Video Transcript: Vulnerability

Welcome back to Mental Health Integration. This week we are talking about  vulnerability and what it means to ask for help. What it means, what it was  originally made for, what is this thing. 

Now as part of your homework for this week, you got to watch Brene Brown's  TED Talk on vulnerability, which is one of the greatest and most succinct ways  to express exactly what this vulnerability thing is. Brene is one of the top  researchers in the world on vulnerability, and on authenticity, and on shame.  And those are all tied directly together. 

And if we're talking about what it is to need help, and what it is to take care of  ourselves, and what it is to be in community, we cannot have that discussion  without talking about shame, vulnerability, and how they work together. So we're going to jump into this. This side of the conversation is going to be focused on  the biblical basis of vulnerability and shame, but know that it's completely  consistent with what Brene says, and that she really encapsulated that well. So if you have not watched that yet, please watch it, and then you might want to watch it again. In the meantime, we're going to jump into what the Bible says  about vulnerability, and what it is to be made in a place without shame. So get  ready. 

Here we go. It all starts in Genesis. And in Genesis 2:8-14, we read, that the  Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden. 

And there he put the man he had formed. The Lord God made all kinds of trees  grow out of the ground, trees that were pleasing to the eye, and good for food.  In the middle of the garden were the tree of life, and the tree of the knowledge  of good and evil. 

A river watering the garden flowed from Eden. From there it was separated into  four headwaters. The name of the first is the Pishon. 

It winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. The gold of that  land is good. Aromatic resin and onyx are also there. 

The name of the second river is Gihon. It winds through the entire land of Cush. The name of the third river is the Tigris. 

It runs along the east side of Ashur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. The  Lord took the man, and put him in the garden of Eden to work it, and to care for  it. 

And the Lord God commanded the man, you are free to eat from any tree in the  garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  For when you eat of it, you will certainly die. We're going to start there. Before there's companions, and before there's all sorts of complicated things  going on, we're going to walk through this creation narrative again, because it is so important and pivotal to understanding what it is to be human.  Before Genesis 3 happens, Genesis 1 and 2 happen. And the model of what it  means to be human, it's laid out before the fall.

What we notice about God is that God is putting Adam, he's plucking him into a  really good place. He's dropping him into a place where there is agriculture,  where there is water, where there is food. He's putting him in a place where the  middle of the garden there is life, and there is the tree of knowledge of good and evil. 

He's planting him in a place where he is. Now this continues. The Lord God said it is not good for the man to be alone. 

I will make a helper suitable for him. Now the Lord God had formed out of the  ground all of the wild animals and all of the birds of the sky. He brought them to  the man to see what he would name them. 

And whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the  man gave names to all the livestocks, the birds in the sky, and all the wild  animals. God is continuing to bring Adam into dominion. 

He's continuing to create, you know, his identity. And his identity thus far is he  has authority over this space. It's his to farm, it's his to grow things on, it's his to  take care of. 

And now all of these animals are coming out and they're his to name. Adam has complete authority over this place and complete autonomy. He has so much  power in this place because God is giving him that power. 

And then things keep changing. But for Adam, no suitable helper was found. So after looking at all the wild animals, there's nobody. 

So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep. While he was  sleeping, he took out one of the man's ribs and closed up that place with flesh.  Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib that he had taken out of the  man. 

And he brought her to the man. The man said, this is bone of my bones and  flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman for she was taken out of man. This is why a man leaves his father and mother and he's added to his wife and  they become one flesh. Adam and his wife were both naked and they felt no  shame. It's important for us to know that in the creative narrative, there is no  mention of shame or vulnerability because there was none of it in Genesis 1  and 2. Adam and Eve exist in the garden with full and complete autonomy, full  and complete power, full authority, and complete vulnerability. The two of them are naked and unashamed. They are out there undressed in  front of each other and in front of God. There are no limits. 

There's nothing holding them apart from each other. They're completely open to one another. And this is part of what it means to be made human. I am not saying we all need to run around naked. The last thing that you need is for me to do that. But I am saying that there is an element of vulnerability that is  core to the human experience that is actually designed in Genesis 1 and 2 and  put forth here by God that is critically important to what it means to be human.

And that is that we are known to know someone and we are known to and we  are created to be known. By someone. That there is this unveiling of ourself that is critically important to being fully human. 

And that process is completely counter to shame. Shame is the process of  saying I am bad. Vulnerability says I am worth being unveiled. There's a process of worthiness and a process of power that comes with  vulnerability. And it doesn't exist with shame. And you see that through the  narrative, right? Can you imagine what it's like to be Adam and Eve in this  moment? There is no knowledge that anything else could even exist. There is no knowledge that any lesser form of intimacy could exist. There is no  doubt that this just is what it is. God is with us. 

We are with each other. It's perfect. This is the way it ought to be. There's not even the knowledge that it's perfect. Ironically enough. Or they  probably wouldn't eat their fruit in Genesis 3. But there is this complete  openness. 

What would that be like? Because most of us don't have that in any relationship. The number of people that I've talked to who said, I will never even tell my  wife this. Or I will never tell my husband. 

Or I will never tell my mom or my dad. Or I can never tell my friend this.  Because it might just hurt them. 

There's a piece of us that seems like we always hold back. We're never just  fully known. But the Bible says this is the way that we were created is to be fully known. 

Not to have any reservations. Not to have anything that we're holding back. To  be fully out there with our loved ones. 

And this breaks in Genesis 3. In Genesis 3, when the woman saw the fruit of  the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye and also desirable for  gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She gave some to her husband  who is with her and he ate it. Then their eyes of both of them were opened and  they realized they were naked so they sewed fig leaves together and make  coverings for themselves. 

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking  in the garden in the cool of the day and they hid from the Lord God among the  trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, where are you? He  answered, I heard you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked so  I hid. And he said, who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the  tree which I commanded you not to eat? This is the introduction of shame. It doesn't say it in the text but they were naked without shame and then they're  not. This is very clearly the introduction of shame, the introduction of  brokenness in the fall. And shame is the thing that keeps us from being present  with ourselves or present with others.

This is the thing that says I am not good enough. The definition that Brene gives often is that guilt is I did something bad, shame is I am something bad. And you  see both with Adam here and both with Eve here that both of them need to hide. That I did something bad, I ate the apple, but now I need to hide. I need to run  

away. Right? There's a fear of being found out and a fear of not being good  enough. 

Everything that was the unity and that was vulnerability and authenticity, it's  gone. So that continues the narrative. To the woman God said, I will make your  pains and childbearing very severe. 

With painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for  your husband and he will rule over you. To Adam he said, because you listened  to your wife and ate fruit from the tree which I commanded you, you must not  eat of it. 

Cursed is the ground because of you. Through painful toil you will eat food from  it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you and you will  eat the plants of the field. 

By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground,  since from it you were taken. For dust you are and to dust you will return. Adam  named his wife Eve because she would become the mother of all the living. And this is the way that we see the creation start and the way that we see the  creation move forward is everything now is couched in shame. Everything is  couched in, are you good enough? Are you powerful enough? Are you capable  enough? All of those questions but underneath all of that is, are you good  enough? And the answer is, I don't know. We're always waiting for an external  stimuli to tell us, are you good enough? And in many cases we can't even hear  it when God does. 

The story of the Bible over and over is people like Saul reaching out and trying  to say, am I good enough? I am not good enough for the position you've  brought me in. Moses calling out to God when God says to Moses, you are  going to lead my people out of Egypt. You're going to talk to Pharaoh and  Moses says, who am I? Make my brother Aaron do it, right? And God says, you  will go. 

And as my promise, you will worship me on this mountain when you are done  with it. The call of worthiness, which is against shame, right? Shame says I am  not worthy. Worthiness, it calls out the value that we already have. The call has worthiness attached to it. When God calls Moses, it's not because  Moses needs to become something else in order to, you know, make this thing  happen. To realize the call, Moses just has to go do it. 

That's all he has to do. He already is good enough. He already is the person  who God needs. 

God wouldn't have called him if he wasn't. And this is kind of a profound piece 

of all this is that God doesn't, you know, the way it's said tritely is God  doesn't call the formed, he forms the called. When we step into this, God is the  one who informs our identity and our power. 

And in that space, there is no shame because we are already good  enough. Imagine how different the story of Saul would have been if instead of  hiding in the luggage and saying I am the least of these, Saul said, if you make  me king, please do not take your spirit from me, but stay with me so that I may  rule well. That's the story that we get from both David and Solomon who says  this is a great thing you've given me. 

Please give me wisdom so that I will be able to rule. This story comes out all  different, but shame steps in and in that shame, there is the inability for Saul to  lead. There is the incapacity for Moses to lead alone because he needs his  brother Aaron there every second because he says I can't do it. I have a speech impediment. Even though God said you are good enough, you  can go do this. In vulnerability and our true self, when we step into that, we are  able to step into the fullness of whatever God is calling us to. If God is calling you to be a church leader and do great things, you can step into that in confidence knowing that God is the one behind you and that his calling is the thing that qualifies you to do his work. But if you're experiencing shame and  experiencing that you are not good enough, imagine how that cripples that  process. Now imagine how that cripples that process with mental health  because all of a sudden we're talking about deeper issues, right? When you're  dealing with oppression, there are all of a sudden all of these other issues  that we talked about earlier. 

Who is God? Who am I? I don't know anymore. I don't know my capacity. I can't do what I used to do and all of those get couched in shame. 

I don't know if I'm good enough and now I don't know who I am and now I don't  know who God is and now I'm not good enough to do anything because that  was based on my capacity to produce. The idea that shame is a part of our life  impacts every bearing of all of these things but it was never supposed to be that way. The man and the woman were created without shame, without a question  that they were worthy, without a question that they were good and it was exactly the way God wanted. 

It was tov, tov. It was so good. Jesus also modeled his disciples in the way that  he talked to them. 

He said, I no longer call you servants because a servant does not know his  master's business. Instead, I have called you friends. For everything that I  learned from my father, I have made known to you. 

Jesus leads with vulnerability. Everything that I learned from the father, I told to  you. I'm being straightforward with you. 

Jesus leads with vulnerability. Everything that I learned from the father, I told to 

you. I'm being straightforward to you. This is what you need to know. This is all  of it and in the last section, we talked about vulnerability and how we lead out of who we are and by leading out of who we are, we replicate who we are, right?  When we model, people replicate that. Jesus does the same thing and he says,  do this. 

Follow me and I told you everything. So my challenge to you coming out of this  section is to ask the question, how does shame affect you? Shame dominated  my life in a lot of ways and I'm sure there's many ways that it still does and by  sure, I mean I know it still does because I can name some of them. How does it  affect you? How does it affect your relationships? How does it affect how you  are around other people? How does it affect your work? Because shame is the  thing that says, I need to keep this hidden. 

I need to make sure that no one knows about this thing, this weakness and that  is not healthy. That stuff only festers there and creates more chaos and  brokenness but when we can open that up and bring it to the surface, when we  can, as John says in I John, walk in the light as he is in the light, all of those  things exposed, all of those things open so that God can burn them away in his  goodness. We have the opportunity to fully discover who we are and walk in the full truth of who God is and that is exactly what it means to be unaffected by  shame instead of walking in the way most of us live all of our lives affected by  these levels of shame.