Risking Vulnerability in Advent

Matthew 2:18-25

“Be safe!” Did you ever hear your parents say this to you, perhaps as you went out to play in the yard, or when you started driving, or when you went off to school? I certainly have, and I’m somewhat embarrassed to say that the older I get, I find myself saying, “Be safe,” to those I love more and more often. Desiring safety for those we love is part and parcel of the human condition, and, of course, there’s nothing wrong with it. But it’s only part of the story.

Healthy human life balances between safety and risk. If we have too much risk, we die. But if we have too much safety, we experience a kind of spiritual death. So the risk we seek is the right risk at the right time.

Joseph takes the right risk at the right time because of his faith. Joseph is asked to stick it out with a woman who has been found to be pregnant before marriage, and Joseph knows he himself is not the father. Joseph assumes tremendous financial and social risk by assenting to the angel’s command, but he has faith, and stands by his wife-to-be.

Mary also makes the right risk at the right time. This particular passage doesn’t focus much on Mary, but she probably had a sense that she was risking lifelong abandonment, both financially and socially, by winding up pregnant before marriage. She was even liable to be put to death, according to Dt 22.

Just like Mary and Joseph, God makes the right risk at the right time by becoming human. This is risky because we humans are so vulnerable, prone to sickness, disease, violence, and ultimately death. But God loves us enough to say “Yes,” even to our vulnerability. Indeed this vulnerability is one of the central attributes of the God we find in Jesus! The God who is with us as a baby, the God who is with us on the cross, this Emmanuel God is vulnerability-with-us in our most difficult times. This God in Christ is not invincibility-with-us, is not omnipotence-with-us, is not overwhelming-military-force-with-us. God is vulnerability-with-us, impermanence-with-us, fragility-with-us. And this changes everything.

There is a French Catholic priest named Jean Vanier who founded some communities in 1964; he claims that vulnerability is right at the heart of the human condition. The communities he founded are residential homes where people with developmental disabilities live alongside others who are willing to accompany them in their vulnerability. One does not earn much—if any—money living in these communities. One does not gain social status and prestige living in these communities. One assumes financial and social risk by living in these communities, alongside those who are in need. Not only does accompanying people with disabilities in these communities reflect God’s love to others, but Jean Vanier proclaims that when we accompany people who are vulnerable we come to know Jesus. Vulnerability is the right risk at the right time.

Now, there is a sense in which we assume vulnerability in solidarity with others, true. But there is also a sense in which we don’t have to assume vulnerability at all. We simply are vulnerable. Sociologist Brené Brown has recognized this in her research on vulnerability. She claims that those who live the most heartfelt, meaningful lives recognize their own vulnerability and say “yes” to it.

Saying “yes” to vulnerability, of course, takes courage. Imagine the courage of the young Chinese man who stood in front of tanks in Tiananmen Square on June 5th, 1989. Imagine the courage of civil rights walkers who endured police cudgels and bludgeonings on March 7th, 1965 outside Selma, Alabama. Imagine the courage it takes to say to a family member, “I’m sorry. That was selfish of me.”

God begins the narrative by risking vulnerability as a human being. Joseph and Mary continue the narrative by risking vulnerability with each other and with Jesus. God empowers us to continue the narrative of risking vulnerability both inside the church and outside the church, in our families, at the supper table, in school with our teachers, with our students, in the voting booth, and on Facebook! If we are not risking ourselves to stand in solidarity with the vulnerable, we are missing something central indeed. But when we do risk vulnerability with others, we see how God is born among us, Emmanuel, yet again.

This Advent, in particular, is a vulnerable time for our country, especially considering the transition of administrations and the precipitous rise in hate-based incidents across our country. This Advent is surely a time when there is an opportunity for each of us to risk something of ourselves. Our community banners are an example of this risk to stand in solidarity with those who are disproportionately vulnerable. These banners read: “God loves. We love. Everyone.” And then they go on to list many marginalized groups. The council deliberated and discerned how to respond to the increase in hate-based rhetoric and action in our country, and considered the risk associated with making this clear statement of vulnerability with all our neighbors. And the community banners are not the end, but a continuation of a Christian vocation in community. We can continue the conversation this Advent, the conversation started so long ago by God.

So now, what are we willing to risk this Advent in order to stand with the Mary’s in our lives? What are we willing to risk this Advent in order to stand with those who are vulnerable in our own families? What are we willing to risk this Advent in order to stand with those who are black, brown, indigenous, gay, lesbian, transgender, Muslim, immigrant, refugee, you name it!?! God risks vulnerability in Jesus. Joseph and Mary risk vulnerability with each other, with God, and with Jesus. What are we willing to risk this Advent? God gives the love. Let us risk it away. Amen.

Telling Stories for Healing

Happy New Year! For many people the first of the year is a time of remembering and telling stories. So much has happened in the past 365 days, undoubtedly some of which was hard, or even traumatic. Telling these stories might seem daunting to the point that we’d rather not speak of them at all.

Few people escape a year of life on this earth without acquiring a difficult story to tell: Syrian bloodshed, mass shootings, the devaluing of certain people’s voices within our families, the slow but persistent destruction of addiction in our lives…the difficult stories of a year take on many different shapes and forms. Think back on the past year and bring to mind a difficult story, whether large or small… Hold this story gently in your hands and close to your heart. When we tell our stories in a safe space, God is working toward healing in our lives.

Our human stories and God’s healing work go back for a very long time. We hear one such story in Matthew’s gospel today. Long ago, Herod was in power and he felt his power to be threatened. He manipulated people to try to achieve security for himself, but when that didn’t work, he had all of the children of Bethlehem that were 2 y/o or younger killed. Bethlehem had a population of about 1,000 people at that time, and because of population distributions leaning toward the young, the death toll very easily could have been greater than 100 people. The people of the community were, as Jeremiah predicted, wailing, weeping, lamenting, and refusing to be consoled.

We don’t really know why Matthew’s community held onto this story, but they did. After all, it’s an unlikely story to include in a gospel; it doesn’t exactly make a strong case for Jesus’ value as Messiah. I can almost hear overtones of grief in the Bethlehem community: “If this is the kind of thing that comes along with the Messiah, then count us out. You can keep your Messiah, God, and we’ll keep our children.” But for some reason, it was important enough for them to tell and retell this story for 75 years, until Matthew finally put it down on papyrus.

We also don’t know about the connections between the Bethlehem community who suffered this tragedy and the Matthean community of the gospel narrative. I wonder if the people of Matthew’s community had indeed been affected by Herod’s violence, and I wonder if retelling that story over 75 years was part of God’s healing work in their lives. Perhaps the Matthean community itself didn’t know why they retold the story over time, but they trusted that God would somehow make sense of it all.

There are many parallel examples from our modern day of storytelling-as-God’s-healing-work. For one example, take addiction recovery. Addiction is an enslavement to a substance or a series of thoughts, words, or deeds. There is addiction to gambling, drugs, sex, alcohol, power, money, food, television, and the list goes on… In the midst of addiction the addict does all kinds of hurtful things to self and others. But the process of recovery from addiction involves—in part—telling the truth of what we have done while in the grips of our addiction. On the surface, such a task seems overwhelmingly simple, but in practice, telling the truth to ourselves and others can be extremely hard. Experience reveals, however, that when we shine light on the skeletons in our closet by telling our stories honestly, we regain clarity and a taste of freedom. It is altogether reasonable that Herod was addicted to power, and his addiction caused tremendous harm. Matthew’s community told and retold that story, trusting in God’s creativity to bring about healing.

Another example of healing through stories is the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa post-apartheid in the 1990’s. The deal was this: amnesty would be granted to all who told the truth. This radical proposition challenges our punishment-oriented models of justice tremendously, but the reality of the Commission witnesses to the power of human stories, even at their worst, to bring healing. The Commission recognized, in part, that when people had the chance to speak and listen to what really happened, more healing would emerge than if people were punished for their sins in a transactional framework. The TRC is not a transactional framework. It is a grace-centered framework. I don’t know that Herod ever told the story of his violence, but Matthew’s community told that story. They didn’t make Herod out to be a villain either. They simply said, “This is what happened, and this is how it affected the community.” The rest is God’s business.

So I wonder what will happen with our difficult stories from 2016. Will we courageously speak to our trusted friends the truth of what happened? If the Bible is any reliable indication, God seems to have a deep capacity to hold difficult stories, even without the need to explain them away, or even for them to make sense. She certainly has the capacity to hold our stories as she held the story of Herod within the Matthean community for decades. And she certainly has the capacity to heal the wounds of our lives by shaping our stories as they come out of our mouths. There is so much to learn and explore in storytelling. God works for healing within the stories of our lives just as God worked for healing in the Matthean community as they retold the difficult Herod story for so many years. God works for healing in our lives as we tell and retell the stories of 2016. God creatively heals us through our stories. Which ones will we share from last year? Which ones will we create for this year? Share your stories. God can hold them. And God can heal them. Amen.