'When we reach out to the broken, we reach out to the God who suffers in our midst' Vulnerability and the Lenten Journey

Lent is the perfect time for us to accept our own vulnerability, to give up control and to encounter God's tenderness, says Fr Chris Thomas

Some years ago, I led a mission in a high school. One of the teachers was a very dramatic, wonderful woman, who expected a huge amount from the children. Most of the children were terrified of her.

One day, there was a message for to go to the deputy head’s office. When I arrived, this teacher was there with the deputy head and a very distressed young man called Toby. Toby was about fifteen, and had been caught in the act of throwing paint over the teacher’s car. The deputy head was reading the riot act. Eventually the teacher stood up and the boy looked really worried. She sat down next to him and began to share her story.

She had been brought up in care because of her mother’s drug problem. Her father had been absent for many years and didn’t want to know about his daughter. Toby sat there with his mouth open as she shared her story, telling him about a teacher in her own school who had believed in her. This teacher went out of her way to help our teacher deal with her brokenness. She looked at Toby and said to him: ‘If you let me, I would like to do the same for you.’ Her willingness to share her vulnerability and her brokenness was, I hope, a catalyst for Toby to turn his life around.

Entering into the path of vulnerability

Vulnerability is not a popular word in today’s society. Yet it is part of the human condition.  I have a sneaking suspicion that the Lenten journey is all about vulnerability. The way of Lent is about discovery and mystery, and being led into the depths of our vulnerable self. It begins with the strange custom of marking ourselves with ashes. What could make us more vulnerable than to admit publicly we are sinners and not in control?

As the journey unfolds, we enter more and more fully into the path of vulnerability where God becomes all in all, and we begin to recognise that, despite our futile attempts, we are not in control. When we celebrate Holy Week, we see in Jesus the human embodiment of vulnerability — a bleeding, broken, mess, hanging on a cross.

Vulnerability always compels us to move beyond ourselves. Whenever we see real pain, most people find a depth of compassion within which causes them to act for the one who is in need. When we reach out to the broken and needy, we are reaching out to the God who suffers in our midst.

'It’s usually only when we are vulnerable that God can reveal God’s tenderness to us'

Through the doors of our centre, at The Irenaeus Project, come many suffering people. We meet those seeking asylum, those who have no language to communicate their need other than the pain in their eyes. We meet those caught in addictions, and we meet the lonely, the frightened and the poverty-stricken. Vulnerability pushes us beyond the safe boundaries we create for ourselves into ministry.

It’s usually only when we are vulnerable that God can reveal God’s tenderness to us and His desire to be in an intimate, vulnerable relationship with us. We are drawn into the mystery because of vulnerability.

This Lenten journey will, if we face our vulnerability, lead us more fully into the mystery of grace as God works within us — only with permission, of course — to free us from our control needs, and to open us to the vulnerability of others. It is precisely in this experience of vulnerability that we can meet the reality of God and begin to understand that salvation comes to us as we increasingly open ourselves to God and to God’s ways.

This Lent, get in touch with your vulnerability and build the Kingdom of God in your midst.

Pictures: CHARIS International

• Fr Chris Thomas is Director of The Irenaeus Project