Disability in the Church: The Challenge of Brotherly Love

Introduction

That Sunday, the Assemblée de Dieu de Montpellier Richter welcomed the Deaf community. The day before had been International Day of the Deaf, and the service was interpreted into French Sign Language, and from English into French. It was in this setting that Pastor Rémy Lours, who has led the Assemblée de Dieu de Villeneuve-sur-Lot with his wife for six years, brought the message.

He tells how he once met a Deaf person at work. He thought he was dealing with a person with a disability. Instead he discovered a rich, intelligent, funny person, and above all a people living in his own country whom he had never known. The Lord then called him to work so that this people could receive the Gospel.

This morning, he widens the subject to disability in general. His conviction fits in one sentence: "Disability, despite the difficulties, the suffering and the sense of injustice it can bring, must not be a problem. And the person who lives with it is a gift, far more often than we think, even if it asks us to do things differently."

Message Outline

1. Neatly Sorted Boxes

• In French culture and law, everything must be in its place: lines are drawn and nobody steps outside them. We have defined the disabilities we know best, with the pictograms visible on public buildings, sometimes even at the church entrance.
• There is physical or motor disability, such as using a wheelchair, and sensory disability. For the Deaf, the preacher believes we need to go beyond that category. There is also mental disability and intellectual impairment. For these, solutions have been found or are being worked on: accessibility, for example.
• The preacher worked as an educator for years, in the world of disability and autism. "It is part of who I am, it runs in my blood."
• A question then arises for every Christian: how do I regard, how do I approach, how do I spend time with someone who is different from me?

2. The Disabilities You Cannot See

• There are disabilities we know less about, or not at all. First, psychiatric disability, with illnesses such as schizophrenia. The pastor has walked alongside brothers and sisters who suffered from it: for a child of God, it is devastating, because it touches their relationship with God, their Christian life and their spiritual growth. "We could be quick to say they are not converted enough, but no."
• Next come neurodevelopmental disorders. "In my generation, I am 47, we knew about dyslexia." Today people talk about ADD or ADHD, and day to day it is a struggle for those who live with them. "But what richness!"
• In his worship team, several sisters are highly sensitive. One might find them a little irritating, but their emotional radar is so finely tuned that they sense things "light years" before he does. They alert him to what he would never see, or would see too late. "What a treasure!"
• He says the same of the brothers and sisters of all ages who live with autism spectrum disorder in his church.
• The real difficulty is that these disabilities cannot be seen. When you are different, others tend to reject, to judge, to put you in boxes. So when you can hide your difference, you do. "But what energy that costs! What suffering, and what suffering on top of the suffering!" The consequences are very real, and the answers are neither technical nor logistical: they are of another nature.
• Finally, there is old age. A third of the members of his church are over 65, and some experienced the revival in Algeria and in France. He sometimes visits an elder and comes away encouraged. But these brothers and sisters can no longer drive, walking across the parking lot is painful, sitting for long becomes unbearable, and the heat forces them to stay cool all summer. This unavoidable wear and tear limits us and disables us too.

3. The Challenge of Love

• For the preacher, disability and the limits that come with it set the Church a major challenge: that of love. When someone different is in front of me, someone I do not know how to approach, awkwardness sets in, sometimes fear. How will I show them love?
• "I love the presence of God, but I love the presence of God even more when I am in communion with my brothers and sisters." When he hears a heart pouring itself out before God beside him, his own praise is multiplied: "Lord, you have done so much good for me, and you have done it for them too."
• The word "disability" lets us name things and understand concepts, and it even protects, to a certain extent. But the one the world considers disabled, I must see as my brother or sister in Christ, beyond what their body endures.
• The text of the message is known to all: "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:34-35).
• For Jesus, the preacher says, the disciples were spiritually disabled: limited, incapable, they had understood nothing. "How long will I bear with you?" he asked them (Matthew 17:17). Yet he loved them enough to give himself in sacrifice for them. He died for us while we were still enemies (Romans 5:8-10).
• In marriage as in the Church, it is always up to me to love the other first. If I receive love in return, glory to God. But even on the days when it seems impossible, God makes us able through the Spirit who lives in us.
• An image illustrates it: singing a serenade to a young woman is easy. True love is walking together to the end, looking in the same direction. The same goes for fellowship: saying "I love you, brother" is not enough, we must walk hand in hand in the direction Christ sets, all the way to the end. "Love has to be proven. Love is concrete."

4. Moving Beyond the Need for Healing

• "I am a Pentecostal pastor, born into the Pentecostal faith. I grew up on the church pews and I believe in the power of God." Yet in the face of disability, he invites us to move beyond the need, almost the obligation, of healing.
• Many take medication for diabetes, cholesterol or the heart, many wear glasses, and they live very well that way. We are all limited in one way or another, and we do not seek healing for our eyes at all costs: we go to the optician.
• "Jesus did not come to heal people. Jesus came to save them." To the evangelism team in his city, he asked: "Do you preach healing or salvation? Preach salvation. Healing will come, because healing is a sign that accompanies the preaching, and not the other way around."
• A brother who lived through the revival told him that in the 1960s, many people were healed at evangelistic meetings: not a Sunday afternoon went by without a miracle. "But you know, few stayed." And of those who stayed, not all went the distance.
• Jesus did not heal everyone. The preacher thinks of the man unable to walk whom Peter and John healed in front of the temple (Acts 3): how many times had Jesus walked past him?
• Healing does not guarantee conversion. Of the ten lepers who were healed (Luke 17:11-19), only one came back to give glory to God, and he was a Samaritan, the one on whom you would have bet the least.
• When Jesus heals the man born blind (John 9), it is not so much the blind man he wants to heal as the witnesses, healed of their spiritual ignorance. Hence this question: when you want someone to be healed, is it they who need healing, or you who need them to be healed?
• Those who live with a disability sometimes need relief, often need healing, but not always. That is not what matters: that is not where the door to God's blessing is found, neither for them nor for us.

5. Five Stages in Facing Disability

• The preacher describes five stages we can go through when facing disability. If you recognize yourself in one of them, he invites you to move on to the next with God.
• Ignorance. It is normal: I do not know what you are living, I did not even know it existed. It can also take the form of judgment: "Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" (John 9:2). That was the logic of Job's friends. Job and the man born blind show that it is not so: there are sometimes consequences of sin in our lives, but not always.
• Discovery. I want to understand what is happening to you. This can come with pity ("I would not want to be in your place") or with relief ("thank goodness I am not in your place"). That is human, but we must move forward.
• Care. I want to take care of you because I love you and because you have value. I no longer look at you through your disability. Even if there is a disabled parking permit on your windshield, I see a human being who, like me, has feelings, humor, desires, plans, and who may be able to do many things. I am learning to love you as you are.
• Fellowship. You are my brother or sister in Christ just as you are, perhaps even my friend. The preacher quotes the psalm read the previous Friday: "I will give thanks to you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made" (Psalm 139:14). God knows what he is doing. We share the same hope, the same dignity, the same grace, the same Spirit.
• Serving together. Even with a limit, we have the same worth before God. In his church, the first to raise their voices on Sunday morning are two brothers with an intellectual disability. One of those who pray with the most zeal lives with a neurodegenerative illness and autistic traits: day to day, he is lovable but "unmanageable," he constantly demands attention, he repeats the same things, but "he has an incredible love for the Lord." Where the pastor would like to see other, more capable people step up, he is the one who stands first. His question becomes: how can I help him serve the Lord?

6. A Love You Can See

• The limits are real and tangible: difficulty walking or getting around, hypersensitivities (a sound system can be too loud for some), a different way of understanding, trouble concentrating. A person with ADD does not refuse to listen, they drift away. If we see them drift, we risk judging them.
• A brother with autism spectrum disorder once told him: "Rémy, I love you, but sometimes in the morning, I do not feel like greeting you with a kiss on the cheek," because it is painful for him. He pushes himself because he loves him. How will we react?
• The word "disability" does not exist in the Bible, but the Bible shows how to love others, whoever they are. The preacher invites us to reread 1 Corinthians 13: be patient, do not judge ("if he were really converted, he would not react like that"), bear with one another, and not only in prayer.
• A final image: a grandmother or an elderly brother comes to see you because there is a leak in his kitchen. The children are far away, the pension is small. He thinks of a person from Villeneuve who lives alone deep in the countryside, twenty kilometers away. She asks the pastor for help, and he prays for her and for a plumber to come and fix it.
• "Wouldn't I be more spiritual if I took my wrench and went to fix the sink?" He admits with a smile that he knows nothing about plumbing, but another brother or sister in the church may well know.
• We Pentecostal Christians are very spiritual: we will pray and the Lord will do a miracle. He remembers praying, as a young convert, for his tired pastor: "Lord, send an intern." He concludes: "Let us be the ones who demonstrate love in a concrete way." Let us not focus on the disability: these are people, brothers and sisters in Christ. Jesus died for them, and he loves them at least as much as he loves you.

Key Takeaways

• Disability must not be a problem for the Church: the person who lives with it is far more often a gift than we think.
• Many limits cannot be seen (psychiatric and neurodevelopmental conditions, old age), and hiding your difference adds suffering to suffering.
• Disability sets the Church the challenge of love: loving the other first, as Jesus loved disciples who understood nothing.
• Jesus did not come to heal people, he came to save them: healing is a sign that accompanies the preaching. It is not the door to blessing and does not guarantee conversion.
• Love is proven: it moves from ignorance to fellowship, then to serving together, and sometimes through an adjustable wrench.

Personal Application

1. Which of the five stages (ignorance, discovery, care, fellowship, serving together) best describes your relationship with the people with disabilities in your church?
2. Is there someone around you whose behavior you judged without knowing they were living with an invisible limit?
3. When you pray for someone's healing, is it they who need it, or you who need them to be healed?
4. Which elderly or limited brother or sister could you help in a concrete way this week, with your skills and your time?
5. How could you help a person who lives with a disability serve the Lord in your church?

Verses Cited

• John 13:34-35
• Matthew 17:17
• Romans 5:8-10
• Acts 3:1-10
• Luke 17:11-19
• John 9
• Psalm 139:13-16
• 1 Corinthians 13

Frequently Asked Questions

Is disability a problem for the Church?

For Rémy Lours, no. Despite the difficulties, the suffering and the sense of injustice it can bring, disability must not be a problem. The person who lives with it is far more often a gift than we think, even if it asks us to do things differently. The real issue is love.

Should we always seek healing for a person with a disability?

A Pentecostal pastor, Rémy Lours believes in the power of God, but he invites us to move beyond the need for healing. Jesus did not come to heal people but to save them, he did not heal everyone, and healing does not guarantee conversion, as the ten lepers of Luke 17 show.

How can we love concretely a brother or sister limited by disability?

By being patient, by not judging and by bearing with one another, as 1 Corinthians 13 teaches. The preacher gives the example of an elderly person with a leak in her kitchen: praying is good, but love is also proven when a brother who knows plumbing goes to fix the sink.