To Love is to be Vulnerable
To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
As usual, Lewis is poetically describing a reality we all know: It is dangerous to have friends. It can be scary to be known. When we are known, we give up some control. We give people access to our hopes, dreams, plans, and ideas. If we have friends, those friends get to have opinions about the choices we make. If we live life alongside other people, those people affect how we experience… life.
Sometimes the scariness of being known drives us to an opposite pendulum swing. As Lewis describes, we lock up our heart. We put a strong, impenetrable gate that restricts access so that we can’t be known. But the result of that choice is not more control, it is a complete loss of our self.
Being known is inherently risky. But being unknown always ends in devastation.
How do we take the risk? Who do we trust?
On the night before Jesus died, he was having dinner with his friends. He talked about being betrayed and he talked about going away. Jesus reminded them that He was making a way for them to be with Him forever.
At one point, Jesus’ friend, Philip becomes exasperated and says,
Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.
John 14: 8
Jesus replies (with some exasperation as well…)
Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip?
John 14:9
Why is Philip so resistant to knowing Jesus?
Being Known
When we get to know someone, we begin with information exchange– how you spend your time, who you spend your time with. But the movement from knowing about someone to knowing someone is the shift from information to motivation. Why did you move here? Why do you do this work? Why is that person important to you?
Jesus says to Philip— you have so much information about me. You have watched me work. You know a lot about me.
You have even heard me talk personally about why I do these works and what they say about my relationship to the Father. You know me. Do you trust me?
Philip is right on that edge of moving from knowing about someone to knowing someone. And we know that when we know someone, when the relationship becomes personal, we are taking a risk to let that person influence and shape our life. As soon as we get in to a personal friendship, we lose control.
For lots of people they resist making the shift from knowing about Jesus to knowing Jesus because they know it will make them vulnerable to His influence and leadership in their life. They would prefer to keep their heart safe.
I even feel this as new people continue to come to Restoration. It is vulnerable to come in to a new place and to open your life to new people. But the alternative is devastating.
So I am praying regularly for us– that we would have the courage to pivot from knowing about someone to knowing someone and all the consequences that has for life lived together. May you find that knowing Jesus is a profoundly safe thing in the midst of great vulnerability. And may we all have rich friendships that change and transform us for the good.
-David
March 10, 2015 @ 8:50 pm
For some reason God has spoken to me through this sermon – it has been unlike any of the 200 plus sermons I have heard David preach. That is how it feels anyway. I don’t question why, I just know it has and pray that God will do something with me through this. If you didn’t read the C.S. Lewis quote at the beginning of this blog read it again, and I pray you too are convicted by it. “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
March 10, 2015 @ 10:48 pm
Thanks so much Steve. Being known captures my greatest hope and my greatest fear. It is the place where Jesus has a unique opportunity to speak into my heart. I am grateful for your encouragement.
March 11, 2015 @ 4:48 pm
A friend sent your post to me. From my perspective, what you’ve written is true. I think what’s also true, at least from my experience, is that the consequences (of living life together) can turn out *not* to be worth the risk in the end in some cases. That the pain inherent in risking being known and then being rejected simply isn’t worth it. And I suppose, then, that Jesus can be trusted to bind up those wounds, just like He can be trusted with who we really are, with knowing us. Because, well, he’s Jesus and He will never reject us. It’s just that… sometimes the risk of vulnerability, the risk of love here on earth, in real time with real people, feels greater than the reward. And if you’ve risked a lot, and been wounded a lot — or have wounded others a lot — there’s little left in you to want to take that risk again.
March 12, 2015 @ 10:16 am
Yes. You have said it very well. The consequences of being known can seem to not be worth the risk. When we have been hurt, it can seem so much better to not allow that possibility of that pain to happen again. And in objective calculation, it might not be worth the risk.
Everyone of us has to make that calculation. And all of us are walking around, playing out the risk calculations we have made. I know that sometimes I calculated well and sometimes I missed it.
Sometimes I calculate to be more safe and cautious and in the end I wish I had opened up my heart more. Sometimes my heart gets crushed by the way someone responds to my gift of being known.
I don’t believe I can make one choice about being known that applies to every situation. Some people are more safe and some people are less. My hope is that Jesus will provide the safe people that I (in particular) need. My thanksgiving is that He always does. (My point being that he provides enough safe people but not everyone is safe.)
March 14, 2015 @ 10:32 am
Thanks for your further comments, David!
I think for me — and probably all of us — another question is, “How can I be a safe person for others?”