Validating the Invalids

During a recent worship service a young man, perhaps twelve or thirteen years old, dressed in a sharp looking black suit, desperately trying to look older than he actually was, rose from his seat, made his way to the pulpit, and prepared to read the scripture, The young man was a good reader. He was the grandson of the church's pastor. Perhaps he had thoughts of entering the ministry himself. The lesson was the John 5 passage where Jesus heals a paralytic. He came to the verse that described the man sitting beside the pool. Most versions use the word paralyzed to describe the man unable to walk. The young man, however, was reading from a version that used the word invalid, and when he came to the passage about the lame man, he stumbled on the word. He actually pronounced it "in-VAL-id" rather than "IN-val-id." The two words are spelled the same but most of us know the difference in meaning of the two pronunciations.

When I go to my favorite bookstore and park in the public parking garage adjoining it, if I take my parking ticket into the bookstore they will validate it; that is, they will stamp the back of it to prove that I was in the bookstore doing business. When I present my validated ticket to the parking garage attendant, I don't have to pay any money for my use of the parking garage while I was shopping. It is a wonderful service the bookstore pays my parking fee for me.

When a person hears the call of God to enter into the ordained ministry and the local congregation formally recommends that person to the annual conference (AC) for ordination, part of the task of the AC is to validate that person's call; that is, the AC appoints a mentor and the applicant goes through a lengthy interview process, psychological testing and evaluation, a rigorous program of theological and pastoral education, written testing and writing, trial sermons, and the like. Only after all of this has been completed to the satisfaction of the AC Board of Ordained Ministry (and I suppose also the bishop and cabinet) does the AC place its official approval on the candidate for ordination. At that point, the person's call by God is validated.

For something or someone to be validated is a wonderful thing! It means that someone has been approved and certified. It means that someone has been given testimony and assurance of truth or worthiness. Human validation is to people what the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval is to household products, or Consumer's Reports highest recommendation is to automobiles, or Siskel and Ebert's two thumbs up to a new movie. It is approval ... it is assurance of quality ... it is a declaration of great value.

What then are we to make of the word "IN-valid" in this scripture passage to describe a person who is unable to walk? When that word is used with such a meaning, what does it say about the person unable to walk? Does it infer less value, not recommended, undesirable, someone to be avoided, and the fact that no one is willing to give public testimony to that person's worth? Can that possibly be the root origin of this application of the word with that meaning? And is it one of those now embarrassing words in scripture and hymns that we want to change today?

Thinking of the young 12-year-old reading this passage of scripture and mispronouncing the word he is young enough to have grown up in our US culture to perhaps have missed the IN-valid word. Maybe we have become sensitive enough now so that he simply is unaware of it, and so when he comes to that word in this passage, it is quite natural for him to say in-VAL-id, because that's the only pronunciation he knows.

I am almost ashamed to admit that the two meanings of this word based upon the two pronunciations, while both certainly are part of my vocabulary, have never come to conscious thought in this manner before that 12-year-old read scripture the other night. It was like a thunderbolt that struck me when I heard it. IN-valid is now a word I will likely never use again, certainly never again without thinking of what I am saying about the person to whom I apply it.

This kind of multiple word meanings, of course, has posed problems in the hymns that we sing in worship. Look at the footnote at the bottom of no. 57, "O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing," in The United Methodist Hymnal. There you will read permission to omit the stanza that reads "Hear him, ye deaf, his praise, ye dumb, your loosened tongues employ. Ye blind behold your Savior come, and leap, ye lame, for joy." Wesley's choice of words is not to be taken literally. His intention was to use a literary device, to provide an image to describe the joy and ecstasy that comes when one sings the praise of the Redeemer, and the extent of transformation that can result.

During the deliberations of the 1989 Hymnal Revision Committee, they debated removing hymn phrases that referred to washing away our sin and making us white as snow. One African-American member said, "You can wash me all you want, but I'll still be as black as I am right now! My blackness is beautiful!" His point was that the use of the word white to infer cleansing and forgiveness does harm to those who are not white.

It's an interesting area for discussion and consideration, and certainly not an unimportant one. There are those who rail against changing Scripture and hymn texts for these reasons, shouting charges of political correctness run amok. I don't know if this is PC or not, but I know that we in the church must take great care with the words we use, the power they possess, the meanings they convey, and the impact they have. If that's PC, then I'm in favor of more of it.