Tucked Away Jesus

Tucked away in a tiny classroom at Apollo Middle School in forgotten Antioch, TN is Mrs. Bennett's middle school special education classroom. Inside the room you will find Robert, Karen, Tierra, Andres, and Paolo. A few of them have Downs, one is paralyzed from the waist down with little motor skills remaining after a series of strokes at the tender age of five. One is deathly afraid of human contact, and yet another spends her day tearing anything in sight; she cannot talk but only tear.

We look at people who are born with a physical disease or handicap and, in an attempt to psychologize ourselves, we feel sorry for them. That's what people do when they do not intend to do anything, they feel bad about a given situation. This is the emotion we cling to when we seek to rationalize our own existence instead investing outside of oursevles.

If anything, us normal, healthy, consumer-driven, individualistic people are the ones who should be pitied. We've forgotten what it means to depend on others for life, community, and joy. We've forgotten what it is to serve without expecting something in return. We've forgotten what it means to simply be in the presence of another person, uttering no words, yet having the deepest of conversation. Is Christ among us? Yes, but in the places we only talk about going.

Jesus challenged his disciples in the strongest of fashions when he told them that they were now required to love their fellow humans as he loved them, laying down blood, sweat, tears, dreams, and hopes for the purposes of the Kingdom. It was no longer good enough to love as they loved themselves--now the stakes are raised, and the riskiest proposition is laid before us.