The Holy Spirit Knows Sign Language

(This is a slightly rewritten version of a post written a few years ago. I thought it was worth re-posting in honour of National Sign Language Week.)

Bear with me here, but in season 9 of Doctor Who, it was revealed that the TARDIS, which translates all known languages, both human and alien, couldn’t handle British Sign Language. And although I understand there were production issues to consider, and while it was great to see a deaf actor playing a major role, the Doctor’s inability to sign still bugged me. It felt like a failure of imagination, almost an ‘othering’ of BSL, especially as it was previous revealed that the Doctor speaks both Baby and Horse. It’s like we’ve limited what language is and can be, and so obviously that makes me think about Pentecost Sunday.

In the Christian tradition, Pentecost is the day on which we celebrate the moment that the Holy Spirit descended on the disciples, and in a moment that undercuts toxic disunity and ancient curses, the assembled pilgrims suddenly start hearing the disciples speaking a hundred different languages, barriers being broken down as the church is born.

“Hear.” That’s the magic word isn’t it? Because it makes some assumptions – sorry Dr. Luke – that we might not make today. There are other languages, other forms of communication that we need to consider.

My eldest son is profoundly deaf; his first language is British Sign Language (BSL). At the moment, the house is covered in flashcards to help him learn to read English, but effectively his communication is entirely visual.

And this should be a lesson to me personally, because when I preach, it’s entirely verbal. And part of that is not always having access to a Powerpoint screen, but I’m kidding myself if I don’t think that has the potential to be exclusionary.

(I live in Derby, which has the second largest deaf population in the UK. However, statistically speaking, only 1-2% of that population will be Christian, with much of that being put down to this issue of communication and language. There’s an assumption that sign language simply substitutes hand signs for English words, but that ignores the fact that the grammar is completely different, BSL has regional dialects, and there are lower literacy levels among the deaf community because of the way in which language is taught in schools. There’s a Pentecost issue here – how much preaching and teaching material is available in sign language? Is it exclusionary that ‘worship’ has been so conflated with ‘music’?)

(This isn’t just a church thing – witness how a powerful moment of silence brought Strictly Come Dancing to tears. Silence isn’t something that needs filling with sound.)

Alongside this, both of my sons are on the autism spectrum, and that’s a whole other set of communication issues. Again, it’s not always a spoken thing. My youngest son finds it difficult to process language – he gets the input, but his brain doesn’t always process that input in a way that gives it meaning, and so that affects how we need to speak to him. There’s also the use of visual timetables, which often help kids with autism to orientate themselves in time and space. Maybe our orders of service need to be translated into pictures so that those who need this sort of communication can get a grasp on our services. That’s certainly an experiment I need to carry out next time I’m worship leading.

(There’s someone out there, right now, reading this and thinking of churchsplaining* things to me: “That prevents spontaneity! You’re putting restrictions on the rest of us for a minority! What if the Spirit moves? Do you want to quash the Holy Spirit?!” To which I say: No. Don’t be ridiculous. But a) if our services are inclusive by design, people will be better equipped to handle the unexpected when it happens, b) the Spirit doesn’t just speak English and sing, so have a wider consideration of how He may be communicating with people other than yourself, and c) stop making excuses for having a limiting view of worship, the church and the Holy Spirit in the first place.)

(Once we were on a church weekend away and our eldest son – deaf and autistic, remember – came out of the children’s activities and made a beeline for the guest speaker, who had spent two days talking about the Holy Spirit. Eldest walked straight past his mum and I and stands there in front of the speaker before we knew what was happening, and the poor bloke doesn’t know what to do, and I have no idea what was going through Eldest’s mind, and none of this is really anyone’s fault, but what if that was the Spirit at work and none of us knew how to respond? Or what if the Spirit was making a point? That was five years ago and I still have no answers, but it still feels significant somehow.)

There are other non-verbal forms of communication that our churches might need to consider – braille, Makaton, lip reading – and that’s before we consider the difficulty some autistic people have with the literal interpretation of language – imagine what it’s like trying to interpret the central metaphor of eating and drinking the body and blood of Jesus when you struggle with metaphorical language. Maybe we need to develop a literal liturgy.

But in a way, this is all logistics. The first thing that needs to be considered is the theology of all this. Pentecost is the reversal of the Tower of Babel story, with the Holy Spirit overriding an ancient curse and bringing together people from many different backgrounds in order to birth the church. In this context, language is both a symbolic and a practical necessity. The church has always been good at sending people out to translate Bibles and to preach the Word in different languages, but there’s an opportunity here that we’re overlooking, one that’s not only on our doorstep, but in our families and our workplaces and even in our pews already. And overlooking it we are – it’s interesting that people accused the apostles of having had too much wine that first Pentecost, because often when you take to people about stuff like this, they look at you as though you’re drunk.

So, if there’s an opportunity here, are we going to take it? Are we going to prioritise it in our mission statements, our budgets, our worship gatherings, our hearts? Are we going to let the Holy Spirit to reverse this particular Babel?

Are our churches going to be different?

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*’Mansplaining‘ is an internet-coined word describing how a man will sometime condescendingly explain to a woman how she’s wrong about an issue she has personal experience of. I’m a bad person, because I couldn’t resist coining an ecclesiastical equivalent. I appreciate that, as an non-disabled white guy, I’m probably doing a bit of churchsplaining here myself.

On Music

Look, I’ll admit it – I’m not really a monarchist. I watched today’s proceedings more out of historical interest than any particular loyalty to the Crown, and I had half an eye on Twitter throughout. But what stood out to me, perhaps more than anything else was the music.

Part of it was sympathy – sympathy for the choristers, sympathy for the organist and the trumpeters, sympathy for the lone piper, a mental crossing of the fingers that they wouldn’t miss a beat or a note before a potential audience of billions. But alongside that was just an awareness of how, for me, the moments of true beauty were marked either by silence or music. One of today’s hymns was Love Divine, All Loves Excelling, which ends with the line “Till we cast our crowns before Thee, lost in wonder, love and praise.” That’s an interesting image at a royal funeral for a whole lot of reasons.

It’s not a surprise really, because music is a part of humanity, a part of creation itself. Days are soundtracked by everything from birdsong to Grime, and even a rhythmically-challenged tonedeaf like me has a mixtape running through life – ten years ago my wife and I got married, accompanied by Norah Jones, Bruce Springsteen, Be Thou My Vision. Music resonates throughout history, songs of triumph and hope and belonging, songs or protest and mourning, songs to sing when you don’t feel safe.

And then there’s worship and there’s the Bible. Some of the Bible’s songs are familiar today – after all, the Lord is still our shepherd by the rivers of Babylon, right? Some of them are unexpected – a teenager’s protest song in the middle of the the Christmas story, Jesus reaching for and gasping out a song amidst the pain of the crucifixion. Other time’s they’re front a centre, visions of heaven with tens of thousands of singers. Writer Dan Wilt even points out that, when Goliath needs defeating, God sends in a musician (and as someone who much prefers David the songwriter over David the king, I’m here for that).

I know in the UK we’ve failed to foster music as it declines as a subject in schools, but today – as well as Live Aid and Glastonbury, football matches and busking – shows not only the power of music but that it’s hardwired into us. There are times we just start singing, other times when we simply need to hear a sad song on the radio. And that’s something that the Church, with its rich history of psalmody and gospel and choirs and choirs and hymns and songwriters, has real talent in. Not that we should churn out uninspired copies like a bad covers band going through the motions, but in fostering musical creativity, in encouraging communal signing, in making worship accessible and expressing devotion and praise, joy and sorrow through music and lyrics. And that’s not about performance. It’s not even about ability. It’s about reflecting the heart of the God who sings.

A Pentecost of Accessibility

Blind man in a yellow hoodie touches the face of a reproduction of the Mona Lisa.

There has been a lot of controversy recently around online church; some see it as a pale imitation of the real thing, others see it as vital to establishing faith communities among those who are unable to access physical buildings (for what it’s worth, I’m in the latter camp). The situation has been exacerbated by COVID-19, with frustration over lockdown boiling over online and the Church Times unhelpfully proclaiming “WORSHIP BANNED!”. But while Coronavirus has pushed this conversation forward, it’s actually revealing something that has been going on for years – our churches aren’t always accessible enough.

I was reminded of this during today’s commute. I was listening to the Disability Visibility podcast and Alice Wong’s interview with Amanda Cachia. The conversation covers how museums are trying to become more accessible to disabled visitors, not in terms of ticking some legislative boxes, but about how museum curators can use accessibility and technology to bring people closer to their collections. It’s a fascinating listen, and I think it has something to say to the church, because no matter how we like to believe that how our particular worship practices are ordained by God himself and everyone else is slow-dancing with heresy, the fact is we all curate our worship services in certain ways. When we become aware of that, we can start to recognise who gets left out of those services and how we can be more accessible.

Maybe that starts with the online/offline divide, and the false dichotomy that promotes. I’m happy to be controversial here – all churches (or, to be fair, groups of churches) need to consider themselves multisite, with one of those sites being cyberspace. There are people who would like to be part of your congregation but can’t because they’re unable to leave the house, or because your building isn’t accessible, or because they live in a different country, or because they’re digital natives and access information and community differently, or… Whatever the reason, online church is a way to form communities that are open to those who can’t be with you physically. More than that; they are communities in which those who have too often been marginalised are already leading and being pioneers, because online church was their only way to gather together. This isn’t about us graciously deciding to be accessible just because a pandemic has suddenly dropped everyone into the same boat, it’s about humbly recognising where the Spirit has already been at work, often for years, and about taking this opportunity to learn and to join in. Check out An Ordinary Office for an example of what I mean.

This brings us back to the question of who gets to help design our acts of worship and who gets to be involved, and the imaginative ways in which we can broaden that conversation. Going back to the podcast I mentioned earlier, accessibility shouldn’t be perfunctory. It can be a way of releasing more creativity into our churches. How many of our worship spaces have beautiful works of art, or heartfelt memorials, or architecture designed to lift our thoughts towards God… And are there people who can’t access these? What about taking inspiration from museums and TV and seeing if we can creatively use audio descriptions to enhance those spaces? How is scripture opened up when we interpret it through sign language? How much more powerful and relational do our missions become when we use communication technologies to make them a two-way street by which Christians around the world can learn from each other? Can the use of smell in worship (High Church, I’m looking at you!) open doors for parishioners with dementia?

I know this is just me throwing out ideas and not knowing what to do with them; it’s a bad habit of mine. But I’m convinced that accessibility isn’t something we do out of obligation or necessity, it’s something we do because together we are stronger. If d/Deaf people hadn’t been looking at better ways to communicate, we might never have developed SMS or the internet. When we’re all able to design for accessibility we all benefit. Let’s not forget that the Spirit is always at work in the background, and while some of that inspiration may look different, it will unveil another facet of God’s character to the blessing of us all.

25 years ago saw the passing of the Disability Discrimination Act in the UK, legislation that was passed due to the protests and activism of hundreds of disabled people. We should learn from that; the church shouldn’t need to be shamed into becoming more inclusive and welcoming. Accessibility allows us all to work together to share the different ways in which we encounter God. It helps our churches more accurately reflect the Kingdom and makes us stronger through the gifts of those who’ve too often been dismissed as weak. And, ultimately, accessibility is about love and community and fellowship. Our churches should be about that too.

Mary anoints Jesus (John 12:1-11)

John 12 – 29th March 2020

I was due to preach at church tomorrow as part of our Lent series, a journey towards Easter through John’s gospel. Obviously COVID-19 has put paid to that, but I thought I’d post the sermon and recording I put together in case anyone can get something out of it.

The text is John 12:1-11, in which Mary anoints Jesus at Bethany, which is full of implications for how we worship and how we relate to the world, especially at a weird time like this.

Stay home, stay safe everyone. We’ll get through this.

Putting the Chairs Away (a repost for Maundy Thursday): John 13:1-5

My eldest son loves putting chairs away. Give him a church full of chairs that need stacking and he’s happy as Larry, giggling and bossing people around as he tidies up. And while I love his enthusiasm, sometimes I just want to get home for lunch, you know? I mean, surely he can leave some chairs for someone else?

And that’s when I realise that my lanky autistic 14 year old has a greater servant heart than me. Because when he gets to the end of an act of worship, he doesn’t just want to drink his cup of tea before escaping to the comfort of the living room sofa, he wants to help put things away, to collect hymn books, to wash up.

I’m reminded of this here on Maundy Thursday, when we commemorate Jesus washing the feet of his disciples. The King stoops to do the job of a servant out of grace and compassion, even though the disciples don’t understand, even though he’s washing the feet of a traitor. The power of this moment extends beyond our squeamishness and our repulsion at washing another; it reveals the heart of God and as such it isn’t a ritual, it’s a fact of life.

Some churches latch on to this, making their Maundy Thursday events an act of service. Trinity on the Green in Connecticut holds a foot washing and examination service where they provide podiatric support for homeless people who, on average, walk 8.5 miles a day. There’s something of the original power of the story reflected through this – I doubt Peter ever had a pedicure. The heart of service reflected here isn’t a mere ritual, it’s genuinely showing the love of Christ to people in dire situations, a pair of socks becoming a blessing. Maundy Thursday becomes an act of remembrance of those who are too easily forgotten. In that sense we should also be convicted.

We also remember those carers who embody this every day, when they wash a child or a parent or a spouse who can’t wash themselves, when they clean up after visits to the toilet, when they stay up all night making sure that their loved ones are safe until the morning. And this brings with it stresses and strains, but it’s done out of love, as a way of showing a loved one that they are precious and protected and cared for. And those being washed are made in the Image of God and we also remember that, even when they’re persecuted, dehumanised, neglected. Maundy Thursday is a singularity of compassion; we turn it into an annual ritual at our peril.

Last Sunday I was out preaching, and eldest was with me, and at the end of the service while I’m shaking hands, he starts collecting books and washing cups and charming old ladies just by being helpful. And he’ll never be asked to preach, he’ll never lead worship, but he’s embodying the heart of Jesus and that’s far more powerful.

Many will go to foot washing services tonight. Maybe during those services there’s an opportunity to remember those who wash and clothe others, to take our rituals and turn them into practice. And as we remember Jesus washing feet, maybe the lasting power isn’t just about remembrance and sacrament, maybe it lies in the grace of putting chairs away at the end, of doing the washing up, the grace of showing up, of a clean pair of socks.