How do you feel about failing? If you're anything like me, and I suspect most people, it's not a thought you relish - perhaps it's even something you fear. It's no surprise if that's the case; we're surrounded by a narrative and cultural expectation that glorifies winning, growing, and becoming ever better at whatever we do. The evidence of that is particularly apparent around us at this moment in all the election promises floating around that assure us that tomorrow the world will be better than it is today. That narrative carries with it the threat of being torn down from power, status, or influence (minor deities in this pantheon) if that success cannot be delivered. Will we be surprised if the leaders of minority parties are ousted from their positions in the coming days, not because they are suddenly worse at their jobs, but simply because they didn't 'win'?

In our churches, it's easy to fall into a similar narrative, to measure our success in terms of numbers of attendees or even, dare I say it, how much regular giving we receive. (Both of those are actually recorded, reported, and analyzed by the national church.) Perhaps we might use more qualitative, and less quantitative, markers to measure the 'success' of our churches: was the welcome warm, the sermon interesting, the liturgy edifying, the music uplifting, and the notices informative? Was the coffee good, the seating adequate, and the building beautiful? Was the loo paper sustainably sourced, and the churchyard wilded enough? In short, is our church brilliant?

Now, there is, of course, some merit to asking these questions - but they come with a health warning. The difficulty can be that we recognize that we're never going to be as good at any of this stuff as we want to be (perfection is the realm of heaven itself), and perhaps we're not as successful as we were in the past. The measurables of income and attendance are certainly down, and we might say the same of some of the intangibles like status and influence in wider society. In a society that's rigged us to fear and abhor failure, that can be a really hard place to be. It can, for instance, lead us into unfair (and often inaccurate) comparisons with either other churches now, or our own church in the past; it can demoralize us, and demotivate us, and invite us just to quit.

Well, snap out of it! Not because we are successful in all of those things (we're not) but because actually the God we're supposedly listening to, learning from, and following doesn't ask us to be. They're human expectations, born of a human narrative, born of a human delusion that we're capable of making things better by ourselves. Don't believe me? Just check out this week's readings: 2 Corinthians 12.2-10 and Mark 6.1-13.

In the Mark reading, Jesus tells his disciples straight up that there are going to be times when their mission is going to fail, 'If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you...' How did Jesus know that's what they would face? It was his own lived experience, just jump back a few verses: 'He left that place and came to his hometown... And they took offense at him... And he could do no deed of power there...' Even Jesus, God himself, 'failed' in his hometown.

St. Paul, following in the footsteps of Jesus, knows the same reality, and can even say something truly extraordinary: 'I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ.' What?! Since when were they markers of a successful, brilliant church?

The truth is that this is our inheritance, our lifeblood, our DNA as followers of Christ: to be the least, the lowest, the failures of this world. The paradox at the heart of our faith is that when we are those things we are most like our Lord, who is enthroned in glory. For many years, centuries even, that reality has been hidden beneath the power, wealth, and status of the church - and if those things are beginning to crumble, I for one am very excited to see what real treasures we can find amongst the rubble in the foundations. There, I believe, we will find again the truth at the end of St. Paul's thought, 'whenever I am weak, then I am strong' for God's power is made perfect in weakness.

So let's give up chasing success, glory, and reputation; let's humbly acknowledge who and what we really are without judgment or vainglory, and let's allow God's power in and through our weakness that we may be perfected not by our own strength, and in our own time, but through and in Him.