There is a particular kind of silence that fills the room when you are sitting opposite a Diocesan Director of Ordinands, or a Bishops’ Advisor, and you realise the conversation is pivoting towards the deeply personal. It is the silence of anticipation, heavily laden with vulnerability.
You are there because you have felt a profound, undeniable pull towards ministry—a calling that has perhaps kept you awake at night, disrupting your plans and reorienting your life. Yet, as you navigate the labyrinthine process of discernment in the Church of England, you inevitably reach the moment where you must lay your cards on the table. You have to talk about how your mind works.
For a neurodivergent candidate, this moment of disclosure—saying the words, ‘I am dyslexic,’ or ‘I have ADHD,’ or ‘I am autistic’—rarely feels like a triumphant declaration of identity. More often than not, it feels like handing over a list of perceived deficits and waiting for a verdict. It feels raw. You are opening up your history, your struggles with processing, the specific ways your mind navigates texts and spaces, and placing them into the hands of an institution that has historically prized a very specific, highly academic, neurotypical standard of excellence. You sit in that chair and wonder: will they see this as a problem to be managed, a risk to be mitigated, or will they see it as part of the unique way God has equipped me to serve?
This tension between what the institution expects and who we actually are is not a modern phenomenon. In fact, it is the very tension that Jesus addresses head-on in the Gospel of Matthew, right at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount.
When we read Matthew chapters five through seven, it is remarkably easy to misinterpret what Jesus is doing. For generations, people have read the Sermon on the Mount as a crushing, impossible list of commands. If the old law was hard, this new law seems entirely unachievable. Do not even look with lust. Do not even hold onto anger. Turn the other cheek. Love your enemies. If we approach these chapters as a new, stricter checklist for holiness, we will inevitably walk away defeated.
But to read it that way is to miss the heart of the message. Jesus is not handing down an updated, more rigorous set of compliance metrics. He is completely subverting our understanding of what is required of us. He is shifting the focus away from external, rigid, box-ticking religion, and driving right down to the messy, vulnerable reality of the human heart.
The religious authorities of Jesus’ day—the Pharisees and teachers of the law—loved neat boxes. They loved a structure where you could visibly measure a person’s worthiness and competence. Have you kept the Sabbath? Have you tithed your herbs? Have you washed your hands in the correct ceremonial manner? It was an environment that prized conformity.
If we are honest, ecclesiastical structures often love neat boxes, too. Have you completed this theological essay to this specific academic standard? Can you navigate this archaic, text-heavy liturgy without stumbling? Can you fit into the expected mould of a parish priest or lay minister? The Church, in its desire to ensure quality and orthodoxy, has inadvertently built a framework that often demands a neurotypical mask.
But there, on the mount, Jesus says, “You have heard that it was said… but I tell you.” He strips away the facade of having it all together. He makes it clear that true discipleship is not about outward conformity; it is about radical authenticity. It is about understanding the spirit of the law, the deep intent of God’s heart, and the challenging call to do more—not out of legalistic obligation, but simply because of who you are as a follower of Christ.