“Wrestling with oneself, with one’s past, with one’s relationships, with God … These stories push us to use disability to think about the human condition more broadly.” Longstanding narratives about disability shaped our emotional responses, our caregiving responses, and our social commentary, and our treatment of the disabled. But what if we saw disability as the site of divine revelation about God’s kingdom and our place in it? As an expression of power and wisdom and agency, rather than a merely a source of suffering and lack and ignorance. Calli Micale (Palmer Theological Seminary) joins Evan Rosa to discuss how disability reframes our humanity in the Bible. They reflect on three passages: starting in the Old Testament—in Genesis 32—with the story of Jacob wrestling with the Angel, and walking away with much more than a limp and a new name. Continuing with the Gospel, John 9, the story of the Man Born Blind, famous for at least two reasons: the utter stupidity of the disciples to assume “Rabbi, who sinned that this man was born blind?” and the utter visceral of having Jesus make mud with his spit and rub it in the man’s eyes. And finally The Gospel of Mark, chapter 5, the story of the bleeding woman—a story of reaching out in desperate faith, an act of incredible agency and audacity, to touch the edge of Jesus’s garment and be healed. Whether its intellectual disability or physical disability, and regardless of how its acquired, disability plays a role in what we might call God’s subversive kingdom. God’s upside-down-ness (or, maybe we should say human upside-down-ness). The least of these in the eyes of human society are chosen by God to communicate the good news of shalom and justice and salvation—that even those who are already “whole” can be saved. This episode was made possible in part by the generous support of the Tyndale House Foundation. For more information, visit tyndale.foundation.
“Wrestling with oneself, with one’s past, with one’s relationships, with God … These stories push us to use disability to think about the human condition more broadly.”
Longstanding narratives about disability shaped our emotional responses, our caregiving responses, and our social commentary, and our treatment of the disabled. But what if we saw disability as the site of divine revelation about God’s kingdom and our place in it? As an expression of power and wisdom and agency, rather than a merely a source of suffering and lack and ignorance.
Calli Micale (Palmer Theological Seminary) joins Evan Rosa to discuss how disability reframes our humanity in the Bible. They reflect on three passages: starting in the Old Testament—in Genesis 32—with the story of Jacob wrestling with the Angel, and walking away with much more than a limp and a new name. Continuing with the Gospel, John 9, the story of the Man Born Blind, famous for at least two reasons: the utter stupidity of the disciples to assume “Rabbi, who sinned that this man was born blind?” and the utter visceral of having Jesus make mud with his spit and rub it in the man’s eyes. And finally The Gospel of Mark, chapter 5, the story of the bleeding woman—a story of reaching out in desperate faith, an act of incredible agency and audacity, to touch the edge of Jesus’s garment and be healed.
Whether its intellectual disability or physical disability, and regardless of how its acquired, disability plays a role in what we might call God’s subversive kingdom. God’s upside-down-ness (or, maybe we should say human upside-down-ness). The least of these in the eyes of human society are chosen by God to communicate the good news of shalom and justice and salvation—that even those who are already “whole” can be saved.
This episode was made possible in part by the generous support of the Tyndale House Foundation. For more information, visit tyndale.foundation.
Show Notes
Genesis 32
The same night he got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, ‘Let me go, for the day is breaking.’ But Jacob said, ‘I will not let you go, unless you bless me.’ So he said to him, ‘What is your name?’ And he said, ‘Jacob.’ Then the man said, ‘You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.’ Then Jacob asked him, ‘Please tell me your name.’ But he said, ‘Why is it that you ask my name?’ And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, ‘For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.’ The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip. Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the thigh muscle that is on the hip socket, because he struck Jacob on the hip socket at the thigh muscle.
John 9
As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ Jesus answered, ‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.’
When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, saying to him, ‘Go, wash in the pool of Siloam’ (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see. The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, ‘Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?’ Some were saying, ‘It is he.’ Others were saying, ‘No, but it is someone like him.’ He kept saying, ‘I am the man.’ But they kept asking him, ‘Then how were your eyes opened?’ He answered, ‘The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, “Go to Siloam and wash.” Then I went and washed and received my sight.’ They said to him, ‘Where is he?’ He said, ‘I do not know.’
They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. Then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight. He said to them, ‘He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see.’ Some of the Pharisees said, ‘This man is not from God, for he does not observe the sabbath.’ But others said, ‘How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?’ And they were divided. So they said again to the blind man, ‘What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened.’ He said, ‘He is a prophet.’
The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them, ‘Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?’ His parents answered, ‘We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but we do not know how it is that now he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.’ His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, ‘He is of age; ask him.’
So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, ‘Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner.’ He answered, ‘I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.’ They said to him, ‘What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?’ He answered them, ‘I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?’ Then they reviled him, saying, ‘You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.’ The man answered, ‘Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.’ They answered him, ‘You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?’ And they drove him out.
Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when he found him, he said, ‘Do you believe in the Son of Man?’ He answered, ‘And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.’ Jesus said to him, ‘You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.’ He said, ‘Lord, I believe.’ And he worshipped him. Jesus said, ‘I came into this world for judgement so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.’ Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, ‘Surely we are not blind, are we?’ Jesus said to them, ‘If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, “We see”, your sin remains.
Mark 5:25-34
See also Luke 8:43-48 and Matthew 9:20-22
Now there was a woman who had been suffering from haemorrhages for twelve years. She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, for she said, ‘If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.’ Immediately her haemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, ‘Who touched my clothes?’ And his disciples said to him, ‘You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, “Who touched me?”’ He looked all round to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. He said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.’
About Calli Micale
Calli Micale is Assistant Professor of Theology and Ethics and Director of the MDiv Program at Palmer Theological Seminary. She is a theologian with a particular interest in the ethical implications of theological talk for the whole of human life. Her research brings together the history of Christian thought with sustained attention to rhetoric as it grounds perceptions of the body and health in Western societies. She joined the Palmer Theological Seminary faculty in 2023 after earning a PhD from Yale University.
Writing and teaching correspond in Dr. Micale’s work to form students as faith leaders oriented towards gender, disability, and racial justice. She has published articles with the Journal of Disability and Religion and the Disability Studies Quarterly (forthcoming). Micale is currently working on a book manuscript, tentatively titled Crip Conversion: Narratives of Disability and Grace. The book analyzes the stories theologians tell about intellectual disability and argues that deploying intellectual disability as narrative metaphor allows one to come at the Protestant tradition from a helpful vantage point—such that the significance of sensation for the reception of grace comes to the fore.
As a candidate for ordination in the ELCA with 10+ years of preaching experience, Dr. Micale delights in the variety of ways her students take up theological resources for ministry and social justice action. In each course, she aims to take students beyond learning concepts by letting divergent beliefs shape and change their perspective on what really matters—their own intellectual and spiritual lives called to make a difference in the world
Production Notes
Evan Rosa: For the Life of the World is a production of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture. Visit us online at faith.yale.edu. This episode was made possible in part by the generous support of the Tyndale House Foundation. For more information visit tyndale.foundation.
Calli Micale: Each one of these passages subverts not only the stories that are told inside of the biblical world, but also the stories that folks tell about disability today: that disability is attached to some sort of suffering or sin and must be overcome, that disability is attached to a passivity or a lack of activity that folks that are disabled don't have their own sense of agency, self worth, and dignity. In each of these stories, we get a surprising and unexpected account that pushes against those narratives that are commonly told, repeated, and that do injustice to folks with disabilities in our neighborhoods. They push us to use disability as a lens to think not just about disability, but about the human condition more broadly. About faith and relationship and what can be learned from disabled folks in our communities and the relationships that they foster.
Evan Rosa: This is For the Life of the World, a podcast about seeking and living a life worthy of our humanity. I'm Evan Rosa with the Yale Center for Faith and Culture. Think back to your most recent encounter with disability, but no, no, I said that wrong. Think back to your most recent encounter with a person with disabilities. What's the emotional response there?
Did you recognize their humanity? Did you see them and listen to them? Or did you write them off? Did you just look a little bit too long? Were you annoyed? Maybe aghast, maybe afraid? There's these longstanding narratives about disability that shapes our emotional responses, our caregiving responses, and our commentary and our treatment of the disabled.
But what if we saw disability as the site of divine revelation about God's kingdom and our place in it? Not merely a source of suffering, or lack, or ignorance, or pure pity. Rather an expression of power, and agency, and wisdom, that you didn't know was there. Today my friend, Dr. Calli Micale, is back to talk about disability.
She's a theologian at Palmer Theological Seminary, and a couple episodes ago, she offered moral and political and theological reflections that helped us get some fresh and insightful perspective to reframe disability. And now she's back to go one step further in this project, and that's to shake up and flip things around, to use the Bible to observe how disability reframes our humanity.
And we do that together with three very well-known passages from the Bible. We'll go through each in turn, reading through the passage first, coming back to key points. If you'd like to read along, you can find the texts in the show notes. We start out in the Old Testament, in Genesis 32, with the story of Jacob wrestling with the angel, walking away with much more than a limp and a new name to show for it.
We continue with the Gospel story from John 9, the story of the man born blind, famous to me for two reasons: the utter stupidity of the disciples to assume, "Rabbi, who sinned, that this man was born blind?" and also the visceral nature of having Jesus make mud from his spit and rub it in your eyes.
And finally, the story of the bleeding or hemorrhaging woman from the Gospel of Mark, Chapter 5. A story of reaching out in desperate faith, an act of incredible agency and audacity, to touch the edge of Jesus' garment and be healed.
Now there's a few striking principles about disability in the Bible that seem worth pointing out here. Calli talks about disability as a site for divine revelation. It draws attention. It exploits our fear and confusion and shock and awe in those leery glances. It draws attention and then subverts to draw back the curtain on the nature and presence and action of God.
And whether it's intellectual disability or physical disability, and regardless of how it's acquired, disability plays a role in what we might call God's subversive kingdom. God's upside downness. Or maybe we should say human upside downness. The least of these in the eyes of human society are chosen by God to communicate the good news of shalom, justice, and salvation, that even those who are already whole can be saved. Thanks for listening friends.
Calli, thanks for coming back on the show to talk about disability and the Bible.
Calli Micale: It's an honor to be invited back on the show. Thank you.
Evan Rosa: I think the first episode that we did, looking at disability through its ethical, theological, cultural lenses, lays this wonderful framework, that we can take this closer look at disability in the Scriptures insofar as the Scriptures are authoritative at a cultural level, right? They've set this linguistic framework in so many ways for so many topics, and it sets a self-understanding to some degree for, probably not just Christians, but a lot of pockets of society. Certainly the influence is broad and reflects a kind of longstanding approach to illness, disease, and all forms of disability, intellectual and physical.
And I thought I'd start with if there's any kind of preliminaries that you would offer for the listener to be able to appreciate approaching disability in the Bible, where would you start?
Calli Micale: First, I just want to affirm a lot of what you're saying, because our interpretation of Scripture generally shapes so much of not only what Christians say, think, how they respond to experiences of disability, experiences of suffering, experiences of pain, but also those reflections then extend broadly to culture, Western culture in particular, but cultures around the globe and how they are interacting and caring for folks with disabilities in their midst. So I'm really excited to jump into this conversation today.
Genesis 32, verses 22 to 32: "The same night he got up and took the two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream and likewise everything that he had. Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket, and Jacob's hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, 'Let me go, for the day is breaking.'
But Jacob said, 'I will not let you go, unless you bless me.'
So he said to him, 'What is your name?'
And he said, 'Jacob.'
Then the man said, 'You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans and have prevailed.'
Then Jacob asked him, 'Please tell me your name.' But he said, 'Why is it that you ask my name?' And there he blessed him.
So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, 'For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.'
The sun rose upon him as he passed Peniel, limping because of his hip. Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the thigh muscle that's on the hip socket, because he struck Jacob on the hip socket at the thigh muscle."
We're entering in the middle of a story of Jacob and Esau. It's a story that actually begins in the womb. Jacob and Esau wrestle in the womb. They are brothers, twin brothers. And upon birth, Esau comes out first and Jacob is clinging to Esau's heel. So it's a story of trying to climb on top of or out of one's birthright and into another's inheritance.
Evan Rosa: Yeah. So Jacob, not the first time he's wrestled when he wrestles the angel here.
Calli Micale: No. It's an image that recurs in the story, wrestling with oneself, with one's past, with one's relationships with God. And as we move through the story, it's also not the first- we're coming to the wrestling with the angel or in some interpretations, a wrestling with Christ or an ambiguous figure, the man.
But disability actually shows up in the story earlier on. So disability shows up arguably the first time when Rebecca instructs Jacob to trick his brother. And the reason why the story even works is because disability serves as a plot device when Jacob's father's eyesight has gone dim as a result of old age.
Evan Rosa: So it's the disability that Isaac encounters in his later life that sets the stage for Jacob to exploit. So Jacob's exploiting the disability of his father to gain the birthright of his brother.
Calli Micale: That's right.
Evan Rosa: Holy shit.
Calli Micale: So if you remember, so Jacob puts on the hairy clothes of his brother.
Evan Rosa: That's right.
Calli Micale: And he puts on this- it's an elaborate disguise, although he can't disguise his voice. And Isaac finds himself very confused but offers the blessing anyway. He's rightfully angry when he finds out what has become of his own blessing. I think this context is crucial because what's happening right before the wrestling match is that Jacob is going to meet his brother, Esau, and Esau has hundreds of folks with him.
So Jacob has...
Evan Rosa: Would this have been their first meeting since stealing the birthright?
Calli Micale: It has.
Evan Rosa: So this is a reunion after that usurping.
Calli Micale: Decades.
Evan Rosa: Decades have passed, and they're going to see each other again for the first time. Wow. As you read it right now, what's emerging for you? What's the sense that you're getting from this encounter?
Calli Micale: Yeah. So I'm thinking about the significance of the wrestling, the many ways in which each of us wrestles with our identity in relationship with our past, in relationship with the sins we've committed and wrestles with God as we become formed into the people that God intends for us to be.
Evan Rosa: That's a really interesting metaphor that I think has been well-used, well-worn perhaps, throughout the Christian tradition of understanding and what it means to wrestle with God.
And it feels like it's got an interesting valence today as well. It establishes an early myth, this myth that then reverberates through the rest of, at least Jewish and Christian history, that we do, in fact, have this kind of reference point for wrestling with God, and it's wrestling for a name, it's wrestling for an identity, it's wrestling for, God knows what, but...
Calli Micale: A blessing.
Evan Rosa: A blessing, yes. Not letting go until you bless me. But it's interesting to me that not all of us are necessarily... maybe I just need to pose it as a question: are all of us necessarily thereby wounded or disabled in some sense, to get to that point?
Calli Micale: Yeah, the story really subverts our expectations around what sorts of identities God has prepared for us, subverts expectations around ideality itself, what's ideal for human perfection. Because here, the limp or wounded hip socket becomes a marker or a sign of struggling with God, with a kind of closeness or intimacy with God that's known through physical touch.
Evan Rosa: He says "I've seen God face to face and yet my life is preserved."
And that's a fascinating assumption that he might've had, that no one can see God and live. And that's like a fascinating... Am I right in that reference?
Calli Micale: Or at least that there is a moment beyond God's judgment of us.
Evan Rosa: Yeah, but it's interesting that here, that he does see God face to face, expects that he might be just obliterated in the process and yet his life is preserved, but not without a reminder of the encounter physically. I wonder if you could, like, dive into the meaning of the limp in particular, because I think this is... am I right to see this as the disabling factor of this experience?
Calli Micale: I think so. First, I want to draw a parallel between the plot device that is Isaac's blindness, and here, where the limp seems to offer something more than mere plot device. It seems to have a narrative or a metaphorical significance, a kind of a meaning in and of itself.
There's a question in here about the blessing and the limp's relationship to the blessing. Whether the limp itself is part of, or incorporated inside the blessing, if the limp is a mere sign or indicator that Jacob has been blessed by God.
I mean, I think it also subverts a kind of an understanding of disability as a sign of one's moral character, where there is a history of interpretation of disability as a sign particularly of one's sinful nature. Whereas here disability seems to be attached to a transformative possibility of one's life.
Evan Rosa: I think we do need to set this theme really clearly because it seems to me there is this assumption in the ancient Near East that disability, it looks like culturally like it is a sign of sinfulness or it is some kind of divine punishment. And the subverting that happens there is interesting because it looks like it's a result of the blessing itself or it's deeply connected, maybe we should say.
I don't want to speak causally or like it's a result of anything, but disability as a consequence for sinfulness is something that it looks like the Scriptures are trying to subvert about an otherwise, perhaps pagan, ancient Near Eastern assumption about that.
Calli Micale: Yeah, I think that's true, that even in academic conversations today about disability more broadly, that there is an assumption that Christian history or that Christian Scripture always associates disability with something negative that must be overcome, or always associates disability with sin and suffering that requires a healing or divine intervention.
I think all of the passages that we're going to be reading today have come at this from different angles and subvert our expectations about what both the biblical world assumes about what we now call disability, but then also has something to say back to our contemporary world and what Christians have to say about disability and the sorts of impairments that Christians deem necessary to pray for healing.
Evan Rosa: It's interesting that he's struck on the hip first. So he becomes disabled first, and yet he still doesn't let go, right? It's only in his refusal to let go that he receives a blessing in the form of a new name. And I wonder if you might speak to... if there's anything about that order of events that strikes you as interesting, that there's a kind of persevering and a kind of transformation that comes through enduring that wounding.
Calli Micale: Yeah, I think what's fascinating is the sustaining of the disabling experience that not only stays with Jacob, but then stays with the community. So at the end of the passage, it says, "Therefore, to this day, the Israelites do not eat the thigh muscle that is on the hip socket, because he struck Jacob on the hip socket at the thigh muscle."
So the disability extends beyond Jacob's physical form and continues to influence the community, how they relate with their tradition and their practices.
Evan Rosa: Yeah, so there's the... so the interpretation being that there's something, like, holy and set apart, perhaps, that the hip is preserved for this kind of expression or symbol of this renaming and this blessing.
Calli Micale: The memory of the struggle with God and the intimate presence of God in the wrestling is preserved in the body and then is preserved in memory of the body.
Evan Rosa: Yeah. So would you say that being struck on the hip socket is a blessing to Jacob?
Calli Micale: I hope I'm never blessed that way. I do think there's a relationship here between Jacob's wrestling and the wound that is sustained and carried on through the memories of the community that connects directly to how early Christians, especially, talked about the wounds of martyrs, the kind of battle scars that are then carried with them into eternity as signs of a kind of holiness or perseverance or sacredness of the martyr's body.
Evan Rosa: And how has that impacted your thinking about the theology of disability?
Calli Micale: One of the things it reminds me is just the way in which thinking about disability becomes inextricable from histories of violence. I think the extent to which one wants to incorporate divinity into those histories and divine presence gets messy.
Evan Rosa: It sure does get messy, especially when it might be Jesus that's doing the violence, right?
Calli Micale: I know that it's a common interpretation to think about the man that Jacob wrestles with here as Christ.
Evan Rosa: I mean, it's at least God. We learn that much that even from the Jewish perspective, Jacob has wrestled with God here. That's Jacob's interpretation of this experience, at least. God is doing the wounding. God is doing the violence here, if we're interpreting it as such. If all that we can be left with is to say that, "yes, these are in fact messy realities and the human experience of receiving particular forms of pain, suffering, physical disability, if it's received as a kind of touch of God," wow, there's a lot of mess to appreciate there. Even if it's just at the end of the day, what can we say except, "Wow, what a holy mess that is."
Calli Micale: Yeah. And that in the struggle and the pain and the wrestling in the vicissitudes of life that God is there with us as we take on painful paths and broken relationships with siblings, father-in-law, mother.
Evan Rosa: And yet his life is preserved and it's taken as a blessing by the community as well.
Calli Micale: John 9. "As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, 'Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?'
Jesus answered, 'neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God's works might be revealed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.'"
Evan Rosa: We have this assumption set that disability is a punishment for sin. This assumption of the disciples, who sinned, that this man ended up blind.
Calli Micale: And Jesus blatantly rejects the assumption. He says, "no one sinned. This man is just blind!"
What's coming up is that Jesus will say, "I'm not concerned about sin. I'm concerned about revealing who I am in the context of, of course, a sinful world, or to pick up on our last conversation, a messy world. But that, yeah, sin isn't at the center of what's coming.
Evan Rosa: Instead, Jesus says he was born blind so that God's works might be revealed in him. Now, that's fascinating because there's a lot of assumptions about the meaning of disability vis-a-vis God's plan.
Calli Micale: Yeah. Disability here becomes a site for revelation, but it's also pushing against another assumption. We talked about the assumption that disability is somehow connected with sin or suffering. There's another assumption that physical disability, or in this case, blindness, is associated with intellectual lack. Have you heard the phrase "dumb and blind"? That the two are pairs that come together? But here, there's going to be some sort of knowledge or wisdom that emerges at the site of blindness.
Evan Rosa: Disability becomes the site of divine revelation. I really want to understand what you mean by that. So what would that mean for disability to be the site of God, of divine revelation?
Calli Micale: I suppose that there is something about disability in the Scriptures that functions pedagogically, that is particularly useful for drawing the reader's attention or an audience's attention. And then that allows for an opening for divinity to do its work.
Evan Rosa: That seems really significant to me, that there would be so much of it in the Scriptures as well, right? Using disability as a way to draw attention to what God wants to reveal about the human condition or about the nature of reality is an interesting thing, and it kind of pushes against perhaps some fear or confusion that we might have about the nature of disability.
Calli Micale: Yeah. In narratives, disability often functions as something that is shocking, that draws one's gaze. And from there, there is a sense of disability as that which destabilizes or offers some sort of uncertainty within the text until Jesus jumps in to make some sort of difference or claim.
"When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man's eyes, saying to him, 'Go, wash in the pool of Siloam' (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see.
The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, 'Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?' Some were saying, 'It is he.'
Others were saying, 'No, but it is someone like him.'
He kept saying, 'I am the man.'
But they kept asking him, 'Then how are your eyes opened?'
He answered, 'The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, "Go to Siloam and wash." Then I went and washed and received my sight.'
They said to him, 'Where is he?'
He said, 'I do not know.'"
Evan Rosa: It's worth pointing out that this is quite a strange mechanism by which Jesus might heal a disability, and I just need to know what you think about spitting in the mud.
Calli Micale: Well this shock factor that the blindness already offers is just taken to a new height, because there is Jesus, spitting in the mud, rubbing the mud on his eyes.
Evan Rosa: I just think about how much spit it might take to make mud from the dusty sand. You have to spit a lot.
Calli Micale: It's gross.
Evan Rosa: It is. I don't feel bad about calling that kind of gross.
Calli Micale: But it's also, as in our previous passage with the wrestling, it's intimate and tactile.
Evan Rosa: Yes.
Calli Micale: The mud is grainy and then there, and Jesus is... I'm imagining Jesus' hands on his eyes.
There's also a level of perhaps heightened anxiety when someone touches your face.
Evan Rosa: Absolutely.
Calli Micale: And that also requires a level of trust.
Evan Rosa: Yeah, it's a vulnerable and visceral moment. It's so full of embodiment. And I think that's a fascinating factor here. And whether you attribute any of the, like, of the miraculous healing to the mud and the spit... Again, it might just be that it's calling attention to something. That there's this kind of pasting of dirt—something impure—spit, germs, impure- I don't know if Jesus had germs, I don't know if that's- if we have a theological perspective on that. Jesus surely had germs. I don't know if he ever got sick. Was Jesus ever sick?
Calli Micale: Surely he was sick.
Evan Rosa: Surely. Little kid, runny nose. Like, he was a little kid, fully human. And yet, I don't know if we know that. I've never- I'm just curious. It brings up all these interesting questions when we think about what was in Jesus' spit, but probably the same kind of germs that we have insofar as he was fully human.
And a lot of attention on the body here, a lot of attention on embodied engagement with disability. It's not just something to miraculously heal through some kind of, like, magical power or anything like that, but rather it's enacted in an embodied way.
Calli Micale: Body, bodily fluids, the land, the mud that's taken up by Jesus. Fully human.
Evan Rosa: Fully human.
Calli Micale: Continue reading?
Evan Rosa: Please do.
Calli Micale: "They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. Then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight. He said to them, 'He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see.'
Some of the Pharisees said, 'This man is not from God, for he does not observe the Sabbath.'
But others said, 'How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?' And they were divided.
So they said again to the blind man, 'What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened.'
He said, 'He is a prophet.'
The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them, 'Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?'
His parents answered, 'We know that this is our son and that he was born blind, but we do not know how it is that now he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.' His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. Therefore, his parents said, 'He is of age; ask him.'"
Evan Rosa: It's worth pausing just to acknowledge that the question of Jesus' own sin is now in the picture for breaking Sabbath.
Calli Micale: Yeah. Concerns about sin shift from the one who's blind to Jesus himself. Part of what's recurring in the passage is a preoccupation with sin...
Evan Rosa: Absolutely.
Calli Micale: ...that Jesus will, as we go along, continue to push against.
Evan Rosa: And I think he pushes against it in- partially in this way, but the total blindness of the Pharisees, certainly intended there as a pun or some kind of poetic truth, that they can't recognize the good the healing work does and instead only focus on the kind of outward, like, breaking of a law. That doesn't- and it doesn't appear in itself to be a moral wrong; it's a religious wrong. But Jesus is well known for contextually breaking Sabbath law.
Calli Micale: Yeah, this passage is an extended metaphor that's all about knowledge, wisdom, and authority, especially religious authority, and where knowledge and wisdom lie, which it seems in this passage is not with who you would expect. It's with the one who was born blind.
"So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, 'Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner.'
He answered, 'I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.'
They said to him, 'What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?'
He answered them, 'I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?'
Then they reviled him, saying, 'You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.'
The man answered, 'Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. Never since the the world began has it had been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.'
They answered him, 'You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?' And they drove him out.
Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when he found him he said, 'Do you believe in the Son of Man?'
He answered, 'And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.'
Jesus said to him, 'You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.'
He said, 'Lord, I believe.' And he worshiped him.
Jesus said, 'I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see may see and those who do see may become blind.'
Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, 'Surely we are not blind, are we?'
Jesus said to them, 'If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, "We see," your sin remains.'"
Evan Rosa: Wow, amazing. What are you seeing here?
Calli Micale: I think this is- one of the things that's fascinating about this passage to me is that the blind man never asks for healing.
Evan Rosa: Really? He never asks? Jesus is walking along...
Calli Micale: Jesus just approaches him.
Evan Rosa: Jesus does not ask permission to heal him.
Calli Micale: ...just approaches him, rubs mud in his eyes and says, "This is how I will reveal who and what God is."
Evan Rosa: Well that is just utterly fascinating to me, because there's a kind of- I just don't know what to think about at the moment, other than, like, that's incredibly bold, and it doesn't look as if there's any kind of consent happening here.
Calli Micale: That's true. But that there is, in this embodied experience with God of the marginalized, a young marginalized person that lacks authority given the structure, the societal structure of the biblical world: that's who Jesus approaches and empowers.
Evan Rosa: It's that empowering that I think I'm picking up here, which is the blind man is presented in a very passive, almost like a prop, kind of sense.
And I'm not trying to hate on Jesus here. I'm just observing though that he's at first just a prop for the disciples to ask this question about sin and for Jesus to draw attention to the site of divine revelation, perhaps.
And then by the end of the story here, we've got the blind man finding a new level of agency. He's speaking like a prophet now. And those that make themselves wise are in fact fools.
Calli Micale: Blindness, powerlessness is associated with righteousness. And those that claim religious authority and claim a sort of sinlessness are judged.
Mark 5, verses 25 to 34: "Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. She had endured much under many physicians and had spent all that she had, and she was no better but rather grew worse. She had heard about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, for she said, 'If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.' Immediately her hemorrhage stopped, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease.
Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, 'Who touched my clothes?'
And his disciples said to him, 'You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, "who touched me?"'
He looked all around to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. He said to her, 'Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace and be healed of your disease.'"
Evan Rosa: It's amazing. First, that this kind of faith is an active faith. It's not some kind of passive faith in a mode of reception. It's a kind of active, driving, motivating kind of force there. And it really does stand in an interesting contrast to the blind man who doesn't ask, perhaps is just wallowing in despair and it's Jesus's activity. In this case, it's the woman's activity that's going on here.
Calli Micale: And this is exactly why I love this passage from a disability perspective, because in narratives about disability, disability is often aligned with passivity and receptivity, and whereas the non-disabled figure is often given all of the activity and agency. But here, surprisingly, Jesus appears to be doing not much of anything - walking around, there's a crowd, he's on his way somewhere, but he is the passive figure in the text, or at least offers an appearance of non-activity.
Whereas the hemorrhaging woman who is in pain has been bleeding for 12 years, she reaches out and touches the hem of his cloak. It is her activity and agency that is at the center of the story and it initiates the receipt of divine power.
So one of the things this passage opens up is that this contrast between activity and passivity is not activity and passivity or activity and receptivity, is not really a contrast at all. Because here is the hemorrhaging woman who is both active and receiving at the same time.
Evan Rosa: Oh, that's good.
Calli Micale: A Jesus who is both passive and giving at the same time.
Evan Rosa: That's very interesting. Absolutely. And I think it's worth drawing a connection, and we are looking for theological insights, scriptural insights for a clearer, more enlightened approach to disability today that does reach down into cultural perceptions and real engagement with the disabled community as well.
And it does appear that a very longstanding narrative around disability is that the disabled do lack a form of agency. And I wonder if you'd reflect a little bit about that kind of thinking and what this passage implies for that kind of- what I think of as wrong thinking.
Calli Micale: Yeah, so I think this passage offers a starting point or perhaps even a model for thinking about relationships in community that parallels or comes alongside nicely some of what folks inside of disabled communities have said is life-giving and even sacred about a kind of mutual caregiving that happens inside of those communities.
So for me, one of the things that I find fascinating about this passage, and that there are parallels within disability communities and disability justice communities in particular, is that Jesus needn't be doing anything to also be giving or opening himself up to the possibility of a woman who reaches out to grab the hem of his cloak.
So, to put this a little more concretely, that sometimes when we're just sitting on the couch with a friend, perhaps not saying or doing anything, that kind of mode of relationality, although there is an appearance of non-activity or passivity, can also be giving or doing a whole lot within the structure of that relationship.
Evan Rosa: I want to extend that by saying there is still an important physical proximity to it, again, that we find. It's touching his garment. And what's interesting to me about that is she has basically spent all that she had. She has become poor. She's become in severe, like, in dire straits because of the illness that she's encountered.
That lack of social standing pushes her into this bold place. So it really is a kind of bold move to reach out and seek it out in the way that she's seeking it out, and in a mode of belief and faith to: believing that it's actually going to have an effect.
Calli Micale: She literally reaches out for a relationship with Jesus, and then he turns towards her and then he seeks her out amongst the crowd.
Evan Rosa: Right. Yeah. There's this unknowing at first. There's presumably- he knows at some level, he knows that, as it says, power had gone forth from him. But first it's just mere proximity before there's this kind of face-to-face relationship that's there.
Calli Micale: Yeah, I think it's precisely that uncertainty but willingness and boldness to go and enter into the relationship anyway on which, I think, faith depends, but also on which the ongoing encounter depends.
It begins in the uncertainty but a going forth anyway. The fear because of the uncertainty, the fear of reproach, the fear of perhaps a lashing out or what may come in the face of such bold action.
And the reader, too, may be suspecting the disciples to get angry, to say, "Who dare touch the hem of our Lord and Savior's cloak?" But then those expectations are once again subverted because Jesus turns to her, welcomes her, invites her in, heals her, and then praises her faith.
I think it's that moment at the end where we get this image of Jesus and his desire to be with and alongside the marginalized, the outcast, those that society deems irredeemable.
One of the reasons I'm so interested in these passages is the way in which each one of these passages subverts not only the stories that are told inside of the biblical world, but also the stories that folks tell about disability today. That disability is attached to some sort of suffering or sin and must be overcome. That disability is attached to a passivity or a lack of activity. That folks that are disabled don't just reach out or have their own sense of agency, self worth, and dignity. Or another story that is sometimes told, that folks with disability don't have the intellectual acuity of those that are non-disabled.
In each of these stories, we get a surprising and unexpected account that pushes against those narratives that are commonly told, repeated, and that do injustice to folks with disabilities in our neighborhoods.
Evan Rosa: Would you say that these particular narratives do a kind of uplifting of the disabled experience that actually is instructive for the human condition generally?
Calli Micale: Yeah, I think it's possible to do a kind of a disability positive or a disability pride sort of reading out of these narratives. And I think that can be a useful introduction to just another option for approaching disability inside and beyond church contexts.
But I also- one of the things that I also find interesting about disability and these stories in particular is the way that they push us to use disability as a lens to think not just about disability, but about the human condition more broadly, about faith and relationship and what can be learned from disabled folks in our communities and the relationships that they foster.
Evan Rosa: Calli, thanks so much for coming back in and talking more about disability, but in its spiritual context and under theological consideration. I'm grateful for the perspective that you're bringing from these three passages.
Calli Micale: Thanks for inviting me back on. It's been a joy.
Evan Rosa: For the Life of the World is a production of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture at Yale Divinity School. This episode featured theologian Calli Micale. Production assistance by Macie Bridge and Kaylen Yun. I'm Evan Rosa, and I edit and produce the show.
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