Saintly Vulnerability
Luke 6:20-26
Emmanuel Baptist Church; Rev. Kathy Donley
November 2, 2025
Image: All Saints, by Kelly Latimore, 2024. Used with explicit permission.
Note: A recording of the worship service in which this sermon was preached may be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67h0GiKwf1o
Many years ago now, there was a period of time when I was one who wept. It was during a time of significant loss. I had resigned from the church I was serving. Leaving my job meant I didn’t have a sense of purpose or vocation. It also meant the loss of most of my social network and spiritual companions. I was lonely and afraid. It was a struggle to make it from Tuesday to Wednesday. I found another church, a place where I sat in the midst of the congregation and worshipped from the pews. The pastors were my colleagues and they were kind. The church members were friendly, but we were not yet really friends. I went there every Sunday because I needed to be there and I had no other place to go. But often, everything would become too much and during a hymn or a prayer, the tears would stream down my face and I would weep. And part of me would wonder if anyone noticed and what they thought about this frmer pastor sitting in their church and falling apart.
Jesus said Blessed are you who are poor. Blessed are you who are hungry. Blessed are you who weep. Blessed are you when people hate and exclude you.
Blessed is not the word we would use in that context. I have learned to be a bit suspicious when I hear that word. The angel said something like that to Mary when he told her she was pregnant with the Son of God. That was going to mean both joy and heartbreak. Jesus said it to Peter who would later be killed for his faith. When I see that word in scripture, I may say to myself “I do not think that word means what you think it means.”
That is part of Jesus’ point. He uses a word that no one expects in order to challenge assumptions. The accepted wisdom in his world and ours is that the wealthy are happy, that those whose hunger is satisfied are fortunate, that those who laugh are blessed. So Jesus speaks directly to people who think they have been overlooked, forgotten or even cursed, to say that is from far from the case.
As Luke tells it, Jesus went up a mountain to pray, and the next day, he came down to a level place where a great crowd of people had gathered. They came to listen and to be healed from illness and the presence of demons. They have many deep needs. In contrast to Matthew’s version, here Jesus does not invite them on a spiritual pilgrimage up the mountain. He does not take his disciples up the mountain to talk about the people, but Jesus comes down in their midst to talk to them and to meet them in their vulnerability.[1]
I wonder if we might say that to be blessed means to have God’s attention, to be seen by God even when no one else does.
We feel most in need of God’s attention when we are vulnerable. When we are exposed or uncertain, when we do not have the resources to meet the need at hand. When we have to ask for help. When our circumstances overwhelm us and we weep in front of strangers.
Blessed are we when we are vulnerable.
Most of us rarely seek the vulnerable place. In fact, we avoid it at all costs. Our culture teaches us that to be vulnerable is to be weak. But maybe we should listen to Jesus instead.
Brene Brown is a sociologist who has done extensive work in the area of vulnerability. Her definition of vulnerability is uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure. Vulnerability is not winning or losing. It is having the courage to show up when you can’t control the outcome. She says, “Vulnerability is not weakness. It is our most accurate measure of courage.”
I know, for some of us, this sounds too touchy-feely. But there are real-life, measurable benefits to practicing vulnerability. One example comes from deep water oil rigs. It’s mostly men who work those rigs, men who can be extremely reluctant to ask for help or admit it if they’re feeling sick on a certain day, but men who depend on each other for safety.
When the oil industry moved out to drill in very deep waters, someone realized they needed to make a change. So, while the deeper rigs were being constructed, a consultant came in to work with the teams. In one exercise, they were asked to draw their families and personal timelines and talk about them to the group. They were resistant at first, but eventually the men told stories of failed relationships and alcoholic parents. They talked about how they were hungry as children. It felt vulnerable. They put their personal life out there for everybody to hear and everybody to see.
As the men became more open with their feelings, other communication was starting to flow more freely. Part of safety in an environment like that is being able to admit mistakes and being open to learning — to say, “I need help, I can't lift this thing by myself, I'm not sure how to read this meter.”
This training helped contribute to an 84% decline in the company’s accident rate and in the same period, the company’s productivity exceeded the industry’s previous benchmark.[2]
In Luke’s version of this sermon, Jesus pronounces woes on the rich, the full, and those who are laughing. We could spend time there, scold ourselves and resolve to share more. But I think the more fruitful resolve might be to take on the practice of vulnerability. Some of you are practicing it just now, not by choice, but circumstance. Blessed are you.
But for the rest of us – let us consider what it means to practice something. I read recently about a boy who loved basketball. He played all the time, but one day, he realized he was a one-sided player. He did everything with his dominant right hand. And so, he began to practice shooting with his left. He spent several hours making hundreds of shots, one after the other. He said, “unsurprisingly the initial results were dismal and disappointing. My skinny left arm was barely strong enough to heave the ball up to the hoop. And it was far too wobbly to aim with any accuracy.” But he kept at it and after a long time, he realized that he was getting stronger and was actually able to control the ball.[3]
When we begin a new practice, we may be distressed. It may feel like a waste of time. And so, we retreat to more comfortable habits that soothe our distress. But when we don’t give up, when we keep at it, that is when we come to understand the blessing.
On this All Saints Sunday, when we think of those who blessed us, who taught us, nurtured us, passed on something important. I would bet that our sense of connection happened because at some time, they practiced vulnerability, they were authentic and real. They let us see their struggles. I think this is what it means to be a saint, not to rise above it all, or to be perfectly pious, but to keep showing up even when things are out of our control.
There was a newcomer at Dinner Church some weeks back. They showed up with courage. If you were at that table, then you heard their voice break, saw the tears which they couldn’t hold back, listened to their story of rejection and pain, but also of acceptance and love. It was a profoundly holy moment in which some of us were privileged to share because of that person’s willingness to be vulnerable.
Blessed are you who weep. You who have God’s attention. You are valued and important simply because God has made you priceless.
Blessed are all of us, because we are all broken in some way. We yearn for a world turned right-side-up. We all deserve to weep. And we all are blessed.
[1] https://www.davidlose.net/2016/11/all-saints-c-saintly-vulnerability/
[2] https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/06/17/482203447/invisibilia-how-learning-to-be-vulnerable-can-make-life-safer
[3] Andrew DeCoort, Flourishing on the Edge of Faith: Seven Practices For a New We (Washington, DC: Bittersweet Collective, 2022), pp. xxvii-xxviii