A Menno Minute
by Caleb Kowalko, Pastor at Calgary First Mennonite Church
Our Human Vulnerability
I was just about to collect my things
from my office after church when I overheard the very sad news.
One of our church youth, following close
behind me on the stairs, informed their mom, “Kobe Bryant just died in a
helicopter crash.”
Like many who first
heard the news,
I thought it must be
some kind of joke or prank.
But when I went
to my phone, sure enough, officials were reporting about the very real tragedy
in Southern California.
Most people who know me recognize that
I am a very big basketball fan - more-so than the average Canadian, I
suppose. Although I usually thought of
Kobe Bryant as a villain (he always beat my favourite teams), I found myself on
Sunday in complete shock. I’m still
trying to wrap my head around it. The
sad news didn’t stop with Kobe, as it was later reported that his daughter and
seven others died in the crash.
Kobe Bryant was a legend, someone that
a whole generation of basketball fans looked up to - they wanted to be just
like him. He was world renown. He made history. So how could he die so young (at only
41 years of age)?! How could he die like
this?! He was supposed to be
beyond these kinds of seemingly random and meaningless tragedies that afflict
us human beings. It would have been less
surprising to so many if Kobe Bryant stood up from the wreckage without a
scratch. Because he was more than human. In the words of sports writer Tommy Ross,
Kobe was a “basketball god.”
Far be it from me to try to make sense
of this, or any other seemingly random tragedy that has taken lives. In moments like this, I do my best to resist
that ever-so tempting, yet dead-end question, “why?” But like so many other tragedies that I have
witnessed in my life or in the news, it does cause me to reflect on that
quintessential feature of our humanity: our vulnerability.
Among so many other things, humans are
vulnerable. We trip, we get hurt, we
fall ill, we get into accidents, we age, and so on. Much of what we have tried to do in the
modern west has been to overcome that vulnerability because for the most part,
we hate our vulnerability. Or at
least, we are taught to hate our vulnerability.
So we try to overcome it. We try
to not be vulnerable. We try to escape
our humanity. And for the most part, we
assume that what it takes to escape this very human vulnerability is to reach a
status not unlike that of Kobe Bryant.
But it turns out that Kobe was still
human - a creature. Despite his status
near the pinnacle of Olympus, he was
still human. Despite the glory of his
fame, championships, records and awards, Kobe was still human. And if there is a particularly Christian way
to reflect on this tragedy of that helicopter crash on Sunday, it might be as a
reminder that our human vulnerability cannot be escaped.
But rather than this recognition
drawing us towards a paralyzing fear, or perhaps looking to the latest
technology that will surely save us from our human vulnerability, a Christian
response has been to direct that vulnerability in a life-giving direction: in
turning our dependence upon our Creator.
In fact, our God did not seem to think that this vulnerability was
something that needed to be escaped but actually chose to enter into it
joyfully.
Our vulnerability is not a sin -
something that needs to be escaped. We
claim that God created our vulnerability and intended that it be one of the
things that would draw us towards God.
This doesn’t mean we are not to be careful in our lives. It doesn’t mean we are to be reckless. But we acknowledge our vulnerability is an
important and beautiful part of what makes us human.
God did not want Kobe Bryant or any of
the other eight individuals to die in that crash. Those nine people were God’s beloved
creatures. And our God desires life not
death. So it is right to grieve and
mourn when tragedy strikes anywhere, and especially close to home. But it is my hope that our own human
vulnerability is never the thing that causes us to lose faith. God’s work in our world is never to eliminate
our vulnerability - to save us from our own humanity. Rather, God’s work is to be the completion of
that vulnerability in communion with us
- the Creator and the creature
together again.