Vulnerability
Sermon — August 16, 2026
The Rev. Greg Johnston
Lectionary Readings
Just before I left for vacation, movie theaters around the world began showing the epic action fantasy film The Odyssey. Has anyone seen it? I haven’t. And in fact, I forgot my copy of The Odyssey at home, so I didn’t even read any Homer on the beach. But I did read an adaptation that I hadn’t read before: a novel by Natalie Haynes entitled A Thousand Ships, a re-telling of the stories of the Trojan War from the perspectives of the women involved.
It’s a great book, a powerful reminder of the horrors that lurk behind these stories of war. And it reminded me of one of the ironies of epic tales: the heroes involved are often physically very strong and emotionally very fragile. Most of the first half of the Iliad consists of Achilles pouting over a slight; I don’t want to spoil the ending of The Odyssey for anyone who hasn’t found time to read it in the last 3000 years, but I can’t help but think that it would’ve ended a little differently if Odysseus could gather up the courage to talk to his wife. The ultimate Homeric hero is Achilles, who is almost entirely invulnerable; but the “almost” makes all the difference. He’s almost completely safe from harm, but can be killed by an arrow to the heel; he’s completely unmoved by the victims of his violence, but his world is completely shattered by the death of his best friend. For all his invulnerability, he’s a very vulnerable man.
The Bible has its own fragile heroes of this kind. But its central stories are different; they’re stories in which vulnerability itself is the source of strength. And there’s a paradox there. “Vulnerability” is Latin for “the ability to be wounded.” To be vulnerable means to be in a situation where you can get hurt. And yet, in our readings from Genesis and Matthew today, this very vulnerability—this possibility of being wounded—is itself the source of healing and of growth.
We began with the beautiful scene in which Joseph is reunited with his brothers. The story of Joseph is its own epic tale. His father’s favorite, he was envied by his brothers, who threw him into a pit in the wilderness to be devoured by wild beasts. He was “rescued” only by being captured and enslaved. He spent years in Egypt, where his prophetic powers eventually made him one of Pharaoh’s most important advisers. He foretells a famine, and makes plans to secure Egypt’s supply of food. And then the famine comes. And Joseph’s brothers come to Egypt, along with many other refugees, to ask for help. They don’t know that Joseph’s there. Even when they see him face to face, they don’t recognize that it’s him. It’s been years. He’s grown up. They had left him for dead in the wilderness; the last thing they’re expecting is to see him holding court in Egypt.
And so Joseph has a choice. He can choose to take revenge on the brothers who had wronged him. He has all the power here. He’s already planted evidence on them once, during this long story; he could fabricate any charges and have them thrown in jail. Or he can choose to pretend that they mean nothing to him. He can act fairly, treating them like all those other refugees, who’d come to Egypt from a foreign land. He can act as if he’s simply an Egyptian court official to them, nothing more. Or he can reach out. He can reveal who he is. He can tear open the wounds of the past; he can run the risk that the brothers who rejected him once will reject him once again.
It would be safer and easier to be invulnerable here; to stay behind the armor of his uniform and his title and let his brothers go away hungry. But if he lets his guard down, then he might see his father again. If he reveals who he is, then he can embrace his brother Benjamin once more. And so, he does an extraordinary thing. Picture the scene from his brothers’ perspective. This mighty man, from whom they’ve come to beg for help—this man, who’s already accused them of theft once—sends everyone out of the room. What’s he about to do? How bad will this be if he wants all the witnesses gone?
And then he begins to weep. “I’m Joseph,” he says. “Is my father still alive?” (Genesis 45:3)
Generations later, another stranger comes for help to another mighty man. A Canaanite woman from the district of Tyre and Sidon—a Phoenician woman, in other words, in what’s now Lebanon—comes to Jesus and cries out, “Have mercy on me Lord…my daughter is tormented!” (Matthew 15:22) But Jesus doesn’t answer her at all. His disciples come to him and say, “You know, this woman’s being awfully loud; could you please send her away?” Jesus answers, enigmatically, that he was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel; that is to say, he didn’t come to help the other tribes and nations of the world. But the woman comes to Jesus and she kneels before him. And she simply says, “Lord, help me.” She assumes a posture of vulnerability, of supplication and prayer. She puts her in a position, both physically and emotionally, where she can be hurt.
And she is hurt, in fact. It’s a troubling story. Jesus seems callous to this woman. “It’s not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs,” he says. (Matthew 14:26) At best, he’s testing her to see what she will say, with no malice in his heart but not with much compassion, either. At worst, it’s a nasty insult with ethnic and gender connotations. Maybe we read too much into this across two thousand years of cultural change, or maybe it’s just as painful as it seems. We don’t know how she feels. But we know how she responds. She pushes back against this powerful man. She takes his argument in its own terms and showing him that the conclusion should be reversed: “Yes, Lord,” maybe I am a dog. “Yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” (Matt. 15:27) Maybe she changes Jesus’ mind. Maybe she passes whatever test he had set. But Jesus answers her, “Woman great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And “instantly,” her daughter is healed. (15:28)
The circumstances of human life have changed dramatically over the years. None of us live as heroes in epic tales. You will probably never weep before the brothers who tried to send you to your death, embracing them and welcoming them to the land that will save their lives. You will probably never kneel before a Savior, knowing he’s the only one who can heal your child. I certainly hope that you, unlike the ancient Greeks, can work out your emotional and romantic conundrums without a spear in hand. But while circumstances change, human nature really doesn’t. And it is every bit as true for us that vulnerability is at the heart of human connection, and maybe of human strength.
When I think of Joseph, I think of all the times it would be easier to take revenge on those who’ve wronged, us to cut them out of our lives, rather than to reach out to them with forgiveness and grace. When I think of the Canaanite woman kneeling before the man she identifies as the son of a foreign king, I think of all those protestors who’ve put their bodies on the line, making themselves vulnerable to call powerful people to account; and I think of all of us who kneel in prayer, asking what we need of a God who sometimes seems not to be listening. When I think of Odysseus on his journey home, I don’t think of 3 hours of epic IMAX adventures; I think of a man staring, heartbroken, at the waves, separated from his family for twenty years because the King of Sparta was brave enough to lead a thousand ships to take his wife back from her newfound love, but not brave enough to let her go instead. (But what do I know? I haven’t seen the movie yet.)
It’s not easy to make ourselves vulnerable. It is, by definition, always a risk. And yet vulnerability is essential to growth in our own talents and to connection with other people; it’s at the heart of our ability to repair the ruptures that inevitably happen in an imperfect world. It takes great courage to be vulnerable, but in the end, it is the way that we draw closer to one another, and to a God who—in Jesus—became vulnerable for us.
