The Strength of Vulnerability

Sermon: October 4, 2026 . Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of San Dieguito

Recently, I attended a get together at a park with several like minded religious progressive friends. Since we were in a public location, there was a natural flow of conversation between us and others visiting the park who weren’t with our group. A few of us engaged in a conversation with a middle aged couple that turned toward the state of things here in our country. The husband expressed concern for the immigration issue, but not the kind of concern that was shared among my friends. It was clear he and his wife were on a different side of the aisle. From our previous conversation, I knew that they were practicing Catholics and that he played music with a gay man and had no problem with that. But on the issue of immigration, he was certain that his children were struggling to find housing that they could afford in this area because of the competition of illegal immigrants. Although my friends attempted to steer the conversation away from such a hot button topic, he persisted. His energy wasn’t overbearing, but it was clear he felt strongly about the topic. His wife tried to subtly quiet him. 

Very quickly, one of my friends excused themself and left. The other inched away, attempting to stop the conversation with kind statements like, “It looks like we get our information from different sources, so I don’t know that a conversation about this will get us anywhere.” And yet, the husband persisted, asking my friend if they had children of their own. After a few more exchanged words, my friend left. I hadn’t engaged in the conversation, but watched it unfold, wondering if the fledgling relationship birthed by a random meeting of strangers would survive a politically charged disagreement. It did not. 

Once my friends were gone, the wife turned to the husband and said, “See? You just drove away those people.” He answered, “I just wanted to have a conversation.” Then the wife turned to me and said, “He does this sometimes and it’s like he doesn’t see what he’s doing.” 

I realized that just by observing the interaction and by remaining quietly present after my friends left, I had earned a certain level of trust with this couple, and in this moment, the wife became vulnerable, perhaps in an attempt to apologize for what she perceived as aggressive or at least embarrassing behavior by her husband, or perhaps because she knew I had observed something that she doesn’t often have the ability to talk to anyone else about. 

So, here I was, left alone with two people who I could tell yearned for connection, for understanding, and because of the previous conversation about religion, I knew they might also be creating a narrative in their heads that progressives are people who won’t engage in open conversation. So, I did. I told them that I’m a minister and that I know this is a really hard time to have conversations, that people are shut down, and frustrated. The wife shared that conversation is what’s needed since we’re so divided. How else can we connect and find common ground? They asked me what church I serve and I shared a little about us. They looked very interested and were open to listening. The wife shared that she is pleased that some of the LGBTQ folks have returned to her Catholic church. She sees them crying while taking communion and her heart goes out to them because, she says, “no one should have to give up their religion just because of who they are.” 

After a few minutes of talking and connecting, I said goodbye and they said it was really nice chatting. We didn’t speak about the immigration issue because that’s not what we actually needed to talk about. Instead we needed to talk about why it’s so hard to communicate these days. My hope is that their take-away from that day in the park is not that progressives are unwilling to converse, but rather that a UU minister shared a vulnerable moment of connection, and maybe that those UU folks are pretty open people. 

I’d like to mention the fact that I don’t fault my friends for not staying in the conversation. It is not always our responsibility to help others grow. Sometimes we have to remove ourselves from a conversation for perfectly valid reasons. I’m just using this as an example of an opportunity I found to encourage vulnerability and openness. After all, it is only in a state of openness that one can achieve growth. It also made me ponder: As religious progressives, are we cultivating an environment in which people can be vulnerable enough to grow? 

In general, I’ve noticed that progressives have recently doubled down on the insistence of certain language and posturing that makes us feel good about ourselves, that supports the notion that we are on the right side, that we are treating people with dignity and respect because we use the right words. However, if we insist on similar language and posturing from others, instead of welcoming authenticity, we are creating a rigid, inflexible environment that does not allow space for the vulnerable. In our attempt to be inclusive, we have at times become exclusive, in that we correct or admonish those who do not follow our prescribed thesaurus of woke language. And sometimes when pushed, we shut down the conversation and walk away.

Pastor John Ortberg says “There’s a thing about AA, since AA meetings are often held in the basement of churches. One of their sayings is, when you go into a church, you can go upstairs and hear about miracles, or you can go downstairs and see them... So why can't the church be more like AA? The short answer is, it can, if churchgoers are willing to be more like alcoholics and show up in utter neediness and be real about not hiding. Spiritual power can flow in almost any circumstance, but it cannot flow when people hide and pretend to be what they’re not.” 

Creating a space that encourages vulnerability isn’t just about creating a safe space, where an unappealing word will never be uttered. It’s about creating a brave space, where people strive for openness and vulnerability in their communication, where they are allowed to be vulnerable enough to practice free self-expression. Of course, we do have to have our limits. We don’t want to be in an environment where people are allowed to be purposely or indifferently disrespectful to others or ourselves. There is a difference, however, between outright, harmful disrespect and an attempt to clearly communicate from a place of authenticity. 

Many young progressives today are tapping into this notion of allowing vulnerability in communication. A podcast on social media called @thespians.tv, which follows a group of San Francisco fringe theater performers, recently had a conversation about this topic that included these words:

“I don’t consider myself anti-woke, but I do consider myself post-woke. And what that means… is that I am fundamentally rooted in a commitment to uplifting oppressed people and moving towards a world where everyone lives free from violence and coercion. [It also] means… loosening up the rigid expectations of how people are speaking and behaving… We’re so obsessed with proper language that the standard for community inclusion is whether you have access to this shared language. It just wasn’t successful as a movement building tool. The attempt was to be inclusive, but the result ended up being sort of hostile and unpleasant and made people feel unwelcome… There is an assumption that everyone should have the exact same vocabulary to discuss things when that does not allow for us to have optimism about the human condition because then we don’t believe it's possible for people to learn things and change their minds about something.”

And so how do we create an environment in which people can show up as their authentic selves? We have to model vulnerability. This not only allows us to be personally emotionally flexible, but it encourages the same in others. I know it's difficult to be vulnerable when challenged or when you firmly believe that the other person is in the wrong. We all want to heal this world so desperately that we can sometimes put up walls or be overly enthusiastic or even slightly aggressive in our attempt to communicate. One of the practices of vulnerability that I recommend for people who would like to be more open, and yet struggle with communication, is the practice of speaking your inner monologue. This doesn’t mean saying the mean retort that you really want to say in the moment. That retort is a reactionary jab meant to hurt the other person, to make them feel the pain or discomfort that you feel. I’m speaking more about voicing your internal process. 

For example, if you have an uncomfortable relationship with a family member and don’t know what to say to them to initiate conversation, instead of trying to think of something to say, you could reveal your inner thoughts by saying “I’d really like to have a conversation with you, but I’m not sure what to say to start.” That statement is a vulnerable one because it opens up and exposes exactly what’s going on inside of you. It highlights the reality of the moment, and your personal reality is hard for someone else to argue with. 

Here’s another example, some work colleagues are having a conversation about a topic you know little about, but the energy of those talking suggests that everyone is expected to know all about this. When one of your colleagues asks you, well what do you think? You could flounder and say something vague, hoping that they don’t spot your ignorance, or you could say “I don’t really know anything about that. Can you fill me in?” In the first instance, posturing inauthentically won’t lead you toward growth, but the second will.

Here’s an example you experience every single day. “Hi, Andi. How are you?” Let me guess, you’re fine, or maybe ok. But what are you really? Tired? Excited? Confused? Sad? Now I know that there isn’t always the time to get into long conversations with people and sometimes we just say something quickly so we can move along in our day, but we really shortchange ourselves the opportunity to connect with people when we speak inauthentically. So when the moment is right, try delivering an honest answer. You might find you’ve just met someone else who feels their day is “tolerable at best.” And check your defaults. Do you default to being “fine” when asked? Is your default far away from vulnerable authenticity?

Besides offering an opportunity for growth, speaking your inner monologue and remaining vulnerable typically disarms the person you are speaking with, even if you are in the middle of a conflict. A quote from one of my favorite Margaret Atwood poems says, “They'd like to see through me, but nothing is more opaque than absolute transparency.” It’s that familiar scene we’ve all seen in movies where two armed people stand face-to-face, waiting to see who will make the first move, and one of them slowly puts their weapon down. It’s a risk, or at least it feels like a risk. But by lowering your weapon, you are saying my intent is not to harm you. By becoming vulnerable yourself you have made it a lot harder for the remaining armed person to choose to attack. By lowering your weapon, you are reaching out toward that person‘s humanity and saying, be human with me for a moment. It is an invitation to Grace. 

When the weapons are the words and the energy we bring into our communication with each other, vulnerability becomes increasingly important to establish true connection and belonging. One of the benefits from authentic communication is that you foster trust. Authenticity and vulnerability is a consistent reality check for the others you interact with. You become someone that they know they can rely on for your honest truth. And you never have to remember what you said, because if you always lean into honesty, then it can’t be argued against, even by yourself later on.

One final story: 

When I was little, my father loved to tickle me and my sister. Perhaps some of your parents also used to torture you with tickling. I did not enjoy this and found that the fastest way to get my father to stop was for me to disarm the power of the tickle. Every time a tickle attack was initiated, my instinct was to tighten up and attempt to create a tough shell in order to withstand the onslaught. I knew that this made the tickling somehow worse, perhaps because the anticipation of it was heightened. The tightening, hardening, and rigidity of my body, set me up to break when, exhausted, I could no longer tolerate the tickling and collapsed into laughter. At some point, I think maybe when I was around eight years old, I realized that if I didn’t tighten, if I told myself that I wasn’t ticklish, if I stayed open and vulnerable, then there was no breaking into laughter, in fact, there was just no breaking at all. Once my reactions ceased, so did my father’s tickling attempts. 

The practice of openness and vulnerability gets easier over time. Like muscle memory, it becomes your new default way of being. You no longer experience the instinct to tighten, to put walls up, to defend. And in time you realize you never needed to do that in the first place. It becomes a personal strength. Remaining in a state of openness fosters a strong sense of self and of self-worth because you now know who you really are, and you’re not bamboozled by your own posturing. We end up proving to ourselves that we are actually not that vulnerable at all, we just thought we were. And in time communication becomes easier, you relax into a place of centeredness, your reactivity subsides, and you are open for connection. It’s like hanging a little sign outside a shop door that says “Open for business. Come on in.” 

Philosopher and holistic educator Eric Micha’el Leventhal says “We are at our most powerful the moment we no longer need to be powerful.” May we continue to bring our authentic, vulnerable selves to this church. May we be held in beloved community by those who understand that we are not perfect communicators, and might not say all the most recent, woke, PC/UU approved phrases, but that our hearts beat with the same love brought each one of us to this place. And when someone new visits us, may we receive them with honest vulnerability and the words, “We’re open for business. Come on in.”

OTHER READINGS FOR REFLECTION:

Poet Tyler Knott Gregson: “There is nothing, no thing, so brave as to allow yourself complete vulnerability. When we are stripped bare of all the armor we thought we needed to carry, how high we can finally climb.”

Rev. Douglas Taylor: "May my strength be not found as a hard shell of defense or a sharp weapon of attack. May my strength, instead, be found in an open stance of kindness and empathy, like a tree bending gracefully in the wind storm. May my strength be found in a willingness to join in the suffering of others, like a forest of trees together in a storm. May I choose to be receptive rather than protected, sharing rather than shielded… I will seek within myself the strength to stand exposed and unguarded before the world, in the wind, open to difficulty; not because I cannot be any other way but because I have chosen this better way."

From "The Physics of Vulnerability" by Brene Brown: "Vulnerability is not weakness; it’s our greatest measure of courage… A lot of cheap seats in the arena are filled with people who never venture onto the floor. They just hurl mean-spirited criticisms and put-downs from a safe distance. The problem is, when we stop caring what people think and stop feeling hurt by cruelty, we lose our ability to connect. But when we’re defined by what people think, we lose the courage to be vulnerable. Therefore, we need to be selective about the feedback we let into our lives."