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This is how much I love all of you: I’m about to out my husband. Years and years ago, when we were still dating, Marv fancied old cars. This particular car had a hole in the floor: backseat, passenger side. You could actually see the road go by through there as we drove. It was so bad that one day when we gave my sister a ride she said, “What is this, the Flintstones car? Do I need to put my feet through the floor to make it go?” It was really bad, but the truth is the car was still drivable; it got us where we wanted to go.

I guess I should out myself a little as well. I do have my share of chipped coffee mugs; favorite plates with a crack in them. If I’ve got a couple of runs in the pantyhose, so what? I’ll just where them under slacks until they literally fall off of my legs! And, while I was preparing this message, I looked around and found this (hold up a ‘walkman’). I found three of these, and I had to ask myself, “Am I keeping these because I think cassettes are making a comeback?!”

I bet most of you have a junk drawer; a junk room; a garage; some item that you hold onto for reasons only known to you – and to others seems broken; unusable; junk.

Sooner or later when we consider what to do about some of these items, we are going to make an assessment. Can I use it for something or do I just throw it away – maybe get another one a better one?

What I love is that God has a whole other way of dealing with brokenness – our brokenness. With God, it is not a matter of whether to throw us away or whether there is some use still left in us. With God, it’s not even an issue of whether we are recyclable, or reusable. In God, there is always wholeness right in the midst of our being broken.

There is nothing so wrong with us that God cannot use us. We can never be too old or too young for God to find value in us. There is no hurt we have absorbed that God cannot heal. There is nothing so horrible, or so unforgivable that we have done that God will not forgive us. We can never be so unlovable that God will not love us.

In God’s hands, the hands of the One who created us, we can never really be just ‘broken’ – we can always experience wholeness in God. It’s like I’ve heard the elders in the Church say so many times: “God didn’t make no junk!”

So why don’t our eyes and ears bear this out? It seems as if we look around us and all we see is ‘brokenness’. Broken lives; broken morals and values; broken spirits – even within the walls of this church, we can plainly see this.

Well, I believe that it’s when we venture out on our own power that all of our flaws- and all of our chips, and our tears, and damage are clearly visible and can sometimes get in the way of God using our brokenness to bring value to ourselves, to our family, to our community and to the world.

What that means is we need to find a way to continually keep ourselves in God’s hands, letting God direct our paths and guide our ways. And, that‘s really tough for us.

First of all, some of us don’t even recognize that we are broken. We think we’re fine. We think it’s everyone else that is broken. In our scripture text from Acts, which records the history of our Church, Saul does not know that he is ‘broken’. He believes he is in the right – and acting on God’s behalf. In fact, he sees himself as a warrior for God.

To really understand this, we need to go back a few chapters to Acts 7:54 – 8:1 verses. We’re going to read it together in a moment, but let me set it up a bit. Remember, things didn’t magically change for many people after Jesus was resurrected. Yes, his immediate circle of disciples and many others came to believe that he was truly the long-awaited Messiah; the one that was going to save the people from Roman oppression, and restore Israel’s land and status.

Others, however, still saw Jesus as a rebel, a heretic who was rightly punished for his blasphemy. The reasons that Peter denied Jesus did not go away because Jesus rose again. We’ll be talking about Pentecost in a few weeks, but at Pentecost things changed in the disciples through the presence of the Holy Spirit, but things did not change so much around them. It was still dangerous to be associated with Jesus, even without his physical presence.

And so, Saul was one that believed he was absolutely doing the right thing in going after and destroying anyone who associated with Jesus and that “sect” called ‘the Way’. The synagogue and the established Jewish beliefs had to be protected.
Read text Acts 7:54-8:1
You can just envision it in your mind’s eye: Stephen, considered to be the Church’s first martyr for the faith; Saul in the back of the crowd, with folks’ cloaks at his feet, watching. Stephen praying for these people who eventually stoned him to death. And afterwards, no remorse - Saul was convinced that he was being righteous on behalf of God. He was his faith’s protector.

Saul had no clue how broken he was. It is Jesus who reveals his brokenness to him. It is Jesus who helps him to see clearly God’s plan and purpose for his life. Jesus is very concrete with Saul; Saul is made physically blind. What better way to help him realize that he is already blind? The point is now made and cannot be ignored any longer.

There are so many interesting stories about how any one of us came to know Jesus. I don’t mean how we came to know the ways of the Church: where to sit, when to stand; how to use the hymnal; who’s preaching we like best; that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m not necessarily even talking about the day you were baptized. But, there are a myriad of stories about how you or I came to know Jesus, for ourselves, in a personal way.

For some of us it progresses steadily and subtly, through the people God places in our lives; through experiences or memories, even through a song, sermon or scripture that we might hear in this sanctuary. These things can touch our hearts in a way that makes us know that God is speaking to us.

But, for many of us, the opportunity comes through crisis. Just like Saul, we are knocked to our knees by death, fear, illness, tragedy, some ‘thing’ that reminds us of our powerlessness; some ‘thing’ that humbles us. And we are forced to seek the One that is ever-present and ever-loving. In those moments of our deepest brokenness, God can get a message through and we can actually hear it; as if it was a voice that was always there, but there was too much self-made static for it to be clearly audible.
Before we can get to a place where we are continually in God’s hands, and can experience wholeness there, we first have to recognize that we are broken.

Second, we have to believe that we can be made whole, despite our brokenness. We believe too easily when others tell us that we are irreparably broken. We believe and internalize it, when folks behave towards us as if our lives cannot be transformed and made undeniably valuable in God’s hands.

Ananias even questioned GOD on this very issue. This man? The one who is killing our people? You want me to go to him? To lay hands on and heal him? He’s the enemy; the very opposite of what we stand for! Ananias is resigned to the fact that Saul is broken, and is ready to dismiss him; to throw him away because of the things he’s done.

But God makes clear that God is not a God of division, but of wholeness. God can use anything and anyone. In fact, God’s strength can be clearly seen in brokenness. God will send Saul to speak for Him - not just to his fellow Jews, but to the Gentiles far and wide as well. Saul, who later becomes Paul, will become the most prolific of all of Jesus’ followers.
God would use this man -and doesn’t that make sense? What an incredible transformation! What an impact - on those who knew who and what he was, to now hear him preach in the synagogues that the Lord has risen, and is in fact the Son of God!

How amazing is it to realize that God can work in us just as God worked in Paul? To use the height and depth of our brokenness, to demonstrate the power and wholeness that is found in Christ. Shouldn’t that help our unbelief? God has done some of His best work through brokenness! Believe it, because God has already proved it – we CAN be made whole no matter how broken we are; no matter how broken we feel; no matter how broken we might become.

The ultimate example of God’s strength in brokenness is seen in Jesus. As we continue to contemplate what God has done thru Jesus; the real significance of Easter, the truth is that God could have provided salvation for us in a myriad of ways. God chose brokenness.

They tried to break Jesus’ body. They whipped him until he was weak; they made him carry a heavy wooden cross thru the streets of Jerusalem and then they nailed him to it and forced him to hang there for hours. They stabbed him in the side with a spear.

They tried to break his spirit: his own people rejected him; one of his closest followers betrayed him; another denied him. At the crucifixion he Romans humiliated him - taking all of his clothes away, casting lots or gambling for his belongings right in front of him; mocking him.

In every way that we could understand as human beings, they did their best to break him in every way they knew how – including killing him. But, on Easter morning God worked the miracle of salvation through any form of brokenness we can fathom!

This is a message of comfort and reassurance for us. Because it means that whatever we might have done; whatever it is we think cannot be forgiven; whoever it is we have hurt; whatever wrong we have yet to make right – God can and will still use us to accomplish Her purpose and plan. We are all invited to share in a life with God. We are all invited to be in relationship with the One who created us and loves us without equivocation.

It is also a message that we have to stay vigilant; always looking inward; always measuring ourselves against the teachings of Jesus. Lest we become like Saul- not realizing our brokenness; not acknowledging our need to be made whole; resting in the false assurance of our ‘rightness’ which should not be mistaken for ‘righteousness’. Lest we remain blind and continue to go our own way – a way that works at cross purposes to that of the God we say that we love.

We rest in God with the hope of realizing the vision that God puts forth; a vision of our future. It is God’s plan for us to live in unity and wholeness as John foretells in Revelation:
“Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. 12In a loud voice they sang:
"Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength
and honor and glory and praise!"
13Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing:
"To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power,
for ever and ever!" 14The four living creatures said, "Amen," and the elders fell down and worshiped.
Glory Be to God. Amen.

 

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