Jesus’s divinity can be seen in the form of leadership. We could say that Jesus was born to be a leader given his immaculate birth but others might have said otherwise of a lowly carpenter born in a stable. Jesus’s leadership did not come from immediate popularity or irresistible magnetism but from a knowledge and goodness that he practiced throughout his life. When autistic people exist in leadership, it is never a “natural” path that they fall into. The world is too well-designed in favor of neurotypicals for autistic people to be considered naturally “gifted” or impressive. In a world where autistic people are only visualized as those we serve or have to deal with, it requires a tremendous amount of effort to be seen as a leader. Yet, this type of leader is exactly what the world needs.
As we’ve learned, Jesus didn’t lead like any other leader and his style conflicted with the traditional expectations of the Pharisees and the authorities. However, his leadership was the cornerstone in transforming the lives of the marginalized in his society and the world as a whole. It is crucial that autistic kids have leaders that can speak to their experience but it is also crucial that allistic people have autistic leaders too. Jesus’s ministry was often focused on marginalized demographics but he ministered to everyone. As important as Jesus’s healing was for the leper or the blind man, it was equally important for the disciples who were made to see the beauty in the “other.” When allistic people see autistic people in leadership, they learn more than they ever could by only be taught by those with the same experiences as them. They learn how to be in community with autistic people and they learn that autistic people are examples to look up to and value as leaders, not just as supporting characters in the background. Jesus formed a ministry where the blind man was a preacher, the woman was a scholar, the Samaritan was a hero, and the poor were an example of how to live. This style of leadership is just as necessary today.
This beauty can be seen most clearly in Jesus’s love and grace. Autistic love can often be misinterpreted because of how obvious we assume our love is and the different ways we express it. It can often be tricky to identify Jesus’s love today in a world with so much noise and hate. Yet, our faith is founded in this deep knowledge that Jesus loves us. When we truly aim to know Jesus, his love comes across incredibly clearly. One of the ways Jesus still demonstrates his love is through the grace we observe in our sacraments.[1] Sacraments are a way for us to understand Jesus’s grace in a format that makes sense to us, with Jesus’s love translated into the accessible variety in which Jesus taught in the Bible.
When someone is just beginning their journey into recognizing they’re autistic and discovering what that means, there are many messages on how they can confront their autism. Jesus’s first act of love in our life is to affirm our existence and the goodness of God’s creation within us. Despite our immediate tendency to make mistakes and sometimes cause harm, Jesus’s love surrounds us from the moment we are born, alongside our autistic identity, whether we are able to yet recognize it or not. This “prevenient grace” begins an incredible journey of learning and growth in relationship with Christ.[2] We may often say that this grace plants a seed of understanding of God in us. However, any autistic person would tell you that the only way this seed will grow is through questions. Jesus’s initial spark of grace ignites a curious mind and a transformational journey that continuously questions and learns. Jesus Christ affirms that his divine love will surround us from our very first breath. Through the sacrament of Baptism, we are able to translate this grace into a way that is accessible for our human minds. Autistic people may have difficulty grasping such conceptual language but will easily understand the tactile feeling of water washing over us, allowing us to feel this love in motion, guaranteeing us this community that we so desperately desire in our lives. This love begins our journey by assuring we are prepared for a right relationship with God and that love is imbedded within our autistic identity. Autism is not washed away in Baptism, nor is it prayed away in faith. Our autistic identity is part of our right relationship with God. Through all of the ways Jesus’s divine love transforms our lives, taking away autism has never been part of it. Through it all, we’re still here.
Even with this initial assurance, our minds tend to wander. Autistic people are prone to hyperfixations, our brain pulling us towards a certain topic. This can lead to beautiful special interests such as social justice work or charity or education. However, it can also lead to issues of addiction or anxiety as we have difficulty pulling our minds away from topics of fear. When we never know which words or moments of body language can be misconstrued as disrespectful or “wrong” by neurotypicals, we need a lot of reassurance. Autistic people may communicate directly but we recognize that others tend to read into actions and we don’t always know what to do when we make mistakes, and we make many mistakes. Amidst this anxiety, Jesus recognizes our propensity for mistakes and assures us of his propensity for forgiveness. Just as Jesus directed his disciples to forgive seventy times seven times, he promises us a safety net when we fall from him. Through “justifying grace,” Jesus knows our lives will be filled with mistakes and temptations and we will often need to turn back to him.[3]
This transformation isn’t always a sudden conversion or revival, especially for autistic people who take longer to process the information they receive and need to build up a routine of healthy practices. Rather, God’s grace in our missteps can come in the form of gradual learning and growing, a journey of recognizing the wrong path we may be on and working to turn back to Christ. This love ties into the need to remember the prevenient grace of which we may have lost sight. As autistic people grow up in the world, we learn to survive in a neurotypical-dominated society. This is easier for some than others but can result in a deviation from and even a rejection of the autistic identity God created within us. For many autistic people, grace comes in the form of recognizing the beauty of God’s creation and working to see ourselves as a part of it. As God’s children and creation, we are inherently beautiful and our autistic identity is woven into our identity with Jesus. There are many times when we might fall back into a pattern of “masking,” of covering up our autistic traits to better fit into society, but this is nothing more than sin leading us to reject God’s creation. The grace offered by God leads us back from this sin, guiding us to instead explore authenticity and truth in our autistic identity in Christ.
Finally, as we learn to accept our autism as rooted in God’s perfect creation, we must learn to work towards that perfection. To be autistic in a world not built for us is utterly exhausting at times. Everything needs to be translated to neurotypical standards and neurotypical people refuse to put any effort into understanding us in return. The journey is long and difficult but Jesus works to sustain us throughout this path towards perfection. We recognize this sustaining grace, often called “sanctifying grace” as a core experience within the sacrament of Holy Communion.[4] For some autistic people, food itself can be a challenge because the taste and texture may affect sensory issues. Part of the autistic journey is finding “same foods” that we feel comfortable eating, relying upon their sustenance for support. Jesus’s “same foods” are found in the bread and wine of Communion. These elements sustain us through the familiar and comforting, allowing us to grow in relationship with Christ through nourishing repetition and routine. When we come to the table exhausted, these same foods can provide us with a healing presence of grace. Similarly, autistic people find comfort in stimming, repetitive behaviors such as hand flapping or finger snapping. These practices form a way of centering ourselves. When used to center ourselves in Christ, stimming can be an outlet for sanctifying grace, a physical and meditative mantra, God’s presence with us in the sustaining comfort.
When we are fully nurtured in our autistic identity, provided with this sustenance, we are able to work towards perfection. A core part of the journey as autistic Christians is recognizing that we may never achieve full perfection but that our autism does not interfere with that work towards perfection. We can always improve and we can always grow and learn but God’s creation does remain perfect. We are made with many bodies, many skin colors, many sexualities, many genders, and many neurotypes and each of these identities are perfect. True authenticity in our relationship with Christ is what sanctifying grace allows us to strive towards, always growing towards perfection.
When society’s reaction to Jesus’s autistic traits put him on the cross, the resurrection demonstrates how Jesus defeated these powers of prejudice and ableism. When his hands were stilled by pinning them to a cross, his pride in showing off these scars mocked the attempts to control autistic traits. Jesus’s resurrection was a testament to the divine power of his mission on earth and solidified the autistic traits reflected in his ministry as part of God’s plan for humanity. Jesus is fully God and it is with this knowledge that we are able to read Matthew’s passage about Jesus’s identity as the least of these. When we say that humanity is made in the image of God, we cannot pretend that such an image is reduced only to the aspects we share. There is certainly so much that humanity has in common but the full scope of diversity reflected in God’s creation is far greater. It is within the knowledge that God’s image is that of a Black woman and a Samaritan leper and a trans lesbian and an autistic scholar that we are truly able to know God through Jesus Christ. If we are to understand the divinity of Christ, we must see the divinity in everyone. Autism is an inherent part of God’s image, one reflected and affirmed in the ministry of Jesus, and actualized in the strength and goodness of the autistic community today. God made autistic people. Christ identified as autistic people. Autistic people are divine.
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