4th December 2011

The Grace of Vulnerability – Part 2

It seems such a paradox, but one of the ways we manifest God in our lives is to be vulnerable. We’re taught NOT to be vulnerable – but to be strong, to avoid suffering – we’re especially taught this in the Church. However, the choice to be vulnerable is:

… first of all, a manifestation of our strength, our freedom, and our true identity in Christ.

… secondly, it is the Jesus the world longs to see – the Jesus (in us) who loves them utterly.

And to embrace this grace – the grace of vulnerability – sets us free from the terrible burden of having to have all the answers, having to have the precise insight, having to be right, or having to be universally accepted.

•There’s no longer a wall we have to maintain to create the right impression … it releases us to be authentic, sincere and humble. (NB: the definition of religiousness is spiritual pretense).
•It’s OK to ask the dumb question – the answer to which might be obvious to everyone else.
•It releases true empathy rather than sympathy which is often construed as being condescending.
•And by taking the inferior position it easier to listen.
•And the most powerful consequence of embracing the grace of vulnerability is that we stop needing to have the answer, but instead we introduce people to the Answer – Jesus the perfect expression of the Father love of God.
•And Jesus loves that person utterly.

I’d like to talk about Jesus.

The particular vulnerability embraced by God is the vulnerability of unrequited love. That is, loving somebody, adoring someone, who seems totally unaware that you even exist. There’s a great deal of powerlessness, even pain, in unrequited love. For love to be love it must first be vulnerable to the possibility of rejection.

This is the divine paradox – that the omnipotent God can stand powerless before us His created creatures.

•If all we teach is the self-sufficiency of God; our personal prayer and devotion will only ever be some kind of duty, rather than an opportunity to meet a need in His great heart.
•Instead of being called to friendship, too many Christians remain the realm of obligation.

If we hold the truth that Jesus is Lord - He is self-sufficient, without desiring the fulfilment of any need – because He has no need … If we hold that in isolation, separate from the truth of His humanity, it actually becomes heresy.

•As human, Jesus reveals a vulnerable part of the nature of God almost forgotten to much of the church.
•Without this truth, Christ becomes distant, and gives to Him the attributes of a rigid and unmoved God, One who is neither vulnerable nor in need of anything, least of all us – this is a God who cannot suffer, and this is a heresy.
•This view of God maintains the “lie of the ages” – the lie of separation.
•Seeing the vulnerable God reverses the lie and presents to the world an accessible, personally loving, empathetic Father who longs for us, who needs us.
•In fact, it is precisely this one truth that defines and characterises the Christian God from every other. It is the God of the Bible alone who can suffer – only the Christian God reveals vulnerability.
•It is the Christian God alone who reveals Himself as hungrily yearning for the company of His people.
•James 4:5 The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously.

I’m not trying to say that God is a needy God, but that in His sovereign freedom He has freely chosen to make Himself vulnerable to our choices, our affections, our rejections, so that we ourselves can meet a need in his great heart.

As well as this, there is an argument that quite simply states that if He didn't need you, then you simply would not have come into existence. It is inconceivable that God would create us already redundant – He doesn’t create what He doesn’t want.

•To help us with this, here’s a famous quote from Augustine: “You have made us for Yourself O God, and our hearts remain restless until they find their rest in thee.”
•But if we turn this around and reason it from the heart and mind of God – that His heart remains restless and lonely and alone until you give Him your love and your attention and meet that need in His life that only you can meet.
•An infinite God must have an infinite variety of people by which to express His nature through; and in doing so, we meet His own deep need for intimacy (koinonia).
•There is a gap in His great heart that is your size, exactly. And He remains restless until you fill it.

Consider what is not said by these scriptures: “Behold I stand at the door and knock”. Why would He knock if He didn’t desire your friendship? Why would He remain if He wasn’t yearning for your company?

What about Jesus’ words to the disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane? “Will you not watch with me for even one hour while my soul is troubled?” This is His vulnerable heart longing not to be alone.

Or what about God calling for Adam in the Garden of Eden, “Adam, where are you?” Why would He search if He didn’t desire?

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often have I longed to gather you as a hen gathers her chicks, but you wouldn’t have it.” (Matthew 23:37)

Now we know that every person is utterly unique (finger-print, iris, DNA – let alone the uniqueness of your soul and spirit).

•The message of your uniqueness is that you and you alone are able to meet a desire in the heart of God that no other person on the planet can ever meet.
•If you choose to ignore Him in your daily life there is no other person who can meet it. It must go forever lost to Him. He cannot simply photocopy off another one to replace you – if He could, you wouldn’t be unique.
•This isn’t just the God who loves you the patronising way that you may love a puppy.
•And I’m not saying that God depends on you for His existence. But your God submits Himself to your choices for no other reason than that He loves you, indeed is in love with you in a vulnerable fashion.
•The way we might see women in love with a man who’s hurting them, who’s abusing them, but they remain in love with him and make themselves vulnerable to him.

It is amazing, but this vulnerable God can be lonely for your attention and company, and thirst for the love of you. When you’re too busy or too distracted to pay Him any heed … this is a revelation that will not leave you the same, once you get it. Once you understand this, devotional time with God will not be duty or an obligation. Every day you will look forward to being able to give Him your time, you love and your friendship because you know that you can have an impact, an effect, on His heart.

Think of this picture of absolute vulnerability – Almighty God becoming a baby in the arms of a teenage girl, sleeping in a stable, part of a young family so that He is yielded to their own frail choices. This is the human face that has become hidden behind our oft repetition that Jesus is God over all.

The amazing foundation for self-worth is grounded in God’s desire for you. To say that self-worth and self-esteem is self-generated is a false, ‘new age’ position, and not Biblical.

•What a wonderful knowledge upon which to build your sense of who you are.
•When your husband doesn’t admit to needing you; when your children leave home and don’t seem to need you, when your wife doesn’t have that sense of enjoying or wanting your company.
•Here’s the true source of self-worth that every other theory must give way to.

Jesus, like a lover, is in love with you – he’s been that way from before the foundation of the world – and as such, is shockingly vulnerable to your sovereign power to spurn him.

Soren Kirkegard tells of a great king who fell madly in love with a peasant girl, and began to conspire as to how he might take her as his wife.

-His first idea was that he would march through the village, his pomp and glory on display, overwhelm her family and whisk them away to the palace to live happily ever after – how could a peasant girl resist? But then he thought, “I could never be sure if she was coming for me or for my glory, would it be me she was in love with, or the glory of her circumstance as queen of my realm?”

-His second thought was that he would order her to be his wife and threaten her with peril should she refuse. But again, he reasoned, how could I know that she loved me for who I am if I threatened to throw her into the dungeon if she refuses to love me or to come and know and trust me. So her renounced force a s a way of achieving his end.

-Finally, it occurred to the king that there was only one way that he could have a bride that would be a friend and companion and to meet the need of his heart. He turned pale at the thought when he realised that the only way for authentic love to blossom was for him to adopt the way of powerlessness. He would need to adopt the guise of a servant, perhaps set up a stall in the market next to hers. He would need to reveal himself little by little and to earn her trust with no pomp, circumstance or threat of punishment, he understood he needed to earn her trust as a vulnerable man without power and without glory.

Kirkegard wrote that this is why our God has renounced the use of force to achieve his end. He has become vulnerable and we are able to refuse Him and reject Him in His quest for a bride.

The uniqueness of the Eternal Father is not difficult to grasp, He is the non-staunch God who is just hanging-out to hang-out with you.

An associate of mine, David Riddell (a professional counsellor) shares this story …

I had a phone call one day from a person I had been counselling who was suffering with deep and darkest depression. She said to me, “thank you for your help, but I cannot pull out of this, I am calling to say goodbye” – and I knew what she was threatening to do.

I said, “you cannot leave us”, she said, “why?” I said, “you are still needed.” She laughed a hollow laugh and said, “no I am not needed: my boyfriend has rejected me and dumped me, my mother doesn’t want me, I’m a nuisance to the family, and the church that I go to wouldn’t even know if I was missing.”

I said, “that may be true, but you cannot leave because you are still needed.” “How am I needed,” she asked. I said, “actually, God still needs you.” And she laughed – I will never forget that laugh – she said, “actually, my own church has taught me that God doesn’t need me, God doesn’t need anybody.”

Once we see the vulnerability of God; to choose the grace of vulnerability as an attitude in life becomes a thing not to be feared – taking the inferior position is not to be feared, rejection is not to be feared, listening or simply being quiet with a person (e.g. Pete) – not having to fill the void with our insights – is not to be feared, appearing weak or vulnerable is not to be feared.

We do people a great disservice by presenting a God who considers humanity as something of an after-thought. But rather to reveal a God who yearns for friendship, we are revealing the reason for life itself …

… you are needed by a God who makes Himself vulnerable to you.