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Are You Broken?
A sermon by Rev. Steve
Blanchard
Minister of Missions
First Baptist Church, Richmond, Virginia
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall and all the king’s
horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty back together again. Now this
famous nursery rhyme about this animated egg on this very high wall supposedly
very comfortable, very confident - when suddenly, something causes him to fall.
Now the story does not elaborate what it is that knocks him from his supposed
secure high perch, but he fell a great distance and being the fragile
personality that we was, he cracked up when he hit the bottom. He went totally
to pieces. And all the king’s horses and all the king’s men rushed out and tried
to put Humpty back together again, but to restore him to his former
wholeness—but couldn’t do it.
A
Cistercian monk, named Matthew Kealty, one time was speaking to the Abbey of
Gethsemane and he was telling about a story one time when a stray dog wandered
into the monastery. And he said this stray dog was dirty and hungry and badly
wounded. It had a broken leg and a chewed up ear. He said worse than this, the
dog’s frightened demeanor made it cower away from anyone who tried to get close
to it. Once you tried to pet it the dog would just skirt away. Finally, though,
with a little love the dog eventually came around and began to respond as a
normal dog would. And towards the end of his homily, Matthew Kealty says these
saving words, “For is not each one of us, in some way, just like that wandering
dog? Have we not been bruised and beaten by life, been chewed up, knocked
around? Do we not all limp in one way or another? Is there anyone here bold, or
foolish enough, to maintain that he or she is a sound, whole perfect human
being? Has not the evil one, rather, left his mark on your soul?”
Maybe
this morning, you find yourself either identifying with Humpty Dumpty—broken and
desperately trying to hold together, to mend your life in some way. Or maybe you
are here this morning like the stray dog. You wandered in, you’re beaten, you’re
tired and you’re scared to let anyone get close. Maybe this morning there’s a
healing that needs to take place in your life. Maybe you know it, maybe you do
not.
I
want to read to you a scripture from Matthew chapter nine, verse 35 and 36. It
says, “Then Jesus went all about the cities and villages teaching in the
synagogues and proclaiming the Good News of the Kingdom and curing every disease
and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them because they
were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd.”
This
is just one scripture in the New Testament that tells us Jesus had compassion to
heal. It was central in Jesus’ teaching. That Jesus wanted to see his sheep
healed. Even in John 13, Jesus is serving his disciples; he’s washing their
feet. And the interesting thing about this story is, before he sends them out to
minister in his name—Jesus is taking care of their needs. Jesus is ministering
to them. And then, and only then, does he send them out to minister to others.
You
see many of us here today are trying to wash the feet of others. We’re trying to
take care of somebody else. We’re trying to invest our life in our spouse or
children or parent or our work or something else. We’re trying to take care of
somebody else, when the truth be told, we are the ones in need of healing.
It’s
hard to admit that we have limits; it’s hard to admit that we have wounds; it’s
hard to admit that we have needs and accept that we are not fully in control of
things. Sometimes we feel led to pray, especially in the church, for the needs
of others when it is really us who need to be prayed for—it is us who need to be
healed and until we are healed, or at least on the journey to be healed—we
cannot participate in a full relationship with Lord or with other human beings.
We
have to realize, though, that no matter how distorted or hurtful our feelings
are or no matter how messed up life has become—all that, all those feelings were
originally created by God. And they hold the possibility for being unique and
beautiful. In their healing, our problems are not wiped out or destroyed; rather
they are restored to their original intended purpose and power. Our fear, when
it is healed, becomes intuitive, empathetic compassion and sensitivity toward
others. Our destructive anger, when it is healed, becomes a passion—a hunger and
thirst for justice and righteousness. Our perfectionism and our compulsion to
control and dominate, when this is healed, it becomes joyous power to build and
create. Our inertia and our withdrawals, when healed, become increasing powers
for peace and integrity. Our possessiveness, our addictions and our jealousy,
when healed, become increased powers to become lovers and healers of the world
around us.
You
see, through Jesus, we see a God manifested who is not a destroyer but a healer
and reconciler, a God who so desires to redeem, to restore, to reconnect and to
transform us.
This
morning we’re going to talk about some areas that maybe some of you need healing
from in your life. The first one I want to talk about is a healing from a
painful past.
I
want you to think of an experience, maybe recent, maybe long ago. Maybe it was a
serious experience, maybe it was a trivial experience, but it still causes you
pain or anger or grief or sorrow or shock. We can probably all think of wounds
from our past. Some of these wounds, maybe we’ve worked through, maybe we’ve got
them healed. But others have buried themselves so deep within us and their
easily brought to the surface that we might re-live them from time to time.
Sometimes we relive them everyday. And maybe we’ve tried to forgive, we’ve tried
to understand, we’ve tried to release these feelings many times before but
they’re still sensitive and fresh within our memories.
Some
of you have heard my personal story—when I was a teenager, I went through a time
that lasted—I can’t tell you how long. There’s no way to describe it other than
depression. A time when I struggled with life, I did not like myself. I
struggled to gain the acceptance of others and it was a constant spiral. And
that struggle led from one event to the next and it finally ended in attempted
suicide, which led to another attempted suicide, which led to another attempted
suicide. Now, failure is a thing that comes about most people, most people sit
here and say, “I could identify myself as a failure.” But let me tell you what
the definition of failure is: to think yourself a failure and to try to kill
yourself on three different occasions and you screw every one of them up. That
is failure. I could not even kill myself! All these attempts were in private,
you know, I didn’t step out in front of a bus or go out in a crowd of people and
try to shoot myself (or anything like that) but they were what I considered
serious attempts. They were acts of desperation.
One
thing I had to realize, though, it that no wound is so trivial or so bad that
the love of God is not concerned. There is not pain that the love of God cannot
reach. I remember struggling for so long with things and things just turned over
and I never, never saw any hope for the next day—never had any desire for the
next day. And after these attempts passed, things didn’t get any better—they got
worse for a long time. But God’s love will not only encompass our sensitive
wounds, but he can transform those into assets. The only thing God asks is for
our willingness and our permission to enter those wounds.
Now I
really didn’t believe that at the time. I went for four, five, six years living
in my own pain, in my own secrets and one day I was given an address, a stand up
comedy routine is what it was. At college, my senior year, we were doing the
roast of one of our professors. We were doing it especially for the freshman
class and I was in charge and I was going to it. I was telling things about this
professor that I had been waiting to tell about him for four years. And since he
wasn’t my professor anymore, I could say whatever I wanted. And I did. And
people were laughing and people having a good time and we were just going to it
and it was coming near the end and something inside of me says, “Hey, tell ‘em
about the time you tried to commit suicide.” Yeah, right - and I kept on going,
kept on going. A few minutes later that voice came back again, “Hey, tell them
about that suicide.” And in my mind, I’m thinking, God’s that’s a closed door,
here, I got to shut, close, lock, barricade it. I am certainly not going to let
it out before this group of strangers. Once again, that voice came back saying,
“Tell them about the times that you tried to commit suicide.” And before long,
without even really realizing it, I found myself blurting out my suicide
attempts in detail to this group of freshmen that I was trying to impress,
trying to have fun with. Talk about a crowd killer. Laughing cutting up, all of
a sudden, shut down, nothing. You could have heard a pin drop.
Well,
needless to say, the people did not leave in a good mood. I told my story,
people left real quiet. And I’m like “Well, I’ve sealed my fate for the year.
You know. Everybody’s going to walk around, ‘Hey, there goes suicide boy.’”
Nobody wanted to hang around with me.
But
as I’m walking out the door, I heard this girl say, “Excuse me, can I talk to
you for a minute.” Well, I turned around, saw what she looked like and said,
“Yes, Lord, all right, I’m here to serve!” Well she said I want to talk to you
outside. So we went outside and we started talking and she started unloading a
painful past that made mine seem like a day King’s Dominion. Pain after pain,
hurt after hurt that she had kept walled up in her heart for years. And she told
me, she said, “You know what, I had everything planned our and tonight was it,
I’ve been here a week and I’ve never been so depressed and I really wanted to
kill myself. But when you shared what you did, I saw how God can take those
damaged areas of our life—no matter how shameful they are—and God can bring
healing.” And I’m happy to say that God used that painful event because I was
just willing for a moment to let God go there—God used it. And that girl ended
up singing at my wedding. And now she’s married got two, three, four, five, six
kids, I don’t know, I don’t know when she stopped, I haven’t seen her in a
while.
I
want to read a scripture to you from 1 John chapter four verses 7-10 - “Beloved,
let us love one another because love is from God. Everyone who loves is born of
God and knows God. Whoever does not love, does not know God for God is love.
God’s love was revealed among us in this way. That God sent his only son into
the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved
God as he loved us and send his son to be the atoning sacrifice of our sins.”
You
see, God loves us. God know all the pains that we have buried deep inside. God
knows all the things that we’ve done or said or did or fault and he still loves
us.
Maybe
this morning you need healing from a deep forgotten pain. What if you don’t know
what’s hurting? What if you can’t identify your source of your pain? What if the
trauma was so painful that you have locked it away, put it in your subconscious
and you just don’t know how to face it? You know, our feelings about ourselves,
about God, about others many times came our way before we had the ability to put
things into words or the ability to formulate out thoughts. These thought
patterns emerged during our formative years and sometimes things happened to us
or we develop feelings due to our surroundings that hang around with us
throughout life and they cause us struggles and pain that we just cannot not
figure out.
In
Psalm 139, verses 1-18, David is lamenting before the Lord. He is praying, he is
on his face before God and some of the words of this Psalm say, “Oh Lord, you
have searched me and known me, you know when I sit down and when I rise up, you
search out my path. You hem me in, you’re with me, Lord.” And he goes further
saying, “It was you who formed my inward parts. You knit me together in my
mother’s womb. I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” But
there’s one verse, verse eight, that says, “If I ascend to heaven, you are
there. And if I descend or make my bed in Sheol, you are there as well.”
In
Hebrew, Sheol is a place of shadows, dimness, half alive-ness. It’s the area of
the forgotten or dimly remembered. What better word to describe our
subconscious, where many of our life-forming experiences are not only forgotten
or maybe they’re just dimly remembered. The good news is God’s love and power to
heal is not limited by or dependent upon our memory. God’s transforming strength
can reach deep into those recesses of our heart and our mind. Places that maybe
we have even chosen to forget. Reaching to those long forgotten, buried chambers
or our pain to bring his light and his understanding.
Maybe
this morning you need healing from an uncertain future. Maybe you have a wound
that is the fear of the future. A lot of people feel anxious about their lives,
they feel anxious about what lies around the next corner, or what’s over the
next horizon. Who can blame them? I mean, look at our world today. So many
things of uncertainty at our jobs and our home lives and the world around us,
what’s going to happen tomorrow is so uncertain. We worry about what we’re
doing, we worry about how we’re living and we worry about that’s all going to
play out tomorrow.
Now
some of these anxieties have their roots in unhealed memories of the past. We’re
afraid of something that lies ahead, but we’re not exactly sure what we’re
afraid of or why we’re afraid of it. But many times, let’s say after you go
through an episode in your life where you were hurt—something has happened that
hurts you—all of a sudden you become afraid of being hurt again. So, you are
afraid of whatever the future might hold and you’re afraid of getting hurt
somewhere along the way. In other words you become afraid of being afraid.
Verse
five of Psalm 139 says, “You hem me in, behind and before, and you lay your hand
upon me, such knowledge is too wonderful for me.” In verses 7-10, “Where can I
go from your spirit and where can I flee from your presence?” Verse 8 gain, “If
I ascend to heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If
I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
even there you’re hand shall lead me and your right hand shall hold me fast.”
There is a God who not only comes from behind you and can take that painful
past, but God can go ahead of you and help you not to be afraid of the future,
can heal you of your fear of the future.
Maybe
this morning you need prayer for persistent feeling or problem that you just
cannot seem to conquer. You know, whatever our deep persistent feeling or
problem is it’s most likely is an old enemy. It’s probably been with us for a
long time. And it’s difficult to be honest about because that hurt or that pain
or that wound is so old, it’s so painful, we’re usually ashamed of it and we try
to hide it and it’s a frightening and humiliating thing to think that others
would discover this center of pain in us, this center of vulnerability, or this
center of unworthiness.
We
devise masks that we put on or we create fronts so that no one else can see
what’s really inside. And I am an expert at masks. I wore them for years. In
fact, if I’m honest with you this morning. I probably still wear a lot of them
because there are things about me that I’m ashamed of. There are things about me
that I don’t want people to know. There are things about me that I’m ashamed to
go to God about. And so I still wear these masks.
A lot
of people think that once you became a Christian—man, you ascend right to the
top of the heap and you are in constant fellowship with God. I’m not that kind
of Christian. I have struggles, I have things that I’ve worked through and try
to work through and give to God time and time and time again. I have things in
my life that I’m not happy with.
Going
back to the episode in high school, all through high school, I was the class
clown. You know, if there was something you wanted done, go see Steve Blanchard.
If it was a dare, go see Steve Blanchard. He’ll do it; it’s kind of like Mikey
in the Life cereal commercial. Mikey, Steve will do it. And I did and everything
that I did that I discovered later was a diversion to keep people from seeing
me. Maybe if I can keep you all looking out here at my acts, maybe if I can keep
you all looking at the things that I did and the stupid, crazy things that I
did, you’ll focus on that and that will be your image of me—not who I really am.
I wore the mask.
Whether this thing in your life, this wound, is caused by sin or by some
unhealed wound or probably a combination of both of those, through Jesus, we see
a God who with an incredible, incredible power of compassion calls forth the
innermost, most hidden self of shame, weakness and hurt. He calls forth those
areas in our life that we are shameful of. He calls forth those struggles in our
life that we don’t want anyone else to know about. He calls forth those areas of
imperfection in our life that we’ve tried to put a front on and we’ve tried to
put a nice face on—Jesus calls forth those into a healed life.
I
want to read again from 1 John chapter three, starting with verse 18 and going
through verse 20. It says, “Little children, let us love, not in word or speech,
but in truth and action. And by this we will know that we are from the truth and
we will reassure our hearts before him.” Whenever our hearts condemn us for God
is greater than our hearts and he knows everything. There’s nothing that I have,
nothing that I do, nothing that I think, nothing that I am that God doesn’t
already know about. And God still loves me. When I get up off my knees and say,
“God, if I was you I couldn’t forgive me of that, I wouldn’t tolerate these
consistent behaviors that I keep exhibiting.” But God does, still loves me,
still puts his arm around me, still says, “You’re my child.”
Maybe
this morning you need prayer for healing from a particular attitude for
prejudice or action that has or does hurt another. Maybe we need healing from
the attitude of thinking we do not need healing, that we are superior or better
than everybody else. Maybe we, as Christians, need to be healed from our
complacency to the world around us, thinking that the problems of others
(whether they’re next door or half-way around the world) don’t concern us. Maybe
we all need to get our knees and ask God and seek God in such a way that we
cannot rise again without being transformed by his grace and his power.
Maybe
we need to take off our mask and be honest with ourselves and with God and maybe
even the rest of the world and say, “You know what, I am not perfect. I am one
screwed up human being and that’s okay.” Maybe we need to allow God to use our
imperfections and our healing, though, to bring glory to him and in turn—maybe
help another person who’s struggling as well.
Maybe
you’re here this morning and you’re saying, “You know what? You’re not hitting
anything on me. I’m fine. I’m good.” Bull. We’re all hurting; we’re all screwed
up. We’ve all got some imperfection in our lives. And if you are perfect, I want
you to meet me down here after the service, because I want to get down before
you. We are messed up people and that’s okay. It’s okay if we’ll give our
imperfections and our hurts and our wounds, no matter how deep or painful or
shameful they are, if we will lay them before God and say, “God, here I am, it’s
just me, I’m not perfect but I want you to take those things and I want you to
transform them, I want you to use them.” And you know what, you’re going to be
right back down on your knees tomorrow and the next day and the next day and the
next day.
Second Corinthians 12 verse 7, Paul is talking to the Corinthian church here
about his life, “Therefore to keep me from being too elated a thorn was given me
in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from being too
elated. Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me,
but he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in
weakness.’ So I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses so that the
power of Christ may dwell in me.”
What
if you have prayed and asked for healing to come but nothing happened? That’s
what Paul did. He suffered from something, some kind of problem, whether it was
physical, emotional, spiritual—we don’t know. But we do know that in his
weakness he was made strong. Three times he appealed to God to heal this wound
of his and three times he was denied. And even though suffering is a given in
everybody’s life, the thorn in Paul’s life could have lead him down two
different paths. He could have ended up being an angry, bitter person who
rejected God and said, “I don’t need God.” Or as it so happened to have played
out in Paul’s life, he found the ability to live within God’s grace.
When
we’re confronted with a problem of which we need healing, we need to pray for
its release. And if we don’t hear an answer, we pray again and we pray again.
There may come a time, however, when it becomes clear that the healing you are
seeking after is not going to happen. If this should be the case, then we need
to search for a deeper meaning and understanding of the situation. Maybe it’s a
lack of faith. Maybe we’re mouthing the words asking God to heal us, but we
really don’t mean it in our hearts. Maybe God has a greater purpose for
suffering as in Paul’s life. Maybe there’s some sin in our life or something we
haven’t given over to God that’s prohibiting that healing from coming. Or maybe
we’re just not praying specifically about the problem. Maybe we’re praying about
a symptom but not the problem.
The
world around us needs to see us as we are. They need to see the church as a
collection of people who are suffering, who are hurting, who live everyday
lives—just like everyone else in the world—but we have a God who is
transforming. We have a God who takes all that junk in our life, all that shame
and guilt and all the other stuff and takes it and molds it and transforms it
into something that is beautiful and useful to the world.
Now
maybe you think something you’ve done is too shameful. Maybe you think, well,
“I’m a pillar of the church, if people knew that I was this way—I would lose my
position.” Great! Maybe one reason you need to be a pillar of the church is
because you have that problem. Maybe people say, “Oh, so and so, man, they,
they’re right there in touch with God.” You know it’s God, so and so, Moses,
everybody else down here. And if they get to know the real me, oh man, no, no,
no, I can’t, I can’t. Well, I say bull again because when God takes the stuff
that we have on the inside and he begins to bring it out, he begins to transform
it and do something wonderful with it, the power that God can use in that in
touching a world that is hurting, a world that is tired of struggling a world
that has rejected the church, because the church for so long has held itself us
to be better than everybody else. The world looks at that and says, “That’s the
God I need. That’s the God I’ve got to have, a God who loves me and cares for me
and embraces me and holds me—no matter how bad I am.”
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall and he fell to pieces. And all the king’s horses
and all the king’s men rushed out and tried to put Humpty back together again.
Have you tried to fix your problems with solutions that don’t work? Are you
broken and you tried to put yourself back together with something besides the
transforming love and power of God? Have you tried to restore yourself to
wholeness only to find out that you remain in a broken state of existence?
In
John chapter 20, Jesus is appearing to his disciples after he had died and been
buried and he’s been resurrected and he is appearing to Thomas and the disciples
and he shows them the wounds in his hands and his feet. But have you ever
wondered why, in his perfected, resurrected body that Jesus retained his wounds?
Now maybe he did if for the sake of identification, so that when the disciples
saw him, they’d say, “Oh yeah, that’s Jesus, I see the nail prints in his hands
and feet.” But maybe, Jesus wanted to show us that wounds, especially healed
wounds, can become new sources and new signs of new life. They are no longer
sources of pain and despair; however, these wounds now healed can become
channels of healing and hope for others. Our wounds can do the same.
Let
us pray.
Dear
Lord, we are a wounded people. I am a wounded person. Lord, if we are honest
there are so many things in our life that are imperfect. And we try to be
perfect, God, we try to do the right thing. We try to pretend to the people
around us, but you know the truth. We talk ourselves into thinking, “Oh, I can’t
reveal my wounds because it would do more damage than good.” The fact is God (at
least in my case) it’s probably because I’m selfish. I don’t want other people
to see my wounds. I don’t want other people to see me limp and go, “Ah, he’s
fragile, he’s messed up on the inside.” God, forgive me, forgive us, God, of our
selfishness, of our need to hold on and be in control, of our need to be
superior, of our need to be stronger than we really are. God, this day, help us
to open the doors that we’ve long ago bolted shut, that we locked up and said,
“You can’t go in there, God. I’m not even going to go in there, much less
anybody else.” I pray this day, Lord, that we would open ourselves up to you,
allowing your transforming love—that goes beyond anything that we can begin to
describe—your grace and your mercy would come in an heal us. For we ask this in
thy name and for thy sake. Amen.
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