The Full Monty:
2 Corinthians 12 To read if you have time to take in the whole story
The Continental Option:
2 Corinthians 12:1-10 Read this if you only have time for a few, key verses
One Shot Espresso:
2 Corinthians 12:9 ‘But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.’
I’ve been reading about vulnerability. I hate it. I’m not naturally the touchy, feely type. Vulnerability, according to Brene Brown in her book, Daring Greatly, is about connection. It’s about the deep longing of the human heart to go deep with each other. She suggests that the deepest longing of our deepest places is about connecting with others.
Trying to find your deep human connection through your profession is never going to work
Deep connection
This isn’t new. Any Christian would say that connection is the key - a connection to our maker is the deepest place of need. The connection with each other, as Jesus suggested in the greatest of commandments, is basically the same need turned outward towards our neighbour. The trouble is that we are people who do ‘connection’ professionally. Somehow, this makes our emotional connections deep but often impersonal.
Years ago I started to run with a friend of mine. A few runs in and my new running partner started to ask me some interesting questions about my motivation for running. Her mother had expressed some deep joy when she heard I was the new running mate and my friend wanted to know if there was something ‘else’ going on. At one point in the run she said, ‘So what I’m asking is, am I a person or a project?’ Good question. I knew the answer that was appropriate for the situation. She was a person. Of course she was. I insisted that no matter what her mother’s reaction suggested – she was a real person to me not a project. But when I went home her question began to bother me.
Years before this I was a chaplain at an outward-bound type inner-city youth outreach. I hit it off with a young girl who had some deep troubles – we made a connection. We lived near each other and continued to connect. I considered her a friend. A few years later, the organisation that ran the camp advertised a position for a ‘follow-up chaplain’ – someone who would continue to connect with the kids after camp and throughout the year. My friend from camp all those years ago saw the ad and called me up. She was furious. ‘You mean you were paid to hang out with me?’ she accused over the phone. I assured her that at that time there was no such position and that after what I had been through with her there was no amount of money that could have covered the cost. She felt better, apologised, and then went to bed. Why was she so furious? Was that deep feeling of betrayal simply because our relationship might have been professional instead of personal?
Both of these situations are the same thing. Both of these people saw me as a friend. As soon as a professional agenda (or the possibility of one) snuck in, it changed everything. It threatened the connection they felt as human beings. It somehow shifted my intention - my motives and actions became sullied by the suggestion that they were for something other than just human connection. They were for me. They were another project, a paid position, a notch in my evangelistic belt, a feather in my God hat - you get the point.
So, Brene Brown says, what everyone really needs is deep and genuine human connection. They need other stuff of course – professional relationships that are straight up in their boundaries and skill-based function, family members who are obliged to put up with them no matter what, but the essential thing they need is connection with another human being – a true friend. And the only way to get this connection is through vulnerability.
No matter what your struggles and weaknesses are – you are worth loving
Who we really are
This is about letting our guard down, owning who we really are and sharing that with another human being. If you’ve been raised in the Church it’s a terrifying reality. What if someone actually found out that you struggle with lust? Your career would be over. What if someone else actually discovered that you were arrogant and prideful and despite your best ‘well, it’s the best I could do’ response to the praise you get at your local church, you really use every compliment as a way to pump yourself up and convince yourself that you are irreplaceable.
Fredrick Buechner opens his classic book Telling the Truth: the gospel as tragedy, comedy and fairytale with the picture of a preacher shaving. He’s looking at himself in the mirror and thinking about his own frailty, his humanness, and his sin. He cuts himself and he starts to bleed; the blood represents his vulnerability - the stuff of who he is that he can never seem to share. And every time I read that bit I think of a song by Melissa Ethridge, written when she had just come out of the closet. She sings this anthem, daring the people who hate her to cut her and find that her blood is red too. We all bleed. We all need. We all long for the kind of human connection that can let us be who we really are.
The gospel of weakness
I’ve just been re-reading the letters to the churches Paul wrote and there is such vulnerability in them. In 2 Corinthians 12 he says that there is a lot he could boast about but won’t. The only thing he’ll boast in is his own weakness. He shares his hopes and desires – his fears and his sufferings. He shares his own ‘thorn in his flesh’ that God won’t remove because he wants Paul to understand and experience grace sufficient for the day. There it is: vulnerability. Paul is human, weak, feeling like a failure and worried that all his work might be in vain. Sound familiar?
Not about others
If people’s deepest need is connection I know what you are thinking. You’re thinking about other people’s need being connection. Immediately you’re thinking about the kids in your youth group or the people you are trying to reach with the gospel. But I’m not talking about them - I’m talking to you. Your deepest need is that kind of human connection and the only way you are ever going to get it is through vulnerability.
Some of you think that you can get this need fulfilled through your ministry. That’s the biggest mistake in ministry. Trying to find your deep human connection through your profession is never going to work. You need professional relationships at work - you cannot legitimately be friends with 50 kids, it’s impossible. And you certainly don’t want to be vulnerable to them; it’s not a boundary that’s good to cross. You’ve simply got to be honest. You’ve got to be honest enough to say, ‘I’m your youth pastor’ – that’s your role in their life. Being honest about the relationship will be its own vulnerability – and that kind of truth-telling is going to free you.
Telling that truth will help you find some legitimate, personal human connection in your own life and that is the deepest longing of anyone I know in professional Christian ministry. A place where you can just be yourself. That’s friendship and it’s only possible when you find someone you are willing to risk being yourself with. It’s also only possible when you recognise your need for it and actually start looking for and fostering it.
Your own worthiness
Brene Brown says that the people who find these connections are people who believe they are worth it: people who genuinely believe that they are worthy of love and connection. This kind of scares me when I think of all the conversations I’ve had with people in ministry who don’t believe they are worthy. You are going to have to work on this one but you can believe me when I say that you are worth loving connections. No matter what your struggles and weaknesses - you are worth it.
So, thanks be to God for Paul, Brene, Fredrick and Melissa. Thanks for telling the truth and helping us to learn to peel away the facades of pretense that our ministry can ultimately hold. Thanks be to God who lets us take a deep breath of borrowed air and breathe out a sigh of relief that we are truly worthy to be loved for who we are. Thanks be to God that that love is truly enough.
Here are three take home ideas to get you started on the Paul plan for vulnerability:
Work on believing that you are worthy of love. This is a little easier to do for us who have the Bible – because God consistently spells this out: you are worthy. Make sure you take a list of what God says about you and repeat it out loud until you actually believe some of that deeply embedded worthy stuff for yourself.
Make time and space for true friends and connection. This can be tricky. But time and space will matter. Find someone you can connect with and just take a risk or two at genuine connection. Tell them the truth about some things and grow in vulnerability.
Tell the truth more. Boast in your weakness. Practise telling the truth about who you are. Stop performing. Be honest about what you can and can’t do. Stop measuring your worth on your ministry outcomes.
