Following Jesus: Vulnerability Required
Guarantees? Maybe. Mystery? Certainly.
When was the last time you were truly vulnerable with another person?
Your therapist? Your Spiritual Director? Your spouse or your friend? Really Vulnerable. Naked. Exposed. Authentically present with no pretending or pretense. No filter. No makeup. No plan.
Dr. Brene Brown defines vulnerability as showing up to your life without any guarantees.
To practice vulnerability is to choose to be rigorously honest with those around you, through your actions and your words, about who you are and what you need. It requires a willingness to be seen for who we are, not who we want to be.
If you are like most American Christians, vulnerability is hard for you at best and illusive, or impossible at worst. We have inherited a Christian system (I’m referring here primarily to the Evangelical church in the West because that is where I have served for over 20 years.) built on the illusion of certainty. Memorize these five points, pray this prayer, and rest easy because you will go to heaven when you die. In contrast to the certainty that is taught in most churches, Jesus taught more about mystery than he did about certainty. Primarily, he taught in obscure, puzzling stories called parables. In these stories, he taught that the reign of God is here.
Cryptically, he invited his followers: Can you see it? Behold, taste, touch, smell! Can you hear it? It’s God’s reign breaking in. And it’s happening right now all around you!
“Where?” his followers might have asked.
It’s here! It’s at hand. Look, it’s like this yeast that this woman hid in the dough and it corrupted the whole batch.
Can you hear it? It’s the sound of a father’s running footsteps sprinting towards his rebellious son.
Can you see the dust scattering, can you smell the fish they are separating? It’s all showing us that God is in charge and that He is inviting us to join in.
Through studying and meditating on the teaching of Jesus, we find that this reign of God will infiltrate every nook and cranny of the human heart just as it expands out to the highways and byways, seeking beyond the individual and even the community to transform every system, every culture, and the entire world. We find it leveling playing fields, flipping religious altars on their heads, and scattering seeds all over the place in an uncontrolled fashion.
And yet, in the Christian evangelical West, we have taken this gloriously comprehensive, captivating mysterious experience of the Kingdom of God and reduced it to a get-out-of-jail-free card. Believe this, get this in return. Do this, get this back. Like a tamed lion at the Zoo, we have metaphorically said to Jesus, ‘Stay over there in that cage. We will look at you, wave at you, and even come close enough to touch the glass that shields you from us, but we won’t let you out.’ The way that Jesus taught disrupted certainty. In contrast, he broadened the playing field. He redefined the categories. He answered questions with questions. Certainty was not his goal.
So all of this makes me think, what if one of the problems in the American church is that people are no longer captivated by a gospel of certainty? What if one of the reasons the church, nationwide, is experiencing a rapid decline in giving and attendance, is that the message of certainty is failing people? The exchange is no longer working. Churches that offer certainty and ask for a commitment in return are not holding up their end of the deal. Because what happens when what you know to be true is proven false? What happens when the people you love are not included in the church because of factors they can’t control? What happens when you believe that good will triumph and it doesn’t? Certainty is a fragile god.
I wonder what would happen if we took Dr. Brene Brown’s definition of vulnerability and applied it to our Christian life.
What if the invitation from the church to the world was this:
Show up today without any guarantees.
Show up to Jesus without any guarantees.
Show up to this community seeking the experience of mystery and not certainty.
As a Church leader, I can tell you that I know what I know with 100% certainty. But that would be a lie. The truth is, what I know today is what I know today.
I wonder if people would be more compelled to come to Church if they were invited to join a mysterious experience instead of being invited to simply come to certain conclusions.
I want people to join our church not because we have all the right answers, or the same answers. I want people to join our church because we are embarking on a mysterious journey. One where we are following the uncaged Messiah, who scatters seed recklessly and loves unconditionally, calls inclusively and transforms any who will consent to journey with Him.
Ah, but that is a very vulnerable place. And also, maybe, the most honest place.
“Certainty is a fragile God” - I’ll have to remember that line. That really encapsulates so much of what is wrong with the contemporary evangelical church.