 Jeff Gallagher, I'm a senior pastor at the United Congregational Church in Tallinn, and I have been on the Association Planning Committee. So I've had the privilege during that process to be introduced to our next speaker, Alan Johnson. Alan was a part of the Widening the Welcome conference that was held in Hartford this past weekend that I was able to be at and speak at and have gotten to know him as a really gracious man, and I know he has a lot of wisdom to share with the room. And so he was nice enough to stick around a few extra days to come back to General Association, to come back to General Association, because he has been here in the past, which he may share with you in a few minutes. But Alan Johnson, come on up. Okay, so I'm the only import, right? I'm from Boulder, Colorado. So everybody else is coming from the conference. As I was talked about a little earlier, it's all the wisdom that's in this room. But you imported me anyway, so I'm glad to be here. It really is. Actually, I so I went to YDS, graduated in 69. I served the church in Milford, Connecticut. I served the church in O. Greenwich, Connecticut. I served the church in Sharon, Connecticut, and I served the church in Saudi Tuck in Westport. So I have some roots here. That's not just an import. That's very good. And it's really interesting. This is not going to be part of my 15 minutes. Please, please. That's the one thing I want to say. And that is that when I was installed as pastor at the Sharon Congregational Church in 1971, the person who gave me the charge during that time was Dean Hodges, who is and was, for me, the sole teacher, the sole presence, the sole counselor of Silver Lake for the years that I was here. And I remembered of all things as I was preparing to come here, what he talked about. And some things I don't remember, but in 1971, I remember that he talked about how we're going to include people with disabilities. 1971. And I remember that that was totally not on my radar screen. Totally, not at all. But I remember now, as if it was just, you know, a couple years ago, Dean talked about that because that's where some of the gifts and the passion and the power of the gospel of inclusion is all about. So I just wanted to come back, really, I'm glad to be back here to give you a report since the charge that was given. That was only 44 years ago. So I'm here to give you the report of what I've been doing. Here it is. Vulnerability is the human context in which God is manifest. The day I was walking down York Avenue, about 75th Street in Manhattan, there was a church sign that really spoke to me. I just turned around. I looked at it and said, oh my goodness, it was just said, my grace is sufficient for your every need. My power is made perfect in your weakness. I guess maybe because at that point I was in the midst of a situation where I was in a situation where I was at that point in the midst of a situational depression, I was going through a divorce. I was trying to put my life together in some way that that that verse really touched me. My grace is sufficient for your every need. My power is made perfect in weakness and that verse is where I would hang my whole theology. That's where I would put it for myself. And of all things, the name of that church is the church of the epiphany. Who would have thought? Who would have thought? It was also, however, within that time, this is now 27 years ago, that I learned that my 18-year-old son was abusing drugs, was experiencing a psychotic break, which led to the first of his now 17 hospitalizations in locked psychiatric wards. I've been there. Whatever it is that would lead you to realize that you are not in control, that you are not in charge of what is happening, and that you cannot pull yourself up by these proverbial bootstraps, I believe that is where the necessity comes for embracing the grace that is offered and which is sufficient. Many years ago I heard a testimony by a person who was Marty McMain, who actually later became my wife, but after her presentation I said to him, Marty, do you really need to be broken in order to believe? And of course I did not believe that would be true. I did not. But that actually was 29 years ago. Yes, a couple years before I was broken, when I lost it, and I finally experienced my own vulnerability, which is what the psalmist calls the pick, where one where grace found me and gave new life to me. Now some years later I learned a little more about vulnerability and God's presence from the children with whom I worked when I was a chaplain at the Children's Hospital in Denver, Colorado. I was on a specific team of doctors and nurses working with children who has untreatable cancer. It was called the butterfly program because we didn't want to talk about hospice for children, obviously. But these are children that had life limiting illnesses. I remember so well Danielle, who at 18 had a leg amputated due to her cancer, osteosarcoma, but that did not stop the progressive spreading of the cancer which did finally end her life. But before that she wrote this, as in shrubs, faith that does not take time to grow deep and strong roots will be uprooted with the first storm. Allow God to work and answer your prayers according to God's timing and then your roots will be strong and will hold you up during the many long storms. She was 18 when she wrote that. Danielle had wanted to be a nun, giving her life or even her own suffering to the one whose suffering, love, embraced her. Then she realized that even her hope to be a bride of Christ had to begin up and given to God. In that moment of deep vulnerability she found the strength of Christ's suffering on the cross in her dying and through and though painful she knew she was held in God's embrace. In the book Job, when we come to the end of those three friends, friends trying to explain why he is afflicted, it was silence. In that noiseless space, the author of Job gave God the microphone. Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Who determined the measurements? Who laid his cornerstone when the morning stars sang together? And then the author goes on four chapters, continuing 129 verses in the book of Job saying what God is doing, what God has done, what God will do, all that stuff, but there's no answer to the why question. Finally Job says, therefore I have uttered what I did not understand. There's no real explanation about why some people, for instance, are born with what we have come to call a disability or a mental illness. Perhaps one day when I know about how the brain really works and what genes had to come our way, but we do know, however, that many physical disabilities and mental illnesses, pain disorders, are biologically based, but often we do not know why for these conditions. Yet we can do, and what we ought to do, is to join with one another so that all are welcome, that we are all part of a compassionate answer in the silence. That's called the embodiment of our faith. In our congregations we can adopt the accessible to all, the wise congregation for mental health. That's why I've got buttons back there. Don't you know that we like buttons, don't we, we really like buttons. This is welcoming, inclusive, supportive, engaged congregations for mental health. The other one is the silver ribbon campaign for the brain from the National Alliance for Mental Illness, have some in the back there. These are steps that can be taken to incorporate the gospel of vulnerable power shown to us in Jesus. Quote, I am struck by how sharing our weakness and difficulties is more nourishing to others than sharing our qualities and successes, writes Jean Vanier, the founder of the L'Arche disability, a network of communities around the world for persons with cognitive disabilities, and which was the organization in which Henry Nowan was the chaplain at the time of his death. We are all on a continuum of ability to disability from mental health, mental health challenges. We're all on that continuum, as our beloved church puts it, wherever you are on life's journey, you are vulnerable. We don't have to put it that way, it's not quite there, but we are vulnerable. We are weak, and we are in need. As someone said, there is no such thing as a theology of invulnerability. A groundbreaking work has been written by Nancy Iceland. It's on her work on the disabled God, maybe some of you have heard of it, quote, the Christian church must develop a theology of disability emerging from the lives and even the bodies of those with disabilities. We must come to see disability neither as a symptom of sin, nor an opportunity for virtuous suffering or charitable action. The Christian community as a whole must open itself to the gifts of persons with disabilities and I would add mental illnesses as well. Yet it may be unnerving for those of us who are temporarily able-bodied to confront our own vulnerability in the face of those who are living with their own disabilities or mental illness. It really should not be for me to talk about such situations. I can speak as a parent of a child who lives with mental illness. I can speak as a brother of one who died by suicide. I can speak as a person who uses two hearing aids and who has had a stroke, but I cannot speak from inside the experience of chronic mental illness or severe disabilities and where or how God is present. But I do know that our favorite biblical marriage, this passage speaks it and what does it say? They will call love. These three abide and the greatest is love. It's about love. It begins with it and ends with love, being accepted and accepting, sacrificial giving and vulnerable receiving. This is what we see in Jesus, isn't it who shows us the human face of God in our Christian story. In Jesus we see vulnerability embodied, a baby in the manger, a man on the cross. Is the divine power revealed there in those places of vulnerability? Even when God's voice in the world is saying, where were you when I laid the foundation? Isn't this the same divine power that is given to Job who finds himself humbled and made vulnerable? There is no answer to the why. There is only sharing in the vulnerability where Christ's power is embraced. One of the many people who had a profound influence in me was Henry Nowan. He loved, maybe you know this story, he's written about it, he's talked about it when he was alive. He talks about the Rodley brothers. The Rodley brothers was a flying trapeze family who toured the world and during one tour Henry wanted to travel with him. So he had the opportunity to speak with the father of the act. And Henry loved the one who flew from the trapeze flying through the air, yep you got it, as with the greatest of these. No, the father said, that is not the most amazing thing. The most amazing thing is the catcher. The man flying just has to keep from grasping the hands of the catcher as the catcher grabs the wrists of that man who's flying. It's about the catcher, Henry, and Henry says to us all, trust the catcher. When I'm about to die, if I'm conscious and possibly cognitively alert, I hope that I can trust the one who is divine. In that place I will be vulnerable, I will be helpless, most likely. I will have lost all control of what is happening, and I will pray that I will be able to trust the mystery which is the God of love whose power is made perfect in my weakness. Maybe a couple questions. What experience experiences have you in your own life found making you feel vulnerable? Look back on those times, was the presence of the divine present or was they a presence of absence? And how have you lived with that? How have you found strength, power to get through that vulnerability? Perhaps those questions don't speak to you because you're doing quite well with what disability, mental health challenge that you may manage yourself. You are living as fully as you would like. You can say I'm good enough and that is enough. You're not trying to overcome suffering, you're not struggling to recover as you are and that is just fine. Yet, if you live long enough, vulnerability will come to each of us. God will show up right there in the midst of our weakness and by faith, by trust, I believe, I do believe God's grace will be sufficient. What experiences have led you to your own vulnerability? Look back on those times, was the presence of the divine there or was there a presence in that absence? How have you lived with that and how have you found strength to get through that vulnerability? May it be so. Thank you all. Ready to roll. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.