Sermon for the Sunday before Advent

Sunday 20th November 2005

Preached by Rev Paul Hewitt

You may know that this is ‘Stir-up’ Sunday, and you may also know that it is the very last Sunday of the Christian year and its main theme is ‘The Kingship of Christ’. The year ends on a high note, proclaiming Christ as King, and that sets us up perfectly for the birth of Christ, the new-born King at Christmas. So that’s where we are in our Church year. But you’ll never guess what else it is today; it’s ‘Disability Awareness Sunday’. And I thought, ‘great’! And I’m down to preach! Do you want a chat about disability? (I somehow doubt it!)

They say that 95% of us will be disabled at some point in our lives. So it’s not that I’m someone more qualified to talk about disability to people who are not, if 95% of us are going to be in the same boat anyway, at some point. It’s a cheerful thought, isn’t it?

I often think of the person who likens the Church to a hospital, and who might say at the end of the tour of a hospital, “It’s a nice place, but it’s full of sick people!” Is the Church full of sick people? Yet, is that not the reason we’re here?

The difference between the sick people outside of Church and the sick people inside of Church is that the people inside of Church know they’re sick!

Are we not all here for healing, for forgiveness, to be made whole again, and again, and again?

You know, earlier this year for the first time in my life, at Heathrow airport, I used a wheelchair. It was an awful experience. It was a mixture of embarrassment, frustration, annoyance, sadness. Christine told me later that Lydia had asked Mom, “Does Dad really have to use that thing?” But one thing I will never forget was the man who pushed me in that chair. It was the end of a long day for him. I’m sure he was tired. And, although we weren’t in a hurry, he managed to brush a whole line of Americans to one side, just as if we were! I wanted to crawl under the carpet. But when we got to a clearing, I remember he took the right-side handle of the chair in his left hand, so that he ended up walking right along side me. Instead of me trying to talk to him, from in front (if you know what I mean) I was able to speak to him as a relatively ‘normal’ person? Maybe, it was the tiniest gesture, but it meant the world, and I’ll never forget it. He got along side me.

 As a Church, we are meant to be very aware of ‘disability’ in all its forms. The list is multiple: wheelchair users, deaf or hard-of hearing, learning disabilities, the autistic spectrum disorders, visual impairment, dyslexia, and the list goes on and on. When we were getting our ‘Quinquennial inspection’ done a little while ago, the Diocesan architect asked me about those who were not able to come up to the rail to receive Communion (when we were looking at these Chancel steps) and I said, we go down to them! And he reminded me that, nowadays, that would be considered discrimination! In ways, we’ve become so “PC” that it is just non-sensical! I wonder sometimes, what are we meant to do? The other day Brian told me that we’re all supposed to, nowadays, refer to Christmas as the ‘Festival of Lights’ so as not to offend anyone! What, on earth, are we doing?

It all seems to fly in the face of what I discovered the other day, of what the French call your ‘funny-bone’! Do you know what it is? The French phrase for your ‘funny-bone is ‘Le petit juif’… ‘The little Jew’! Isn’t that appalling? How un – PC is that? We seem to be now going from one extreme to the other. I think a lot of common sense is needed in these matters. The funny thing about commonsense, of course, is that it’s not that common!

As Christians, all we ever need to do is look at the example of Jesus himself. All he ever did with people, who needed him, was to get along side them. Remember, he wasn’t interested in those who were healthy; it’s the sick people he was concerned about. So if you’re healthy and righteous and everything in the garden is rosy and hunk-dory with God, then you do not need to be here today.

A woman called a local hospital and said, “Hello I’d like to enquire about a particular patient. I’d like to find out if the patient is getting better, or doing as expected or is getting worse”. “You are a relative?”, the reply came. “Well, yes”. “What is the patient’s name and room number?” She said. “It’s Sarah Finkel in room 302…”

“I will connect you with the nursing station”. “3-A Nursing Station. How can I help you?

“I would like to know about the condition of Sarah Finkel in Room 302”

“Just a moment. Oh, yes. Mrs Finkel is doing very well. In fact, she’s had two full meals today, her blood pressure is fine, she’s going to be taken off the heart monitor in a couple of hours and if she continues this improvement, Dr. Cohen is going to send her home on Tuesday morning”

The woman said, “Oh, that’s just wonderful news. That’s fantastic. Thank you so much for that fabulous news!”

 The nurse replied, “From all your enthusiasm, I take it that you must be a very close relative of Mrs Finkel!”

“Well, not exactly… I am Sarah Finkel in Room 302! Nobody around here tells me anything!”

I remember a Chaplain to Queen’s University who always told the medical students to communicate with their patients. Because when you do that, the person is not simply a medical case, they are not just a statistical number, they are people! Behind every disability, there’s a person.

Perhaps more than anything else, Christ, the King, teaches us to get along side people; no matter what their colour, creed or even disability, may be. It’s what Jesus did and that’s just good Christian common sense.