Blessed and Broken - sermon October 5 2014

“Blessed and Broken”

Alison Longstaff, October 5th, 2014

Bath Church of the New Jerusalem

Jeremiah 18:1-6; Luke 9:12-17; Heavenly Secrets 2343

           

       Take. Bless. Break. Share.

       Did you notice this progression in our reading from Luke today?

       Take. Bless. Break. Share.         

Whenever we find this progression in the New Testament, a communion is taking place. In today’s reading from Luke, Christ takes the meager offering of loaves and fishes, which is certainly never going to be enough to feed the large crowd; He blesses it and breaks it and gives it to the disciples to share.  And it becomes more than enough.  There is a message in that.

            Take. Bless. Break. Share.

            It struck me, as I researched this story, that this is what we can do in response to God’s gift of life to us: accept it, give thanks for it, break into it, and share it.  Also, this is what the gift of life does to us.  It comes on us and blesses us … and breaks us.           

          Life both blesses us and breaks us.  Loving others blesses us and breaks our hearts.  Living in community, as church and as family, brings untold blessings, and can break our spirits.  Nevertheless, there is something about that breaking that opens the way to a new richness in our souls and lives.

            Many of us here have parts of us that feel broken.  Though we do our best to look fine most of the time, we also hide the parts of ourselves that feel, well, “unsuitable for public consumption.” We all have memories of words and behaviors of which we are not proud. All of us at some point have said the wrong thing and hurt someone else’s feelings. We have all, at some point done the wrong thing and offended someone. For that matter, sometimes we do the right thing, and still someone misunderstands and gets offended.  No one can live in any real community for any length of time and not experience how communications can go wrong, good intentions can result in hurt, and resentments can erupt in sharp words.  Is there any congregation on this planet that has not had one scandal or another based on clashing personalities, conflicting control issues, poorly chosen words, or disappointed expectations?

Nadia Bolz-Weber, a tattooed pastor in Denver, Colorado, made famous for her colorful language and raw honesty, jokes that she thinks her church motto should be, “We will disappoint you.” She believes in reality over naive idealism.  She insists, “Any human community is flawed and will end up hurting people and not living up to their ideals.” So tells each new inquirer, “Listen. I need you to hear me say this: ‘At some point, this church will not meet your expectations. It will let you down. At some point I’ll say something stupid and hurt your feelings.’” She then invites each one to consider at the beginning if they are willing to continue in the community after that happens. “Because,” she says, “when we leave the minute our community disappoints us, we miss out on the way that grace can come in and fill in those cracks that are left behind from our brokenness and our mistakes, and it is too beautiful to miss.” (from the CBC radio show, "Tapestry" Season 20, Episode 3, "The Irascible Pastor") 

     Certainly we have all been offended or had our feelings hurt in this spiritual community or some other.  BUT we have also experienced being held close and cared for when we have been broken apart. That gift: that way a community can hold us together when we are at our most broken is one of the most meaningful aspects of being church together. Think about it. Recall some of the acts of kindness, great and small that have come your way simply because that is what we do.  Recall a time when you realized your small act of service made a difference, and how that felt.

            We are broken and we are blessed by each other. We cannot have one without the other, it seems.           

     In our Hebrew Testament reading we heard about a Potter throwing a pot on the potter’s wheel.  As we listen, the pot becomes deformed under the Potter’s hands.  Anyone who has attempted throwing pots knows how the clay seems to have a mind of its own. Either the clay is too wet or it is too dry, or there is an impurity in it that ends up causing a crack.  One minute the pot is shaping up nicely, and the next minute the clay thins too quickly, or it splits, or flops over from excess moisture. . . .  And the envisioned vessel becomes a broken blob.

            In my life I have often felt not so much like the useful vessel I intend to be but more like a broken blob.  Have you ever wondered if you were just too broken or flawed to ever become the person you dream you could be?

            But notice this: the pot is in the Potter’s hands while the deformity happens. It isn't that the Potter was careless, yet the pot is spoiled.  It isn't the Potter’s fault, and it isn't the clay’s fault either, even though the flaw is inherent in the clay.  This text is not telling us: “Be careful because you too might mess up like the pot.” No. This story is in God’s Word exactly this way because this is how life goes. We will be broken. We can’t help it. We come flawed. That’s not the point. The point is that we are held, known, and loved right through the brokenness and back to wholeness. The text is reassuring us that we are always in the Potter’s hands. He’s never faltered for a minute. We are already being made new.
      We never leave God’s hands. The brokenness is always a gateway to a new and more beautiful plan.

      A famous Leonard Cohen song says, “There is a crack, a crack in everything; but that’s how the light gets in.”  I’ve heard this quote so often, it has become cliché. Nevertheless it remains true. Sometimes the only way the light gets in is through our cracks.

     The cracks open a way for us to learn things we could learn no other way. Babies learn how to walk by falling down. Skiers and skaters learn balance through repeated spills. We learn how to love each other well, by loving clumsily and hurting each other sometimes first. And new pastors learn how to write good sermons only after inflicting some real clunkers on some long-suffering congregations. It is just what the process looks like.

            Besides, we’re the ones that want perfection straight out of the gate, not God.

            God designed a system in which being broken is part of the process.

         Honestly, in this very little denomination, inspired by the writings of a brilliant man, whom some considered a bit of a crack-pot, we of all people should recognize that sometimes the light gets in best through the cracks. Swedenborg saw visions; he talked to dead people; he said there are people living on the moon. But despite his oddness and his unorthodox teachings—many of which still leave us scratching our heads—his writings have also brought healing, enlightenment, and new hope to tens of thousands.  He has opened the Bible in a whole new way.  He has taught us about heaven and hell, the internal meaning to the Bible, about Love and Wisdom, and about salvation for peoples of all faith and all walks of life.

      So let’s hear it for crack-pots! Let’s hear it for anyone who is brave enough to speak their truth into a world that isn't ready to hear it. Let’s hear it for all the ways and means that God devises to help the light break through into our lives.

     After all, Jesus was considered a crack-pot. He certainly was broken for His efforts to speak the truth into an unready world. And He certainly blessed us by His willingness to be broken.  Perhaps that is part of what he was trying to tell us—that we need not fear brokenness. That brokenness is always the path to being made new.

        I think it is in our nature to fear our brokenness. We want to hide it, cover it over, and paint a smiley face on it. We feel sure that it means we are weak, that we are not good enough, that we should be ashamed, that we have failed.  But it is not so. It simply means we are human. It means we are alive.

            Take.  Bless.  Break.  Share.

         Isn't it so often true that our vulnerabilities end up being our strengths?

         Accept your life! Give thanks for it, for it is perfect, no matter how inadequate it may seem. Break into it, live it, eat it up, let it change you. And share the gifts you are given, no matter how meager they look in your hands. In God’s hands they become an overflowing abundance.

     Yes, this life can sometimes break us. But embrace it—all of it—for it is only through the breaking and the eating that we find and share our deepest blessings.

       Amen.

Rewritten from a sermon preached January 28^th, 2007, Kitchener, Ontario

Readings

Jeremiah 18:1-6 (NKJV)

The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying:  “Arise and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will cause you to hear My words.”  Then I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was, making something at the wheel.  And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter; so he made it again into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to make.

 Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying:  “O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter?” says the Lord. “Look, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel!

Luke 9:12-17 (NKJV)

When the day began to wear away, the twelve came and said to Him, “Send the multitude away, that they may go into the surrounding towns and country, and lodge and get provisions; for we are in a deserted place here.”

But He said to them, “You give them something to eat.”

And they said, “We have no more than five loaves and two fish, unless we go and buy food for all these people.” For there were about five thousand men.

Then He said to His disciples, “Make them sit down in groups of fifty.” And they did so, and made them all sit down.

Then He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, He blessed and broke them, and gave them to the disciples to set before the multitude. So they all ate and were filled, and twelve baskets of the leftover fragments were taken up by them.

Heavenly Secrets 2343. “And they ate” means they accepted it and made it part of their life.  “Eating,” means accepting and ingesting, and so to make something a part of one’s life. “This is My Body;” and “this is My Blood” means the Lord's Divine Human and the Lord’s Holy Spirit, from which and by means of which come all life and salvation. That is why communion is so sacred. Whether you say “His Divine Human,” or “His Body”, or “His Flesh,” or “the Bread,” or “the Divine Love,” it is the same; for the Lord's Divine Human is pure Love.  It is being from Divine Love that makes something sacred.