From Disabling Community to Embracing Gospel:

Abstract

Biblical text relating to disability usually approached with either a metaphorical or literary interpretation. Both of these approaches themselves provide a negative view of people with disabilities. Both of these approaches show that disability is a condition to be eliminated. This tendency itself arises because of the lact of attention to the context of the Bible itself and the limited approach to understanding disability only in the medical approach. By paying attention to the socio-religious context of Luke’s Gospel—particularly the meal, body and wholeness in Jewish understanding, and the concept of sickness and healt—which is dialogued with the perspective of disability studies, this article attempts to explore the message of the text of Luke 14:12-14. The result is that the text findsalignments with people with disabilities in three form, namely the collapse of normalism, embracing “damaged” bodies, and eating together as an act of solidarity. This article will show that in the text of Luke 14:12-14, physical disability is not something that should be eliminated, but celebrated in communal meal.