Abstract
‘Vulnerable mission’ as a technical term was devised by a small team in 2007. There has been considerable Internet and conference debate on this issue since 2007. The issue for which vulnerable mission was formed is to create a way through dependency syndromes. For those working in areas of patron–client cultures where it is too easy to allow a dependency syndrome to develop, how can a vulnerable approach by the one sent be realistically engaged? This paper is an attempt to consider the definition and biblical warrant for the concept of missional vulnerability. Surveying various biblical scenes even in so brief a paper brings a prophetic challenge.
Introduction
God’s mission is about impactful encounters between Christians and others, aimed at transformation towards bringing in the Reign of God. 1 Transformation in God’s kingdom has as its purpose the betterment of individuals, contexts and communities. That could be said to be the point of mission agencies. Whatever is ‘better’ is predetermined by the parties involved and it is not necessarily true that expectations of two parties are the same regarding what improvements should or could be made. Each side will have vested interests. They are not likely to be naturally vulnerable.
This paper will attempt to deal with the basic concept of vulnerability, firstly as seen in scripture, and then how it can become a prophetic challenge to local people, to sending groups and to individual(s) sent. There is more to vulnerability than material matters; there are spiritual and psychological sides to it, and all of these enter into multi-cultural context. Theological interpretation is needed. So we need to find a ‘theology of vulnerability’. Theology itself may have to be stretched, and be open to vulnerability. Open ended? Not conclusive? Not dogmatic? By the end of this paper it is hoped the readers will be able to assess their work in terms of vulnerability, and how Christ might himself approach situations they are in. My intention is to provoke thought rather than aim for a conclusive answer.
The Concept of Vulnerability
Vulnerability in terms of mission methods has been developed by Jim Harries as a concept that goes beyond ‘sensitive’ contextualisation of mission. He wants to see those involved from the West comprehending the culture they go to in terms of learning the local language(s) and not using external resources to benefit the people to whom they are ministering. The people who will be referred to as ‘receptors’ are from monist worldviews: they see the world not in terms of ‘both’ spiritual and physical/material but all as one, a holistic perspective. So for a monist money goes with spirituality as part of it. Those offering help from a dualist perspective – which splits the ‘spiritual’ from ‘material’ in causation – separate money from spirituality as it only relates to ‘the material’: this can easily lead to misunderstandings on how receptors treat the benefits given. Westerner Moderns were dualist; Harries considers that due to ‘a peculiar’ Christian theology post Reformation a dualism was espoused 2 which resulted in industrial entrepreneurship in the West. This led to a pendulum swing towards the material side of life in ‘scientific’ humanism, at the cost of the spiritual being marginalised. Harries works from a Western dualist position with those of a monist position in rural Kenya; he has a board that represents South East Asia and Latin America, as well as Africa. He wants a spiritual approach that avoids materialistic efforts, in order to relate to monist cultures where the ‘spiritual’ causes the ‘material’; but that idea simply swings the pendulum of dualism to the spiritual end, without harmonising the material. The African wants the material as much as the right spiritual basis for life, yet seeing apparently prosperous Westerners leads to covetousness for the material; he sees it as springing from right harmony with the spiritual element(s) of the universe. For African Christians this is equated with ‘God’, however that word is perceived by donor and receptor. 3 Harries proposes to overcome the ‘divorce’ by means of what he terms ‘vulnerability’ towards the receptor culture. However, Western post modernity has potential for becoming more monist, in that the spiritual has not been marginalised away from the material as in twentieth-century modernism, but has come to the fore. I propose in the next section we need to assess to what extent this is a biblically warranted concept since Hebrew culture was far more ‘monist’ than dualist in terms of what is ‘blessing’ from God. Indeed, they were challenged on the concepts of ‘doing good to get good’ by books like Job and Psalm 73. To find a biblical warrant implies an evangelical hermeneutic, of taking examples or models from scripture to apply to our contemporary life contexts; but I do not want a proof texting approach (see section on ‘The Concept of Vulnerability as Seen in Scripture’).
Contextualising approaches implies long term residence with a good use of local language(s) but each context is different. There can be no one system. So ‘vulnerable’, non-indigenous missionaries are those who, by their attitude, adapt to each context and attempt to use local resources only to meet local needs. When choosing to be ‘vulnerable’ people deliberately choose not to assert control, or take authority and power. Vulnerability shows humility, need, and requirements of being cared for; this is the opposite of the regular perception of the Western mission visitor; that Western perception could be construed of as being mean and lacking in compassion: hence true vulnerability can be easily misunderstood, it has to be deliberately serving, not controlling. Being vulnerable, however, according to one contributor in the Alliance for Vulnerable Mission (AVM) Pearl Lists’ email conversation is not placing ourselves in a place of physical danger but in a position of self-initiating mission work after becoming acquainted with the indigenous languages of an area and letting those who are native to the area inaugurate the missionary enterprise. The vulnerability can come in ‘learning on our own’ and ‘self-initiating’.
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I would say the Western concept of the individual as entrepreneur seems to be over-rated in this definition; where is the community in this self-orientated position? To work in mutual cooperation is normal within community-minded cultures. Humility in modelling how to serve the community, without initiating what is going on, but putting oneself under the local leadership, would be my understanding of servanthood, a Christ-like manner towards others. There is a major difficulty: the leader of a poor community may well demand that the incomer find outside resources, which would turn the whole idea on its head. 5 Perceptions are also in the mind of the rural receptor regarding the newcomer; if they saw a Korean missionary as opposed to an American missionary, would they still assume wealth belongs to a missionary? Vulnerable mission (VM) proponents do have to challenge perceptions but their own conceptions may need challenging as they could appear to be patronising neo-colonialists even in not providing resources. To say one needs to ‘correct’ views implies one side is ‘right’. So we need to review what concepts are being promoted.
If the ‘sent ones’ arrive in a confidence and authority which may depict Western superiority, postcolonial colonialism and patronage, then communication may be commencing on an invulnerably conceived footing. That surely is the extreme end of the stereotype of a Western Missionary. The training available to missionaries should cover these ideas and bring a corrective. The problem lies then in those who have no training but simply go, perhaps out of compassion and willingness to help a fellow human community somewhere across the world, but with assumptions of their own superiority hidden even to themselves. Is there a helpful, viable alternative to the patron–client model, a positively helpful patron – alongside and not over the receptors? 6 Perceptions on both sides need new spectacles. We cannot insist on vulnerability. It is, however, a part of true discipleship.
Westerners thinking of ‘the vulnerable’ mostly think of those trapped in poverty as they perceive them from their positions of relative wealth. Stan Cho Ilo comments that, ‘Africans who wish to claim perpetual victimhood are not responding adequately to the African condition.’ He cites the proverb, ‘God provides food for every bird but does not bring it to the nest.’ 7 Only some birds have it brought for them, baby ones. Most go in search themselves to bring food back to the nest. We know that many Africans are seeking for food in places far beyond Africa. Migration rates are getting higher by the day. 8 When ‘wealthy’ Westerners appear in Africa, locals ‘apparently automatically’ consider them as sources of food for their nests. Ilo considers that Africans can provide for themselves. Harries reckons that Westerners should not provide for them on ‘auto pilot’. He would advocate that if Westerners are responding to the call of God to go to Africa with the Good News of Jesus, God’s love and the power of the Holy Spirit, then they should be wise enough to discern the demands made on them and the consequences of their actions.
The Problem for Westerners
Westerners have tended to see another culture from the perspective of ‘have’ or ‘have not’, particularly from a material perspective. If Christian, compassionate Westerners consider that they can improve the lot of some other people materially, they will try to do so. The problem with this is that it can result in a patron–client relationship with all the colonial–postcolonial connotations of superior–inferior relationships. Expectations of both donor and receptor are not necessarily the same, in terms of the type of help or time duration of the help to be given. Many agencies or individuals coming new into a situation can see ‘giving help’ as more essential than forming relationships. They assume that the latter already exists on first encounter. Friendship and trust, however, take time and communication to develop. For a relationship to be on an equal, mutual basis, cultural presumptions have to be worked through – on both sides. Worldview and cultural value systems are not the same the world over. Globalisation processes can hinder what is being attempted. The way language is used and perceived brings a whole set of problems into those value systems. The question becomes, is there a scriptural model for ‘vulnerable missionaries’?
Alex Araujo, who is on the board of AVM and a long term missiologist, comments that the Bible does not provide a manual for us in precise terms as God changes his method according to context and person encountered. He continues: ‘Vulnerable mission is a particular response to a particular problem in a particular historical moment and context. We will never find in the Bible any statement that VM 9 is the way to go.’ He also realises, with Harries, that there was a need to raise the issue ‘in response to distortions in our obedience as a mission movement.’ 10 Harries states: ‘In vulnerable mission, a missionary does not have financial incentives and related assets to offer to people so that they welcome him. A vulnerable missionary must receive (acceptance) from people before he can give anything.’ 11 This is a picture from Matthew 10, Mark 6:8–9 and Luke 10; the disciples are to go to find a location where they can share the Good News of God’s Kingdom, not taking anything with them, staying with a receptor family who are expected to care for them. Do we find examples in Acts of Apostles doing this without supplies for a longer journey? 12 Let us look at scriptural examples below.
The Concept of Vulnerability as Seen in Scripture
Those ‘Sent’ in Pre-Christian Eras
If one starts to look at scripture from the perspective of vulnerability, one immediately meets the first couple. Their created perfection is spoiled by disobedience. This is termed ‘nakedness’. They needed to be covered. This may be an analogy to concepts of shame–honour, blame–innocence, guilt–freedom or even pollutedness–wholeness/holiness situations. In each case, covering oneself depicts the human perceived need for self-protection and invulnerability. The answer came in a provision by God himself, with concepts of ‘covering’ (Gen. 3:11, 21). To many evangelicals that looks like atonement through sacrifice. 13 So it seems that there is a wrong type of vulnerability from disobedience in the concept of nakedness.
The deterioration of humankind leading to the flood and then Babel begins to reveal a new redemptive revelation of God for humanity; it begins in the new concept of having ‘the people of God’, through Abraham to Israel. Leaving the very earliest chapters of Genesis, we move to the challenge of Abraham being sent away from his home origins in Ur and Haran, but not for the purposes of proclamation of the God who revealed that command (Gen. 12:1). He is often fearful, vulnerable as famine hits, as his nephew gets into trouble and needs rescue, as he works out God’s promises in his own way with Hagar until God provides Sarah with a miracle son. It seems the line of hope is established. To relate the whole of salvation history is not this present paper’s intent. However, the players within it show how God puts them out on a limb as they obey him and how faith is developed despite circumstances. That is a positive vulnerable position to be in. It seems that it is God’s intention for it to be so.
When Israel attempts to stand in self-protection mode, they fail. Once leaders with faith in God arise, they demonstrate potential unity of the community while they have willing followers. Moses is a case in point. He still has to handle Pharaoh, impossibilities of leaving Egypt, rebellion in his own ranks, at family and tribal levels. Joshua it seems has less trouble with vulnerability; the people trust him even after disasters as at the battle at Ai; perhaps here he was well accepted among the people, as their leader, not a newcomer as Moses had been; but still Joshua remained loyal and thus vulnerable to God’s leading.
Moving on to Judges, there are various stories of the weak being made strong by faith as in Gideon or even Samson’s case and on into David’s own story. Many a prophet was not well received amongst his own people, even to the point of being ‘sawn asunder’ if the extra biblical legend on Isaiah in Manasseh’s reign holds true (cf. Heb. 11). However, they were not sent cross-culturally. Can we find examples of vulnerability as sensitivity to foreign culture?
Daniel and friends appear to have had that role. They manage to survive as God revealed himself through them, against the gods of the Babylonians, including King Nebuchadnezzar himself or even later Darius and the Persian Empire. Refusal to conform to the cultural norms of diet is Daniel’s first stand. Refusing to bow in worship of the great idol of the King is the next. He grows in confidence until he, now an old man, can pray publicly while going against the new rule of the Medes and Persians forbidding any prayer to anyone but the King, knowing he will be sentenced to death in the lion’s den. We see not an assertion of political power from the ex-‘prime minister’, but faith vindicated.
Nehemiah (Neh. 2:1) another of God’s loyal servants, is challenged to go back into what should have been his home culture but it was foreign to him. He wanted to rebuild Jerusalem’s walls. He makes himself vulnerable by disobeying the King; he allowed his sadness to be seen on his face, something that was not permitted. He dared tell the king why he was sad, presumably having already gained his confidence. He was thus commissioned not only by God but with the King’s authority, challenged though that was once he arrived in Jerusalem as an interloper, even if he did want to serve the city’s people. He still went carefully, sensitively, at night, to survey the needs of Jerusalem. He did not go brazenly. He did, however, have to face the recipients of his embassy some of whom were willing to follow and rebuild and others who countered him. We see the positive end of the story with the walls built through local resources, motivated from the leaders who had been abusing their situation (Neh. 5:9). Nehemiah used his own resources, not those from a tax on the people. Was this outside money? He did also use local resources from what had once been the walls to rebuild them. It may be worth noting that those walls represented self-protection as also did the reassertion of the Torah to keep Judah ‘pure’ from outside influences (ch. 13). Vulnerability was the first picture, not the last.
Today’s missionaries to free nations are not ‘Nehemiahs’ with authority from external sources. They need, therefore, to know a sensitive way to gain their recipients’ trust by a confidence not in themselves so much as in God who sent them. Then they need to communicate that confidence carefully; a confidence while being vulnerable in a culture not well understood. In that way, the people to whom they go are subsequently protected as a result of what was initially vulnerability demonstrated by faith.
The Example of the Christian Era
The ultimate biblical example of vulnerability has to be that of Christ in his incarnation. Placing himself in a context whereby he would be rejected (Jn. 1:11; cf. Lk. 4:29) he knew what it was to be vulnerable. He could have protected himself even from his destiny on the cross by calling 12 legions of angels to defend him (Mt. 26:53). He did not do so. He calls us to deny ourselves, and take up our cross and follow him, not once, but daily (Lk. 9.23). He faced his destiny resolutely by heading towards Jerusalem destined for suffering (Lk. 9:51). He made it known to the disciples that they would also suffer as a result of following him, but that the Holy Spirit would be with them to enable them to ‘testify on his behalf’ (Jn. 15:18–27) not that the Holy Spirit would necessarily protect them from death (Jn. 2:19). To what end? Witness. Martyria has become known as testifying unto death. Is that what is required of today’s disciples?
Who were the original disciples? Were they the poor and deprived? At least some of Jesus’ disciples were part of the poor of the land. They were poor in power, out of control of politics, vulnerable to the invading forces. Did they have less to lose? Four men still gave up their fishing business. Matthew seemed to give up his tax-collectors’ job (Mt. 9:9) which would have made him vulnerable financially and socially from recent colleagues and Rome as his employer. Others like Zacchaeus deliberately volunteered finances so as to make amends for his past (Lk. 19:1–9). A member of the Sanhedrin like Nicodemus probably had much to lose by following Jesus. ‘Blessed are the poor’ – in spirit or in pocket? Matthew wrote the former, Luke the latter. Either way, they are both in scripture; poverty and being poor. Is it a case of material wealth and lack? Is poverty the same thing as being poor? Pocos is one word in Greek for poor; it is apparently the word with a hard inflexible, connotation; there is apparently a range of words in this semantic range, and Matthew uses pocos in the beatitudes for poor in spirit (Mt. 5:10); it has an extreme meaning of a beggar’s level of abject poverty. There are several words in scripture for ‘poor’: emptied, oppressed, dependent, even used of the most prayerful (needing to beg from God). God actually affirms them in the beatitudes. He does not condone the poverty that holds them captive. He wants to release the captive (Lk. 4:18). Jesus promises a sumptuous feast, and shared goodness is God’s gift. So there is no love of poverty. Yet, how does the richer person share with the multitude who are not rich? They also need to learn that they should be dependent on God for what they have. How then they can share it? Are they actually potentially poor in spirit, if not in pocket? Jesus followed up the Beatitudes with instructions (Mt. 5–7) on not seeking material goods ‘first’ but God’s kingdom (6:31); trust for all was needed and no showing off of their donations; that is a challenge to cultures where transactions are public as a matter of affirming through witnesses what is done (see Harries, 2015: 77).
The Disciples had to learn what it meant to follow Jesus. They were sent out on a short term mission (Lk. 9 and 10; cf. Mt. 10); they needed to find a ‘person of peace’ in the community to provide the welcome bridge into the community. In fact these passages can be a foundation for VM in a multitude of relationships – the teacher–disciple relationship, family, the needy, those persecuting. 14 Today therefore, we can try that model of simply ‘going’ in hope of being received and supported. 15 Is it however, just a temporary mode of mission (STMs)? How is that perceived today in cultures other than that of the sender? Within the culture of the sender it is a risky challenge both to the sent one and the receptor, let alone a culture very different to their own. The disciples had to learn the consequences and be willing as apostles to demonstrate the model of Jesus to the early communities formed as churches. We do see some acts of compassion (Acts 2:44–46; 4:32ff; 6:1 the help for widows; 9:36 Dorcas’ acts of kindness and compare 2 Cor. 8 and 9; Phil. 4:10–12). We also see problems arising inter-culturally from these compassionate acts in the early church (cf. Acts 6 and 13).
Paul highlights a vulnerable Christological model in the Phil. 2:5–11 passage; Christ for him was a model for a self-emptying servant leader. That matches the gospel accounts of Jesus’ teaching; a discipleship of self-denial and taking up of one’s cross daily (Lk. 9:23). Paul himself was often in dangerous situations, even by choice (Acts 9:25; 14; 16; 26). That alone can be considered as becoming vulnerable for the sake of spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ. His suffering was not usually caused as a result of his offering outside resources to help. He did suffer from misunderstandings at Lystra due to language difficulties. Surely there was no way on that first encounter he could have overcome that? He would have had to stay for a long time to learn the language and culture. Once beaten up and left for dead he left, only to return a while later to follow up those contacts he did make (Acts 14:6–22).
However, there are no instructions from Paul as to how to handle donations except that he expected it as a participation in the gospel (Phil. 4:10; 2 Cor. 8–9). How the Jerusalem church used some of that donation would have surprised the donors in Greece: for ritual purposes, not famine relief (Acts 21:23). Paul does not seem to have been accountable to the donors for how it was used. Examples for us to follow are not written up in detailed policies! Principles of Christ are to be worked out contextually, in our calling to serve God and our neighbours.
To leave this section on the same note with which we commenced, Jesus was deliberately vulnerable. He took up the cross for the purposes of dealing with the rebellion in humanity to be independent of God; we call it ‘sin’. In the light of much discussion on atonement theories, based on the epistles, Jesus bore our shame, our sin, and our guilt. He exchanged our human ‘nakedness’ for his own by his own vulnerability and yet at the same time asks his followers to take on a daily cross (Mt. 16:24; MK. 8:34; Lk. 9:23). Does that not mean being in a continuous state of vulnerability, ready to be misunderstood, criticised, and not answering back maliciously, as a lamb going to the slaughter? Jesus’ life is a challenge to our discipleship. How would he deal with the contemporary disparities in levels of prosperity, with poverty? ‘The poor you will have always among you’ (Mt. 26:11; Mk. 14:7). Did he not want to relieve suffering? He did so not at a surface level but at the ultimate level, by restoring a relationship first with God as Father.
The Concept of Vulnerability as Prophetic Challenge
In each example we can find among the prophets whether it was Elijah challenging Jezebel’s violent dictator style regime or whether it was Amos challenging the economic ethics of his day, or Jeremiah challenging the political machinations of his day, we can find a commission, a faith/confidence in the Sender, and a vulnerable position from which to declare the commission. It still depends on the receptor party as to the success of the embassy. Prophets were not guaranteed a positive reception. They chose to give God’s word even if it made them very vulnerable to the powers of the day, whether Elijah with King Ahab or Jeremiah with King Zedekiah.
Jesus was in his day recognised as a prophet. However, he was not necessarily received well once his provision was not literally on the plate the day after the feeding of the 5000. What had been his intention? This miracle is recalled in all four gospels. Matthew and Mark’s version of the story (Mt. 14:14, Mk. 6:30–44, 34) clearly indicates it was due to compassion for the large crowd that he healed the people and implies that motivation continued into providing them with a picnic. Luke relates the story unusually without the word used by the other two writers for ‘compassion’ (εσπλαγχνισθη Mt.9.36). It is John’s gospel that makes it clear that Jesus had greater intentions in the miraculous provision, that of revealing his identity. The people misinterpreted it; they thought he was asserting Messiahship, more than a prophet, as a political leader, even as a desired patron style King; they attempted to seize him for a coup, but he eludes them (John 6:15). Later the next day he told them that they only follow for the food he provided and tells them (v. 27) not to ‘work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life’ which the Son of Man will give them. Later he taught that he is the Bread of Life; their provision. They complained (v. 60) that the teaching was too difficult and left him. Jesus was willing to let them be offended. Many turned away from him. Jesus asked the Twelve if they felt the same way. Simon Peter confessed that only Jesus had the words of eternal life (v. 68); the spiritual side won over the material to a Western mind but is it a dualist position? The two were part and parcel; Jesus’ provision was holistic, not one without the other. The crowd, as receptors, failed to comprehend his message, because it was not immediately relevant to them. 16 Self-interest and self-protection were of more importance. To challenge those perceptions is to be prophetic.
Kritzinger 17 asserts that mission is dialogue and that dialogue is prophetic. 18 Dialogue embraces the ‘other’. Speaking prophetically challenges and yet understands the context; the prophet wants to restore justice, a right relationship with God and Humanity. Therefore, prophetic mission is transformative. It demands change in all parties. Being vulnerable in the midst of this is necessary as ‘demanding’ implies authority, even dictatorship. Benevolent dictatorship could achieve the justice desired. However, to work it through vulnerability means no dictating, means being aligned to the marginalised, to those without hope of assertion and even unable to create justice. The ‘Judge of all the earth’ will do right (Gen. 18:25), but how? He gave himself in Jesus to ultimate vulnerability to challenge the power brokers of the day. They thought they had him, that his power with the people would disappear. Jesus did not ‘disappear’; he reappeared after death declaring through weakness, through sacrifice, through ultimate witness to God’s ways, that there would be justice. He ascended, and yet sent the Holy Spirit to do his work in and through his people, those who follow in his ways, those who belong to what we term the ‘Church’.
‘Unmasking and imagining’ 19 is the result of prophetic dialogue in encounters with various parties. Unmasking oneself is to become vulnerable. Unmasking others is dangerous too, if they are not prepared for it; the prophetic missional challenge needs responses on all sides. Undoubtedly Harries is being prophetic in all that he writes on the challenge of VM. His pleas for vulnerability, using only local languages and resources with those we encounter, actually entails a huge amount of work from partnering international people. It means things would not be done at efficient European speed. It means laborious work to get languages understood and rated as high in fluency. It means becoming dependent on those from whom one learns the language and culture. It means understanding what their resources could be once creative ways of using what is available are imagined. It means communicating that to both sides, donors and receptors. Expectations would change in the process. Arguments and offence might be incurred. Hurts would need to heal again. Eventually the shalom of God’s kingdom may come on earth as it is in heaven.
The Concept of Vulnerability for Today’s Missional Development Projects
The Answer?
The hope of the Alliance for Vulnerable Mission 20 is that dependency will be avoided and that a more prosperous kind of self-sufficiency will become normal. Therefore, there needs to be a transformation to include the spiritual and psychological as well as the practical and material. It involves the newcomer becoming ‘vulnerable’. This paper aims to explore the nature of such vulnerability, in biblical perspective.
Jim Harries asserts, ‘In vulnerable mission, a missionary does not have financial incentives and related assets to offer to people so that they welcome him. A vulnerable missionary must receive (acceptance) from people before he can give anything.’ 21 Their orientation to learning and using an indigenous language in ministry and his refusal to use outside resources to produce friendships smooth their way into understanding the homologous relationship between language and society in that community.
The hurts of the past in mission history are not receding into that past. Damage has been done and still can be seen. Relationships, culture change, and transformation do not happen overnight, not even between colonial night and postcolonial dawn. Identification through language acquisition and usage, and cultural adaptations would have been default for missionary agencies to inculcate into their workers since the mid-nineteenth century if Hudson Taylor’s policies had been noted. Have Henry Venn’s three self-policies ever been acted upon? I found in investigating the world missionaries of the British Assemblies of God that ‘indigenisation’ was never really activated by many a missionary in a 3-self manner, let alone 4-self manner that would include self-theologising. 22 Even when the word ‘contextualisation’ became normal tender in missiological circles, few ever thought about how it applies to the incomer and recipient in terms of working order, superior–inferior; the colonial past remains into the postcolonial present. Patrons can be wanted by recipients. Even if becoming a patron is not wise, it seems to happen by default. It is not necessarily agencies from the West 23 that have difficulty educating members; they are the easier groups to educate. Church partnering schemes that appear to be multiplying across the world, full of good intentions but making all the mistakes of our colonial past once again, may be the hardest to reach with this education. Yet people in the West want to help those less apparently materially fortunate than themselves.
Is therefore the prophetic edge of VM a continuation of the challenge in ‘indigenisation’ and ‘contextualisation’? Harries 24 advocates facilitating people to use local resources to eradicate their poverty trap; he suggests that not all missionaries should bring in outside resources that will lead to unhealthy dependency. On whom can we be dependent? God. How do we model such dependency? In seeing who God is we gain a clue. Bevans commented, ‘God (in Christ) is vulnerable; he will not override human wickedness but will suffer because of it.’ 25
With the rise of prosperity gospel teaching, this understanding of following Christ in the way of the cross, being vulnerable as Christ was, seems to be missing in many churches. Not least of these churches being many of the African ones. They have already suffered war, deprivation, bereavement in many places. They seek protection. They seek provision. They seek prosperity. They seek power in their ‘Jericho hours’ 26 and replace their old power sources of Juju with the Holy Spirit’s power. That seems a great replacement. It is their means of being more invulnerable than they were; and yet, does it isolate them from the possibility of power through weakness as Paul advocated (1 Cor 1:26ff)?
Other churches may be in millennia old contexts where seeking not to be dependent on patrons is unheard of. Patron–client relationships are, to them, perfectly normal. The patron never assumes a ‘vulnerable’ position. A visit by an apparently rich patron in the form of a Westerner, or an expatriate African now in employment in the West, would communicate the coming of a ‘saviour’. So is the prophetic aspect of vulnerability a challenge to the patron–client culture just as much as it is to the Western culture of independence and individuality?
Jim Harries advocate of VM, has lived in rural Africa for over 25 years. He is a Westerner who, although inevitably still being seen as one who can leave and return to convenience lifestyles of the West, tries to get alongside by living under village conditions. Inevitably he has been approached as if he would be a patron to local people 27 and while he has taken in orphan boys to care for, he has not provided for major development projects for them. However, in learning the local language well enough to comprehend its cultural framework, he has attempted to see life through the local people’s eyes. That they have overcome their desire for patrons seems doubtful, as he carefully considers before introducing any other outsiders to his neighbours. Have real friendships developed for him that are not dependent on wanting to depend on outside resources? Concepts of friendships are different across cultures. Being vulnerable is not showing weakness but a humility seeking to enable growth from the roots upwards, not from outside. Is there a real possibility of mutual vulnerability, trust across the differences, the risk, and even the conflict? Can there be ‘vulnerable bonding’ in creating West–South partnerships? 28
Harries’ plea is that those who visit Africa should attempt a long term, linguistically valid, communication with Africans, which does not simply provide an outside patron. Compassion should be there for the needs of the local people and yet at times it must feel like being sent ‘as a sheep into the midst of wolves’ (Mt. 10:16); the wolves – as in opposition – not always being the local Africans so much as other Westerners not understanding his stance!
The people sent would have to willingly choose to dispose of presumptions regarding their own culture and begin to learn new social skills in the receptor culture. This could feel like divesting themselves of adulthood and becoming a child, learning life all over again. However, the innocence of childhood is not the same as a 5-year-old learning how to communicate for the first time. Adults are not five year olds in experiential learning. Becoming a part of the new, disposing of what we have known as ‘normal’, is what we are calling ‘becoming vulnerable’. VM could also then be termed ‘sensitive mission’.
However, we need to view VM also from further points of view. The other side, the recipients, may also have to choose to become vulnerable rather than self-protecting when it comes to not being provided with material help from outside. Harries wrote in response in the pearl lists, ‘someone who is vulnerable is “sensitive” to external impacts and forces.’ 29 He therefore has no self-protecting armour on of his own culture. He hopefully understands both donor and receptor as a go-between.
Donors supporting agency workers and recipients may also have to rework their understanding of what VM means for them. Doing this while maintaining a good working partnership across the world’s churches and their cultures, is a risky tightrope to cross.
Proposing a Way Forward?
Vulnerability is the opposite of self-protection. In Christ we see the willingness for that. He overcame the fear of the consequences: ‘Not my will but Yours,’ he said to His Father when facing the cross (Lk. 22:42). Fear propels humans into creating self-protective mechanisms. Fear is overcome by trusting the one who deliberately made himself incarnate and vulnerable to this world’s violence, in order to redeem, reconcile and restore the world. Therefore, one sent in the authority of the Sent One – an apostle – (or to Latinise it: a Missionary), should be one who though vulnerable physically and emotionally, is on a mission in full authorised embassy; that authorisation provides confidence. The ambassador has to use culturally sensitive methods of communicating his mission. He is dependent on the receiving party being willing to welcome him and both sides learn how to communicate clearly. How to do that leaves one vulnerable as there are the unknown factors. Kraft 30 insists that the message is dependent on the receiving party; that is where the vulnerability comes for the one sent.
Vulnerability is coming to people on their terms instead of your own. It is being aware of the things you bring (in who you are) that might get in the way of an equal and thriving relationship (1 John 1:3). It is brokenness, being made of no reputation, being transformed by the renewing of our minds, resolving to put no stumbling block in the way of the Gospel.
31
It sounds ideal. Did the prophets of old not seem idealists yet advocating a rethink on justice and long term thinking? Is VM purely a prophetic challenge, rather than an advocacy for all to become VMers? If both donor and receptors will go along with it, it could turn development work on its head; it is a big ‘if’. Vulnerability on the part of missionaries is, however, a choice. They have to be as ‘wise as serpents and innocent/gentle as doves’ according to Jesus (Mt. 10:16). That is not a dogmatic method; in fact it leaves things very open ended. Jesus himself was rejected, killed and crucified; yes, he rose again but for his followers, things are not quite the same. They need great sensitive discernment in following of the One who gave his all for humanity as they give their all for his Kingdom’s sake for the ‘poor’ will always be here.
Footnotes
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.