In John’s Gospel, it’s interesting that the first title Mary gives the risen Christ, upon recognizing him on Easter morning, is that of “Teacher.”
She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”) (John 20.16).
To be honest, other titles might seem more exalted.
How about “Lord,” or “Son of God,” or “President and CEO of all Creation”™?
No. She calls him “Teacher.”
I’ve been pondering the value of that title recently as my daughter Lucy has been home from school due to the walkout over Oklahoma public education funding.
Lucy adores the teachers she has had so far (Mrs. Daniels for kindergarten, and Mrs. Hymel for first grade, along with others).
Like me at that age, she was so catatonically shy that she hardly spoke or made eye-contact for the first months of the semester.
But despite the herculean task of wrangling over twenty tiny-but-tornadic students, her public educators have taken a personal interest in her; they have loved her; and they have helped her to grow in confidence rather than just in “standardized test scores.”
So when Lucy mentions “Mrs. Daniels” and “Mrs. Hymel” her voice betrays a kind reverential awe that’s usually reserved (in our culture at least) for celebrities and star athletes.
It’s Mary-like:
“Rabbon-esses!”™
(Though she doesn’t know that word, that I made up.)
A SACRED CALLING
Perhaps that’s one reason why Jesus was called teacher–and not just as “King of kings” or “Great Physician.”
Because teachers have enormous power.
Just before writing this, I stumbled upon a post by New York Times Best-selling Author, Jon Acuff.
I became a writer because in the third grade my teacher, Mrs. Harris, laminated some of my poetry and told me I was a good writer.
Teachers, the challenging thing about education is that you often don’t get to see the results. They don’t happen instantly but years and years later. Just know that you’re not teaching kids, you’re launching adults. And I for one am very grateful.
How many of us could tell similar stories? (without the NYT bestseller part…)
I could.
OKLA-HOME
In the years to come, I hope we (in my home state especially) will come to see the honored nature of this title—and then put our money where our mouths are.
“Second Worst in the nation” is not something to be proud of when it comes to teacher pay and education funding.
In light of that, I’m grateful for the recent move to finally (though begrudgingly) bump funding in a positive direction—even though there remains much more to do.
And like many, I’ve come to see my own complicity within the crisis.
To be blunt, I’ve been part of the problem. Because like lots of folks, I haven’t paid much attention to the small, local races that actually have a major impact on our state. And I intend to change that.
So to Mrs. Daniels and Hymel—thank-you, and I’m sorry.
May you and thousands like you know how special it is to share a title borne by Christ: Rabboni.
This week I spend some time with one of my students–Abby Powell–talking about how Christ rescued her from an environment of drugs, abuse, broken marriages, and periods of homelessness.
The assumption sometimes is that “ministers” (or ministry majors, as Abby is) come from “safe” Christian homes in which they were taught the gospel at an early age.
Some do.
But not all.
Before feeling called to study ministry, Abby tells how she was homeless, sleeping on a lice-infested mattress, and wondering where God was.
Despite that, she is one of the most joyful and gifted people you will ever meet.
Beyond that, she shares how her encounter with Christ led to a transformation, not only of her own life, but those of her mom and twin sister as well.
Regardless of your story, I hope the interview is a powerful reminder of the radical and all-pursuing love of Christ.
(Note: Apologies for some background noise; My university office is not a completely sound proof environment!)
And in the Gospels course I teach, we spent time reading on the nature of the Resurrection.
As Scripture teaches, Jesus’ resurrected body was both like and unlike his prior one.
It bore deep scars of crucifixion, yet it no longer suffered, died, or was ravaged by disease. His new body was “glorious” in a sense unlike the mortal one, and it did things—like passing through a locked door—that transcend normal limitations.
In other words, Christ’s resurrection life is physical sans fallenness. Or in the words of N.T. Wright, it is supra-physical.
This becomes even more relevant to us because, according to Paul, the same will happen to our bodies in the Age to Come.
Christ is the “first fruits” of resurrected humanity (1 Cor. 15.20), hence what happened to him will also happen to his people. As Paul writes in Philippians:
the Lord Jesus Christ … will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body (Php. 3.20–21).
And in 1 Corinthians:
42 So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; 43 it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body (1 Cor. 15.42–44).
But what does any of this have to do with Down Syndrome?
WHAT WILL MY SIBLING BE LIKE IN THE RESURRECTION?
In our class discussion, I pointed students to an article written by my friend, Ryan (R.T.) Mullins. He is a PhD theologian from St. Andrews, and his sister (Kelli) has Down Syndrome.
In the article, he interacts with voices from the field of “Disability Theology,” and in particular the theologian Amos Yong. Like Ryan, Yong’s sibling (Mark) also has Down Syndrome.
But despite a common desire for the church to be more inclusive toward those with disabilities, the two thinkers (Yong and Mullins) come to different views on how the resurrection may transform their loved ones with Down Syndrome.
First, for Yong:
TO ELIMINATE THE DISABILITY IS TO ELIMINATE THE PERSON (YONG)
Following Stanley Hauerwas, Yong contends that to eliminate his brother’s disability would be to eliminate his brother’s unique personhood and personality. As Yong asks:
If people with Down Syndrome are resurrected without it, in what sense can we say that it is they who are resurrected and embraced by their loved ones?
It would not be a “healing” but a kind of murder.
After all, Down Syndrome is not a “disease” (from which people are “suffer”) but a chromosomal condition that is constitutive of their unique and beautiful humanity.
An analogy might be the extent to which the “XY” chromosomes are constitutive to my identity as biologically male. To take that away (say, by giving me the “XX” building blocks) would be to erase an important part of who I am—even if it is not the MOST important part.
One strength behind Yong’s point would seem to rest in the sense that many of us have when interacting with persons with Down Syndrome; this involves the feeling that maybe WE are the ones with a “disability” of a different kind—a loss of childlike wonder, a resistance to joy, and a tendency to misplace our pity in ways that dehumanize others.[1]
But I’ll come back to that…
TO ERADICATE A DISABILITY NEED NOT ERASE THE PERSON (MULLINS)
On the other hand, Mullins takes issue with Yong’s extreme assertion (taken from Hauerwas) that “to eliminate the disability is to eliminate the subject.”
As Mullins writes:
I can imagine, perhaps as through a mirror dimly, my sister Kelli without Down Syndrome. This is because she is not identical to her disability. She has various character traits that are shaped by her Down Syndrome, but they are not causally determined by her Down Syndrome.
It is true … that her disability has shaped her personality, but why think that she would need to be continually disabled in order to retain that personality?
A RESURRECTED IMAGINIATION
While there is much more to Mullin’s argument, I want to focus on a single phrase within the quote above: “I can imagine…”
Because while Yong’s treatment of disabilities in the Age to Come seems to spring from noble motives, it may also suffer (at least in my view) from a lack of biblical imagination.
Going back to Jesus, we saw that his resurrected body was both “like” and “unlike” his prior one in certain ways. The marks of wounds were there, but now scarred over. The physicality was real but amplified in power.
Perhaps even his appearance was altered. (Which might explain why some who knew him well apparently had trouble recognizing him [Jn. 20.15; Lk. 24.16].)
There is much we do not know about the life to come.
But that ought not quell our sense of hope and possibility.
EMILY WITHIN THE AGE TO COME
After class, I brought some of these thoughts to the Dean of my department.
Dr. Weeter is himself a theologian, and the father of a daughter (Emily) with Down Syndrome. Having known Mark and Emily for years, it was not difficult for my mind to wander to what she might be like ten thousand years from now.
After all, the hope of salvation is for everyone.
Is it possible to imagine Emily (and countless others) with all the beautiful aspects of Down Syndrome, without the accompanying trials? I think so.
Gone would be the heart defects, the vision challenges, and hearing loss that so often come with the condition.[2] Yet gone too would be my sense of misplaced pity or superiority when I and other (so-called) “able-bodied” persons sing next to her within the heavenly choir.
Gone might be certain mind-related limitations in both of us. But who’s to say who might need more transformation. For Paul, the “darkened mind” had nothing to do with ACT scores; and Christ’s words were that “unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Mt. 18.3).
With that as a pre-requisite for resurrected life, it seems possible that my own transformation from perishable to imperishable may be more dramatic than that of many image-bearers with Down Syndrome.
How recognizable will I be to my loved ones?
Whatever answer there may be to such speculative questions, the hope of Christ remains the same for all:
Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep [in death], but we shall all be changed (1 Cor. 15.51).
On the subject of Resurrection, I’ve been loving the new Andrew Peterson album (Resurrection Letters, Vol. 1):
[1] Credit to my student Sam Thomas for bringing up this point in class.
[2] Thanks to Rylee Kelly (a nursing major) for pointing out these accompanying aspects of trisomy-21 in class discussion.
For more on this subject, see:
Amos Yong, Theology and Down Syndrome: reimagining Disability in Late Modernity (Waco, 2007).
R.T. Mullins, “Some Difficulties for Amos Yong’s Disability Theology of the Resurrection,” in Ars Disputandi, Vol. 11 (2011), 24–32.
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