Shattered Treasure ~ 2 Cor. 4:7-12

 

Shattered. Does that word do something to you? What images come to mind? If that word doesn’t do anything to you I suspect this might (break the heart-shaped vase). When you hear that sound what happens? Where does your body go? Does it want to run? Does it want to fight? Does it touch a broken place? In our series for Lent we are going to reflect on images and sounds of what it means to live faithfully in a fragile and shattered world where we break, where things get broken, and where we are invited to do a little breaking. And right of the bat we learn,

1.    We are shattered. We are more than shattered.

We are jars of clay, Paul says, shatterable – all of us. There’s not a one of us that doesn’t hear Paul’s list and feel his words – afflicted, perplexed, persecuted, struck down – carrying in our body death. And before we move on let that Lenten truth settle among us. We are the shattered. Look around and feel that reality for others. Consider what might be shattering them. Take a moment. But there’s also a darker reality. We are the shatterers. We rend one another apart. Most of the suffering that Paul acknowledges was because of people’s actions toward him, some even by believers. It turns out, we are fragile things that carry hammers. We are the shattered who shatter – others, ourselves, and all of creation.

But – we can be more than shattered. Transformation, Paul says, is available. Because if you don’t allow your pain to be transformed, you will transmit it to others. There is in our passage a “but not” – But not crushed, but not in despair, but not abandoned, but not destroyed. For we have within us, Paul writes, the life of God in Jesus. Friends, often what was intended to shatter can be restoring. Often what feels like destruction can carry healing not because suffering is good but because Jesus is good. It’s often not until we are shattered that we recognize and rely upon God’s power and presence. Friends, on either side of shattered, God is present. But it’s often only after that we have eyes to see it – to see God. There is a line from a Leonard Cohen song that has been haunting me over the last couple of weeks: “Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” We are cracked, Paul agrees. And that light is Jesus, who works in us resurrection power. That light is God who can transform your pain and preserves who you are by being in your very center. That’s how the light gets out.

Friends, what if God made us to be giant sequoias? You are a giant sequoia. And giant sequoias are serotinuous, which means that fire is needed to release their seed. Sequoias release most of their seeds to coincide with fire, because the fire creates ideal conditions for regeneration success. So suffering and pain, despair and doubt, must never simply be relegated to our failure, our sin. No, they are ideal conditions. So, forget your perfect offering. In Jesus, suffering is fertile soil. How do I know? Easy – we’re sequoias and Jesus was shattered. Jesus, as a human being, was serotinuous too.

2.    Jesus was shattered

Jesus’ life and death unmasks one of the more terrible myths that has plagued humankind. The idea that if I do everything right, then I will never suffer. And if I suffer, I must have done something wrong. This myth claims that the existence of suffering is always, clearly, plainly, and undeniably, your fault. But how can that be if Jesus, the sinless one, was shattered?

When I was child I suffered from a fair amount of bullying – very short, a terrible speech impediment, a lover of music and church, did not make my grade school years a party. No, they often left me in playgrounds and gatherings alone (well, at least being alone was sort of a blessing. Better than being beaten up). And I vividly remember being a little boy in my room and praying: “Lord, let me be like Jesus so that everyone will like me. Let me be like Jesus so that everyone will want to be my friend.” No one had ever taken the time to actually explain to me that you can do nothing wrong and suffer. No one told me that I could talk to Jesus because he understood being shattered. No one ever explained to me that to love like Jesus means to live shattered. No one ever explained to me that suffering could actually bring me closer to Jesus and could allow his life to be at work in mine. No one ever told me that real love – God’s love – wasn’t successful love but a shattered love.

3.    Shattered is the place of authentic love.

The Apostle Paul is telling us that there is a straight line between love and suffering. We intuitively know this – that suffering is the only real evidence for love – not sex nor passion or googly eyes. Suffering is the real test, the real evidence of actual love. How do we know? What are you willing to do you for your children, your best friend, your career? Suffering reveals and prioritizes things. How do we know? The Christian icon for love is not a beautiful heart, or flowers and candy, or a God shaped stuffed teddy bear. The Christian icon for love is God offering God’s own self from a crucified position. So Paul’s argument for faith, his evidence for the gospel, is not in some general argument for success or amazing worship or even relevant wisdom. According to Paul the true test of Christianity, probably for any religious belief, is how it addresses the human condition of suffering. For Paul we don’t have to ignore it, or believe it to be good – again, only God is good. But in God’s economy nothing is wasted and God has gone to great lengths to twist the pain of our world into an incredible place to experience love and growth. God has taken up our suffering and transforms it by going through it. He has made us serotinuous and promises us that we can be transformed not destroyed by it. The true test of Christianity is that God promises that the shattered life of Jesus, even as we suffer, will give us life.

Welcome to Lent – dear friends. Welcome to the broken, breaking, shattering and shattered love of God. Welcome to a love that looks like this broken bread and poured wine.