Vulnerable
Friday, December 13, 2019 at 09:13PM Professor Brené Brown popularised the notion of vulnerability as a desirable quality with her 2011 TED talk on the topic. Her work brilliantly captures the zeitgeist and offers a counter-cultural way of becoming more authentically ourselves and more genuinely intimate with those we love.
But the power of vulnerability shouldn’t be news to followers of the homeless, crucified Galilean. ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness,’ (2 Corinthians 12, 9) has been one of my favourite texts from early adulthood. Recently I read a translation I found particularly compelling: ‘My grace is enough, it’s all you need. My strength comes into its own in your weakness.’
I recalled this at the end of yet another period of trauma in our family – repeated hospital visits for two of us, followed by my own injury that rendered me pain-ridden and as weak as a kitten. Reading a fresh translation of my favourite text brought a fresh moment of epiphany. Like most people, I spend much of my life trying to be reliable, competent and strong. To be told that it’s not only okay to be weak, it is a condition of grace, is liberating.
Two years ago, my fit, capable husband, who loves to help others, was hospitalised for stem cell transplant treatment for multiple myeloma. Without going into the gruesome details, for two weeks he was utterly helpless; dependent on others for his every basic bodily function. Grim as that time was, I sense that since then he has been an even better pastor and priest. He has been vulnerable, and it has hollowed out a place in him that is filled with patience and compassion and humanity. He preaches with a new power, because, like the wounded healer he follows, he has descended into dark and powerless places.
For Christians, the ultimate image of vulnerability is Jesus hanging on the cross in complete suffering, shame and abandonment. The God who created everything not only became a person but also endured an agonising and humiliating death.
Philippians 2, 5 reads, ‘Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who… did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness… he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross’.
At Christmas, what Christians celebrate is the Incarnation: the creator God showing God’s boundless love for us by becoming one of us with all our human vulnerabilities. It is so tempting to think we can do it on our own and to act accordingly. Any length of time on this earth, however, shows us the futility of living this way. Grace breaks through when we allow the big love of God to infiltrate our hearts and lives. When we allow ourselves to be what we are – vulnerable, finite creatures, in need of God’s ever-accessible and transforming grace.
This was published in the December edition of The Melbourne Anglican
Reader Comments (4)
Thank you Clare.
I have said it to you before, but you are a powerful witness to the truth of the gospel - a preacher in your own inimitable way which is a model for us professional preachers especially. Thank you for what you translate out of your own vulnerability to help us connect with our own.
It is always a balm to read your word Clare x
I don't know how you do it, Clare. I don't think of myself as Christian in much more than a nostalgic sense, and I don't really believe in a personal god, yet your words always speak to me on such a deep level. "My strength comes into its own in your weakness". Could that be any more profoundly true to all of our own experience? And how eloquently you remind us of that, at this time of year. Thank you.