Daily Reading: 9 July

(from www.christianaid.org.uk)

Vulnerability and honesty

Something to read

If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness.

- 2 Corinthians 11:30, from full reading 2 Corinthians 11:16-33.

Something to think about

‘I believe that vulnerability – the willingness to be “all in” even when you know it can mean failing and hurting – is brave,’ said Brené Brown, research professor at the University of Houston.

Perhaps Paul was the Brené Brown of his day, encouraging those first readers or listeners of this letter to consider another way to be in the world. The way of vulnerability and honesty rather than bravado and boasting of accomplishments.

He goes to great lengths to show his weakness, describing in detail the many times he has been in danger and great risk rather than the many achievements of his ministry.

He is being persuasive to those first Christians in Corinth to not follow the way of those who will enslave them, persuaded by another kind of boasting.

It is the liberation of weakness that we are called to even in the work of Christian Aid as we sojourn with those who are defined as the weak and marginalised of the world. Those who have been ostracised, isolated, stigmatised and oppressed.

And yet it is just such a place and in such a way that we find liberation, not enslaved to the standards and pride and boasting of the world.

Something to do

Do an act of kindness today without telling anyone about it.

Something to pray

Vulnerable God

Who became weak beyond our imagining

Give us the courage to be all in

To walk humbly and live liberated

From the demands and pressures

Of boastful pride.

Amen.

Today’s contributor is Wendy Lloyd, faith communications coordinator for Christian Aid.