What About the Most Vulnerable Among Us?

A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Randy K. Hammer, March 31, 2019

2 Samuel 9 (selected); Matthew 4:23-24 GNT

The story that was read about King David is one of the more tender stories about him; indeed, it is one of the more tender stories in the entire Hebrew Bible involving someone with a disability.  Now, the fact that David vowed to take care of Mephibosheth for Jonathan’s sake should be taken into account.  You see, in case you may have forgotten – or in case you never knew – Jonathan was King Saul’s son.  Saul was the first King of Israel. Jonathan and David had an intimate friendship that rivals anything else we see in the Hebrew Scriptures, other than, perhaps, the close relationship between Naomi and Ruth.  David and Jonathan had a profound love for one another, and when Jonathan died, it grieved David greatly.

So when David learned that Jonathan had a son who was crippled (in both feet), he vowed to take care of him for as long as he lived.  David appointed servants to farm the property that fell to Mephibosheth, and it is said that Mephibosheth had a place at the King’s table, just like one of the King’s sons.

Yet, even when we take into account the relationship of David and Jonathan, this story still remains as one of the most important in the Hebrew Bible when it comes to care extended to the disabled.  There just isn’t that much written in the Bible, especially the Old Testament, regarding care being given to those with physical or mental disabilities.  And as already noted, when we look at King David’s life as a whole, and consider all the escapades that characterized David’s life, this story, in my eyes, qualifies as one of the more commendable of David’s entire life.  Caring for the disabled.

Well, what got me to thinking about this story were some of the readings and discussions we have had in the Holocaust study group that I and four other members of our congregation are participating in at the Jewish Congregation of Oak Ridge, as I mentioned in a sermon a few weeks ago.

One of the assigned readings focused on Hartheim Castle.  Now, prior to this assigned reading, I had never heard of Hartheim Castle.  And I am guessing that the majority of you haven’t either.  Hartheim Castle was an institution that originally was home to some 180-200 mentally handicapped people in an Austrian village taken over by the Germans.  In 1939, residents who lived nearby observed that all the patients of Hartheim Castle were being bused away.  They watched as Hartheim Castle underwent strange renovations. 

Then sometime later, the villagers observed as the former residents of Hartheim Castle were brought back, along with busload after busload of other physically and mentally disabled people, sometimes two or three busloads per day.  And then they watched as “enormous black clouds of smoke streamed out of a certain chimney.”  And things started falling from the sky onto the streets.  It was obvious to the residents of the village what was happening, but they felt they were helpless to do anything about it, as they were warned by the Nazis that they must never speak to anyone about anything they saw or heard under the threat of being sent to a concentration camp.  So they kept quiet.  The long and the short of it was, thousands of mentally and physically disabled people, whom the Nazis felt were of no use to them, were burned in the furnaces of Hartheim Castle and five other facilities like it.

Now, almost everything you read and everything you see in video clips about the Holocaust is extremely disturbing.  But of all that I have been exposed to so far in the Holocaust Study, I found the article on Hartheim Castle to be the most disturbing by far.  For, you see, as most of you know, we have a nine-year-old granddaughter who has both physical and mental learning disabilities.  Our granddaughter could not be more precious to us; she brings such joy to our lives, and our love for her couldn’t be any stronger than it is.  So as I read that article on Hartheim Castle – which I happened to do while I was taking care of our granddaughter and her brother at their house one Friday and Saturday a few weeks ago – I became somewhat emotional, as you might imagine, as I thought about her while also thinking about what the Nazis did to thousands of physically and mentally disabled people whom they determined were not entitled to live.  I shudder when I think of what the fate for our granddaughter would have been had our family lived in Nazi-era Poland or Austria.  I find it hard to wrap my mind around how humanity can be so cruel and thoughtless to do the things the Nazis did, especially to the most vulnerable members of society.

Well, as we read from Matthew, so compassionate was Jesus, and so accepting of the most vulnerable of his day, that people brought to him those society had ignored and often ostracized – those suffering chronic diseases, epileptics, demon-possessed (which in many cases were in reality mentally ill or mentally challenged), and paralytics, or those who were crippled.  And, the scripture says, “Jesus healed them all.”  Whether you believe in such healing miracles or not is beside the point.  The point here is that Jesus accepted them, embraced them, affirmed them, and sought to care for all of them who were physically or mentally disabled in some way.

So how can we who seek to follow the teachings of Jesus and strive to live as Jesus would have us to live do any less than accept, embrace, affirm, and care for, as much as we can, the most vulnerable of our community and wider world?  To paraphrase a statement I made in last week’s sermon, can a society call itself “Christian” if it abuses, ignores, or even fails to care and provide for the most vulnerable, the physically and mentally challenged among it, those who cannot in many cases care for themselves?

I am wondering if, perhaps, the integrity and worth of a society can be judged by the way it views, treats, and provides for the most vulnerable among them; those who, like our granddaughter, by no fault of their own, in many ways cannot help themselves. 

Our granddaughter loves balls.  And she loves kicking balls.  So you can imagine how excited she was – how excited all of us were – when we learned that a special needs soccer clinic was coming in April to Williamson County where they live.  When our daughter took Beth to sign her up for special needs soccer, she was just glowing.  Well, you can also imagine how our family felt this past week when Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos, announced plans to eliminate funding to Special Olympics, arguing that “her agency can’t afford to continue backing it.”  And you can imagine how happy we were to hear that the administration later announced, because of political fallout, that they had decided to reverse that proposal and would continue funding Special Olympics.

What about the most vulnerable among us?  How will we care for them?  How will we stand up for them?  What kind of message do we want to convey to those with special needs about their worth and place in society?  I must personally support those political candidates who respect and stand up for those of our society who cannot stand up for themselves – the most vulnerable among us.  For me and my family, it is a personal issue.  But from where I stand, it is also a biblical issue, the Christian thing to do – to care for the most vulnerable among us.  May it be so.  Amen.