Jeanne Tyler co-chairs the UCCDM board and is co-pastor of Saint Paul UCC, Lincoln,
Nebraska
He told them another parable: “The [realm of God] is like yeast which a woman took and . . . .” – Matthew 13:33
Slowly bubbling along with warm water and sugar, yeast grows as it rises into dough and bakes into bread. This image from Jesus’ rich parable is especially apt for persons with disability and our call to serve.
We have been around forever and have been bubbling slowly ever so slowly into the wholeness of life, bringing the church into the fullness of transformation along with all who have been marginalized, made invisible. With many and diverse gifts, some serve and others are served.
Mostly invisible for years, persons with disability are everywhere in every race and culture. We are truly the yeast that is transforming to this church. Yeast bubbles, slowly and persistently raising the dough. Persons with disability slowly and persistently insist on our call to serve.
I love the church. Here I first experienced acceptance and affirmation. Here I was included in its life. Here I began pulling my life together and trusting God. I gained courage to claim as mine the call to serve. Taken into community, I claim the community and as a member serve by offering my gifts.
The church struggles with discovering us who have been invisible for so long. Called to serve as lay leaders, as ordained, as preachers and teachers, as missionaries, we often feel vulnerable to our own visibility. At times persons with disability make tremendous sacrifices in order to serve.
The church has the temptation to see in my body only the image of brokenness and insist it be whole. I call the church to resist this temptation. I call the church to honor our call to serve in all settings of the church. The church that is made whole sees in our bodies the transformation that is called forth by the leaven to rise so that all may serve. The dough rises and is baked only to be broken and shared to make people whole.
From UCC DM Newsletter Archive
