Practiced Vulnerability

Practiced Vulnerability--February 23, 2018

"Then Jesus called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal. He said to them, 'Take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money--not even an extra tunic. Whatever house you enter, stay there, and leave from there. Wherever they do not welcome you, as you are leaving that town shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them.' They departed and went through the villages, bringing the good news and curing diseases everywhere." [Luke 9:1-6]

It's not just what Jesus does--it's the way he does what he does that makes him so compelling.  And it's not just what we do--it's the way we are called to follow in the pattern and path of Jesus that will (or won't) make the watching world stand up and take notice.

So... for example, it's not just that Jesus healed people (there were plenty of celebrity quasi-magical traveling healers who roamed the countryside like snake-oil salesmen, after all) that makes him stand out.  It's that Jesus had this... way... of touching the lepers to heal them when he didn't have to (or, some would have said, when he shouldn't have touched them!), and that he regularly didn't make a big deal or toot his own horn when he restored the sight of the blind or raised the dead.  It wasn't just that he brought the little girl back to life--but also that he doesn't then go on a public tour showing her off like a carnival act to make everyone see how great his power is.

Or, as another case in point, it's not just that Jesus spoke the Good News of God's Kingdom, God's Reign, to people--but the way in which he did it.  You won't find a single instance of Jesus intimidating people into faith, or promising worldly wealth and a happy marriage as a perk of believing in him, and you won't find Jesus using the Scriptures as a weapon to bludgeon people with.  He evangelized--but he didn't act like a jerk or an infomercial host to do it.  And instead, he met people where they were, as they were, sometimes inviting himself over to their houses or striking up a conversation with a stranger at the well.  And as he did it, he was genuine, and he deliberately did not treat his interactions with people like a sales pitch in which he was supposed to be always "closing" the deal.  The way he spoke to people was as important as what he said--because the way he shared Good News was as much a part of what made it Good News as the words themselves.

Even the way Jesus came into town on Palm Sunday--Jesus was deliberately choosing a set of images that contrasted with the powerful military parades of Rome, when Pontius Pilate would march his armies into town, with their swords and shields gleaming in the light, the air thundering with the sounds of soldiers marching in formation, and the Roman banners declaring that Rome saw itself as the Ruler of the World and Guarantor of Peace.  And when Jesus marches into town, he deliberately turned all of that ridiculous pomposity and turned it on its head by riding in on a borrowed donkey alone, without a single bodyguard or flag in his procession.  It wasn't just the action of coming into Jerusalem--it was the way he did it that sent his message, too.  Jesus wasn't going to be one more in a long line of self-absorbed emperors, consumed with puffing up his own ego or intimidating people with a show of force. He had come to offer an alternative to that whole way of doing business--his way, the way of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

And so again and again in the Gospels, we find scenes like this one from Luke's gospel where Jesus teaches his followers, not just to do something, but to do it in a certain way.  He sends out his disciples to do the same things he has been doing--announcing the arrival of God's Reign, healing the sick, walking from town to town, casting out evil.  And more to the point, Jesus sends his followers to do what he does in the way he does it. 

Just like Jesus doesn't go out as a huckster hawking health and wealth, he has his followers go out empty-handed, as if to make it clear that they are not offering a mystical secret path to riches and glory. 

Just like Jesus himself doesn't use threats or rage or anger to spread the news of the Kingdom, he teaches his followers not to hold onto grudges or make angry threats or even shake their fists when someone doesn't receive them.  He says it's enough just to shake the dust off their feet and walk away--the disciples are not supposed to sink to the level of yelling back, or using childish insults, or calling down fire from the sky to zap their enemies.  Their willingness face rejection without becoming petulant jerks in response is part of their witness, after all--it is part of the way they will draw people to their message (because, after all, people will see them rising above it and want to be a part of a community that is mature and kind rather than childish and self-absorbed).

And like Jesus himself, marching into Jerusalem without even a hint of a security detail surrounding him in the parade, Jesus sends his followers deliberately to go into the world--friendly places and hostile places alike--with nothing in their hands, and nothing to attack with.  Not a purse or wallet, not a change of clothes... and not even a staff--the most basic weapon in history.  Jesus intentionally and explicitly sends his followers to go out into the world vulnerably, because the message they bring is about the God who enters into our vulnerability as one of us, the God who shows up nailed to a Roman cross rather than protected by a Roman cohort.  

I know Teddy Roosevelt famously suggested that foreign policy should be conducted with quiet strength rather than angry bluster with his famous dictum, "Speak softly, and carry a big stick."  But here Jesus doesn't even allow for the stick.  He sends out his followers without a staff--not because Jesus wants to make their hiking harder, but because he sends them out to embody his way of being in the world, which is always, always, always, the way of vulnerability.  

You have to imagine that some of his disciples said back to him, "But Jesus, didn't you know it's a dangerous world out there?"  "But Jesus, don't we have to be realistic about the possibility that some of those dirty, no-good Samaritans might be lurking on the road?  I've heard reports that they sometimes walk that road between Jerusalem and Jericho, after all..."  "But Jesus, what if we run into a group of people who don't like us, or who want to run us out of town?  Shouldn't we be able to protect ourselves if they try and chase us out of a town while we are doing your work and bringing your message?"  These things had to have been on the disciples' minds, and even if they couldn't dare bring themselves to say them out loud, Jesus is not stupid--he knows these are realities in a dangerous world.  Jesus has neither rose-colored glasses about the world being a safe and nice place, nor the bad theology that says God doesn't let bad things happen to faithful servants.  And yet... Jesus still sends his followers out, vulnerably, with no resources to buy anything, no change of clothes or shoes, and no means of defending themselves.  That is not an oversight nor an omission on Jesus part. Neither is it a lack of foresight about the possibility of trouble in a hostile world.  It is part of the way Jesus himself enters that same hostility. 

Sometimes we don't give Jesus credit--we act like Jesus was either unaware of the trouble in the world, blissfully ignorant of it, or naively optimistic about life.  We forget that Jesus preached sermons, not just with words, but with his own life--his way of being in the world.  Jesus encounters us with intentional vulnerability--deliberately leaving the security detail behind, because his power and presence in the world are all about the cross-born vulnerability of an Almighty God whose kingdom is seen among the lepers, the left-out, and the losers.  And so it should not surprise us that Jesus would send his followers out as living parables of the Kingdom, too, which is to say that he sends us out to practice vulnerability, because the Gospel itself is about the power of God revealed in vulnerability.

It's not just what Jesus does--it's the way he does it that drew me, I will confess.

And for someone else who watches us today, and tomorrow, and on the third day, it will be the same--the power of our witness is not just in saying things about Jesus, but in doing what we do in the way Jesus has taught us to... which is to say, with practiced vulnerability.  

Walk softly, Jesus says, without even a stick, as if you really believe that the living God will go with us and will be all we need for the journey.  Walk softly so no noisy bragging or stomping feet will overpower our witness to a God who shows up in intentional vulnerability.

Lord Jesus, send us out with enough courage to go empty-handed, as you have taught us--but then be enough for us along the way.