Your Brokenness isn't Enough

I don't get it, personally. There seems to be an obsession at the moment with brokenness, with being broken, with accepting the mess, with being happy being unfinished.

In the Christian 'club' - I use the phrase to describe a loose group of individuals who blog and write and tweet and such - it is incredibly fashionable to be broken. It seems its quite fashionable to write about it at length. 

To dwell on bad experiences of church, on recent examples of being shamed.

Broken bodies.

Broken hearts.

Broken lives.

Broken people.

It hurts. Its horrible to be broken. To be told you aren't worthy. To be compared to another. Someone better, purer, holier, cleaner. More whole.

I read a little while ago a blog by someone called Sarah Bessey called "I am Damaged Goods", in which she recounted an experience that she, when a young Christian, found very shaming. And my heart burns with frustration at the fact she clearly only heard (which very likely meant the speaker only shared) part of the truth regarding the topic of sex. The post goes on, and there is some great truth in it, but also some concerning things. Someone else, called Maurice McCracken, picked it up and critiqued it in a post called "It's Okay". Both posts touch on this issue of brokenness. And both, in different ways, (and this is only my opinion) don't quite get it.

A nice man with a beard once said;

 "Come as you are, don't stay as you are". 

And that is the key to authentic Christian brokenness. I think. Let me use a couple of examples. Shane Claiborne is a very popular Christian writer, activist and speaker who is quite radical in his taking literally what Jesus said about posessions. His popularity often seems to manifest itself in people angst-ridden-ly worrying about everything they do and own. Shane doesn't leave it there. He gets broken - and then gets on with it, trying to live a life that looks like Jesus. Brokenness isn't enough. A blogger called Peter Ould has an amazing story. He now calls himself 'Post-Gay'. He's lived the brokenness. And then something started to put him back together. Peter now has a brilliant ministry, commenting on all sorts of issues with wit and wisdom. But his brokenness isn't enough.

The Church on earth isn't perfect. Christians aren't perfect in this life. It is entirely expected, biblically speaking, that the people of God aren't going to look like they should, all the time. See Paul's letters, or much of the Old Testament, if you don't believe me. But to say that such a situation is final, eternal, is missing the point. Its to ignore that to be broken, and even to recognise one's brokenness, is assuming that there once was, or might be, something not broken.

Which is exactly what Jesus is all about.

Jesus takes us as broken people and restores us above and beyond our expectations to wholeness. He heals the sick, loves the poor, befriends the lonely, calms the anxious, and purifies the unclean. In Jesus, my sexual past is wiped away totally. In Jesus, my past depression is replaced with the certain promise of a future full of joy. In Jesus, we are infused with the knowledge that matters, the knowledge of God's Love. Which is the most powerful and transformative force on earth.

Unleashed upon the world most spectacularly by the breaking of Jesus on the Cross 2000 years ago, God's love is far and beyond what any of us could imagine. Its the kind of love that removes the past so we can walk with Jesus into the future. Its the kind of love that transforms people. Even those who have made big pastoral errors. Criticised their leaders. Done terrible things. Taught falsehood. Lied about the character of God himself. Sinned sexually. Murdered. Stolen. It is to these sorts of people that Jesus came. That God speaks.

It was like this in the earliest days of Christianity;

"Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be decieved; neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor theives, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God"

That is 1 Corinthians 6:9-11. I have been unrighteous, sexually imoral, stealing, greed, drunk and swindling. Thats how I was. But because of nothing I did, because I was broken (and am still broken, but being mended and made new), Jesus died for me. And you. And him. And her. And anyone and everyone who comes and throws themselves, with all their brokenness, onto Jesus. 

Jesus was broken at the Cross. He died. He bled. He was buried. The price was paid. But then the amazing, the unthinkable happened. The brokenness that was cleaned up and wrapped in grave clothes and laid in a tomb was no more. Jesus is alive! He is Lord! The miracle of Christianity is not just the Cross but the Resurrection. Jesus was not just broken, a man who died, but made new, the King who lives! At its heart Christianity, authentic Gospel-driven Christianity, is about the broken being made new.

So don't be content with brokenness. Its not enough. And it will never be enough. Because Jesus has been there. Taken it all. And risen. And we will rise with him. Thats the amazing miracle of the adventure of following Jesus.

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I am aware that I have touched on, and moved past (hopefully rightly, unto Jesus!) some big issues today. One of these is, sexual assault, not a topic I know much about, but my understanding and sensitivity has, I hope, been improved by reading (and reviewing) the superb "Rid of My Disgrace" by Justin and Lindsey Holcomb. Another topic dear to my heart is that of mental health, especially in my post "Christianity and Depression". Similar but different, and not in my personal personal experience is anorexia and eating disorders. I'd commend to you Emma Scrivener's "A New Name" as a powerful story of the transforming Grace I've been writing about today.