the church continues as best it can to erect barriers and establish advantage. But we know, at the core of our faith, that all such efforts are penultimate and in the long run have no staying power in the face of God’s generosity. The socio-political economic work of dismantling barriers is slow at best, because we bring our fears and our consequent greed to the task of erecting barriers that make clear our capacity for domination and usurpation. But the work goes on in the face of such mighty challenges. It is for that reason that our most elemental prayer is filled with plural first-person expression:
Our father;
our daily bread;
our debts!
That is what we all share: father…bread…debts! We all share eventually in our common appeal to the goodness and abundance of God who “shows no partiality.”
Thus in our church we are about the removal of barriers. The embrace of God continues to outflank our little systems of control and advantage. We find, every time as we yield our control and advantage over to the goodness of God, that our lives are further emancipated and energized with gladness and wellbeing freed from fear and defensiveness. It turns out that we are on the receiving end of goodness that we are not able to generate for ourselves. So let us not cling to our own advantage, but to God, repenting of prejudice that excludes, ignores, and slights. We cannot now unsee it. We have now become privy to God’s impartial, boundary breaking love. Therefore, together, we must tear down walls, following Bartimaeus, civil rights activists, and Peter, toward a vision of accessibility that includes us all.
