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Vulnerability: A Sermonette

Vulnerability, sermonette
preached at the Methodist Building in Washington DC, August 2005

A year ago, I moved from my home in Oklahoma to experience a year of simple living and service here in DC through Gethsemane Mission Year. As part of our year, we had to work 40 hours a week at a local non-profit.

I worked at the Capital Area Food Bank, and among my jobs I had to do, I had the experience of answering our Hunger Lifeline. Hunger lifelines are phone calls from needy families and individuals. We take the call, take down their information, and then try to set them up with a local church or organization that can get them a bag of food. It's a pretty challenging task, because sometimes, you end up working two or three of these calls at once, calling dozens of agencies, trying to find a place that is both open and has a stocked pantry.

One of the most striking conditions I came face to face through these phone calls was vulnerability.

The people who called us up were rarely very happy, content, or calm. There was always a sense of vulnerability surrounding them. They had exhausted their other avenues of aid and were forced to call someone, someone they didn't know, for help. Some of the individuals, especially the men, tried to hang on to their pride through the process - they would say things like, "I don't want to do this, but there's no other way." Or they would say, "Look - I can take care of my family, but this time it felt short just once." Other people were just beaten down to the point that this was the only option. Getting food was far more important than retaining their pride.

As we ponder our scripture, we see this condition pop up again - "vulnerability". The traveler, beaten and robbed, left for dead, is a crystal clear image of vulnerability. He is going to die if someone doesn't help him. His life in the story is completely dependent on the goodwill of others. He will not survive without some help.

However, we also see the flipside of this in the story. We see the rejection of vulnerability. We see the priest and the Levite walk by, comfortable in their own schedule and pattern of living. They can't be bothered to stop. They can't be bothered to become vulnerable to this situation. There might be more robbers lurking about. The injured traveler might have a disease. Stopping to help would be dangerous!

At a recent ecumenical forum for young adults, Rev. Wilson Dickinson, a grad from Lexington Theological Seminary, gave a somewhat risque speech about our goals as Christians in regards to poverty. He talked about eradicating poverty, an agenda which we probably feel called in some way to undertake. But he forced me to stop and consider the motives behind my desire and my agenda to "eradicate poverty". After a year in DC, I definitely felt like that was something I wanted to spend my life in support of. End poverty. Let's do it. Let's improve the lives of those around us, God's people. But his point was this - had I taken the time to examine my own poverty, my own spiritual poverty? The question rattled me, because it made me realize that "eradicating poverty" would also mean making myself vulnerable in the process. I couldn't be a part of the solution from my comfortable vantage point.

This type of radical living appears in the story as the Good Samaritan, an unlikely hero. The Samaritan didn't get caught up in a comfortable life - he made himself vulnerable to the situation, saw someone in need, and in that process, was changed himself.

Like the Good Samaritan, our call as Christians is to be vulnerable. Vulnerable to new relationships with people who are radically different than us, people who have bizarre habits, people with diseases and conditions, people who don't seem to fit into our comfortable worldview. We can't change things unless we are willing to be changed as well.

So, my lesson this year was not to answer those hunger lifeline calls in a business-like, comfortable manner. My job was not to take care of them as efficiently as possible. My job was to be vulnerable to those individuals and to be vulnerable to what God was calling me to do in that time and place.

I pray that we all struggle to be vulnerable servants of Christ in this turbulent world. Amen.