Disability Justice

A Sermon preached at St Martin-in-the-Fields on October 15, 2023 by Revd Dr Hannah Lewis

Reading for address: Amos 5: 21-24

“Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream”

What comes into your mind when you read, hear or see that well-known phrase? Maybe your response is a mental picture – for me at the moment it’s the wonderful picture of a rainbow lit Niagara Falls our keynote speaker, Ann Memmott shared in their talk yesterday.

Or maybe your response is the memory of a piece of music or the words of a poem. Or maybe you think of the words of Martin Luther King Jr

“But though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter, I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label. Was Jesus not an extremist for love… Was not Amos an extremist for justice: “Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream.” ‘

That’s the power of metaphor, it evokes different responses in each of us depending on our own experience. And I find it really powerful that this metaphor reaches over the millennia and the cultural differences to still speak to us today. But that commonality of experience of rushing water in this metaphor is a danger as well – we can too quickly assume we know what Amos means and miss the differences between the experience of rushing water in soggy old Britain and the experience in a the very different climate of Israel and so miss some of the richness and depth of meaning in these words.

Israel is dry and hot for 6 months of the year over the summer. Winters are when the rain happens – although the amount of rain varies depending on where you are in the country and also from year to year. And the ground is porous, so that often rivers only run through the ravines known as wadi’s during the rainy season. The rest of the year they are dry. To grow crops and raise animals in those conditions requires careful husbandry of water, it is a precious resource. And it is a resource that, by and large, humans cannot control. A regular conversation I have in the run up to summer fairs and other events goes along these lines ‘hey reverend, can you have a word with him up there to ask for dry weather on Saturday’ even though they and I know perfectly well that if its going to rain its going to rain and no amount of prayers will stop it. Equally, nothing in the world can bring rain if its not going to happen. That is why the bible is jam packed full of metaphors using water – essential for life and totally dependent on God to provide.

The idea here expressed by Amos of waters rolling down, of ever flowing streams is an expression of abundance and generosity in Gods provision beyond the experience of most of the people Amos was addressing. Wadis full of water all year round, no need to measure it out carefully and hope there would be enough to last until the rains came again is an incredible and amazing idea.

And this is where we come to justice – which, like here is often paired with righteousness in the biblical texts as it is in the Amos passage. Justice in this passage – God’s justice – is more, much more, than vengeance or equality or fairness – which are human understandings of justice. And as Stef Bensted, one of our panellists in yesterday’s conference powerfully argued, charity, the division of humanity into those who give and those who receive, is not justice.

Justice and righteousness are a huge concept throughout the whole of scriptures and I can’t possibly explore all aspects of these concepts in a short sermon (or even a long one) – so I’m focusing on justice in relation to disability and intersectionality looking at how the metaphor of Gods justice as water and an ever flowing stream can illuminate our understanding of intersectional disability justice and encourage us to keep on engaging in what can feel like a never ending struggle against the embedded structural injustice in our world.

So first of all, as water brings life, and lack of water brings death; justice as a member of any or all of disabled, deaf, neurodivergent, along with other minoritized communities is a matter of life and death. For some it is literally life and death as benefits are a meagre trickle in the face of the rising cost of living. For others it is a daily struggle to live well; to access life in all its fullness, in a society that is built around the needs and desires of the hearing, abled, neurotypical majority. In many churches and denominations disability access, alongside recognising and using the gifts of all God’s disabled people are so often seen as a luxury, the first thing you can cut when money is tight. That is not God’s justice; that is not what God is calling us to do and be as a church.

Disability justice is not something that is optional for churches; along with justice for all other groups – racial justice, LGBTQIA+ justice, gender justice, class justice climate justice and more – it goes right to the heart of what we are meant to be like as God’s church, God’s people. Jesus said I came to bring life in all its abundance – and he didn’t say I only came to bring life for the privileged, the others get whatever drops are left over. God’s justice isn’t a weak stream as Ann Memmott pointed out yesterday but a powerful torrent. The water of justice, God given justice, is free and freely available to all in abundance; barriers to receiving this life-giving water of justice are human made and can and should be torn down.

Amos is a prophet, and I love Walter Brueggemann’s definition of the task of prophets – “to nurture, nourish and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us” – and this is the task the church is called to as well; not to follow the aridity and scarcity of our surrounding culture but to find ways – creative ways we don’t necessarily need to spend a lot of money – to model the free flowing abundance of God’s justice in our churches.

And this leads to my second point. Gods’ justice is refreshing. For those of us dealing with everyday ableism and/or everyday racism, sexism, homophobia our daily lives can feel like struggle for survival in an arid environment. When we encounter truly accessible environments it can be like a drink of water to a thirsty soul; smooth level paths, doors that open automatically, information that is provided in multiple formats, awareness of how language can be used to harm or to heal. I find I go through life with barriers automatically up – experience has taught me I need to ask, nag, or even fight for what I need to be able to access information the same as anyone else. And often I’m tired, I can’t be bothered to even ask as I don’t have the strength for the fight. But I am encouraged that increasingly I go to a place expecting less than full access and I receive more than I expect without even asking.

That is the refreshing justice God offers us – more than we expect from our past experiences, surprising us and freeing us with energy to do things more than just get in the door. That is the prophetic justice we are called to offer as churches and people of God – modelling the overflowing and abundant justice of God and being places of refreshment in a dry and thirsty land.

Finally, God’s justice is communal, drought and abundance affect us all; privilege can only go so far to protect against too much or too little rain. To quote MLK again – “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” or Audre Lorde “I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.” Intersectionality is built into the very fabric of God’s justice and if we ignore or deny that we are like those who build dams and diversions to try and get all the water for themselves.

We chose that picture that is on the front of todays order of service for the conference yesterday as for us in the planning team the rocks represent the injustices, the principalities and powers that need to be broken down for us deaf disabled and neurodivergent people to have justice and the river represents God’s power acting on these structures to break them down. In our own work for God’s justice, in whatever field, we might feel that we are chipping away at these rocks with teaspoons, but in so doing we are aligning ourselves with the actions of others and the flow of God, whose justice is more than we can ask or imagine, and who will magnify our efforts a hundredfold.

So, as we gather together to pray and work for the rolling down of Gods life giving, refreshing justice for all, may we receive the grace and the courage to be prophetic and the strength to keep on keeping on as we labour in the name of the living God, Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer. Amen.