Here's a tip to begin 2024: Don't mess with new year's resolutions. You don't have to make them, nor do you have to keep them. The statistics say that most people fail to keep them after trying for a time anyway. Failing to keep resolutions will only derail your mental health and well-being, so why bother making resolutions in the first place?
Now, I'm not saying that you and I should not have goals for ourselves and our families each year, nor am I saying that we shouldn't set out to achieve and pursue our God-given potential to the fullest. To ignore these opportunities would prevent us from optimizing God's spiritual gifts within the body of Christ and hinder the life-giving fruit that they bear on the communities we're blessed and called to serve.
I'm simply asking you, starting in 2024, to have a new perspective. That's all.
I like the word "perspective". It literally means, "to observe, look closely through". Like a periscope, having a new perspective helps us see life differently, from all angles. In the same way, when we look at the world through new lenses, we're able to view people and circumstances with more wonder, more awe and more respect. Put another way, when we're open to new perspectives we're able to more fully grasp what it means to be fully human. No longer are we tied down to antiquated interpretations about how life must be; instead, we are free to experience the richness of God's innovative work in all of creation's glory and beauty.
Speaking of new perspectives, I spent more time in 2023 reading written excerpts from the works of the late Henri Nouwen (Dutch priest, pastor and theologian). The reason why I find his writings so remarkable is because Henri is able to beautifully capture the essence of who we are in Christ and how our Christian identity transforms our perspectives about humanity. Using the powerful lens of vulnerability, Nouwen helps us recognize that our brokenness is the very lens through which we are able to find common ground with one another. In fact, our broken spirits are the very blessings that cause us to view those who are different as truly being more alike than we'd ever first imagined. When Henri realized, early on in his spiritual pilgrimage, that he was truly beloved of God, it completely delivered him to freely love others in the same way that God loved him. For Nouwen, true joy is experienced in the oneness we share in, through and because of God's love. The following quote illustrates some of what Nouwen means by the oneness we experience in Christ:
"When you receive a compliment or win an award, you experience the joy of not being the same as others. You are faster, smarter, or more beautiful, and it is that difference that brings you joy. But such joy is very temporary.
True joy is hidden where we are the same as other people: fragile and mortal. It is the joy of belonging to the human race.
It is the joy of being with others as a friend, a companion, a fellow-traveler. This is the joy of Jesus, who is Emmanuel: God-with-us" (Nouwen, Bread for the Journey).
This human fragility and the recognition of our mortality is what Nouwen believes is indeed an affirming truth about our connectedness. Speaking of fragility and mortality, our vulnerability opens the way for us to experience some of the most meaningful relationships on earth by way of friendship. This holy friendship cannot be manufactured anywhere else but in the reality of human brokenness. Nouwen espouses this truth, too. Additionally, I've recently come across an article about the ancient Japanese artform, Kintsugi, that helps us realize the true power of relationships. By combining Nouwen's understanding of our common humanity with Kintsugi, I hope that you and I will step into 2024 with more humility and boldness than we've ever displayed before. Here is a summation of Kintsugi, a Japanese pottery artform (source: ChatGPT, personal communication, December 18, 2023):
Kintsugi is a traditional Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by highlighting and enhancing the cracks with lacquer infused with precious metals such as gold, silver, or platinum.
This ancient technique transforms what would be considered a flaw into a celebrated feature, emphasizing the beauty of imperfections and the history of the object.
The process goes beyond mere mending; it elevates the mended object to a new level of aesthetic and philosophical significance...Kintsugi is more than a physical repair; it symbolizes healing and resilience.
The mended pottery becomes a metaphor for the human experience—showing that even after being broken, one can be reconstructed and made even more beautiful.
It encourages a shift in perspective, celebrating the history and stories embedded in the scars rather than focusing on perfection.
I hope you read, slowly, the aforementioned description of this beautiful Japanese artform. Just as pottery breaks, cracks and falls apart, so do we! We feel our brokenness on a daily basis, and our struggles, pains and sufferings cannot be denied. Even Paul affirms this truth in 2 Cor. 4:7-12 (NRSV): "But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. We are afflicted in every way but not crushed, perplexed but not driven to despair, persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed, always carrying around in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. For we who are living are always being handed over to death for Jesus’s sake, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us but life in you." Therefore, friends, it is in the commonality of our human fragility (Nouwen) and in the hope that others see our beauty in the scars where Jesus resides the most. Never forget this! Our Christian fellowship impacts our community most strongly when Nouwen's words and Kintsugi collide in our lives. It's true--because we are human, we also share in life's brokenness through sin. Ever since the Garden of Eden we've been trying to prove our way back to God. We've been trying to one up each other. We've been trying to get ahead by any means necessary. And all the while, we've attempted to show others that we've got it all together when, in reality, we're just as broken, messed up and exhausted as the next person.
Think about this: What if your human imperfections, flaws, and blemishes were the very blessings which God uses to reconcile us rather than to push us away from one another? I submit to you, fellow siblings in Christ, that 2024 is not about being the best or achieving goals that cause us to compare ourselves to anyone or anything. My hope for all of us is that, in 2024, we will accept our own brokenness and the brokenness of others as a way to find common ground while forging new friendships and building closer camaraderies than the ones we've enjoyed in the past. Did you know that your weakness is the very center of God's strength (read 2 Cor. 12:9-10)? Did you know that your sufferings are storing up riches for you in glory (read 2 Cor. 4:17)? Did you realize that the mistakes of your past and the cracks in your present are cemented by the gold-encrusted beauty marks of Christ's love for you (read 2 Cor. 4:7-8)? In other words, your fragile, weak human condition is where Nouwen's words and Kintsugi collide. That collision is where healing is found, where "...the mended pottery [our broken lives] becomes a metaphor for the human experience—showing that even after being broken, one can be reconstructed and made even more beautiful."
This year, I want us to practice vulnerability with one another. Through the transparent sharing of our lives we will find true peace and real joy. There is no better place to belong than in the safety of friends who love us just as fragile, and as cracked and as broken as we are. After all, as Nouwen writes, our joy is found in belonging to the human race. We are not better or worse than the next person; therefore, we are all one due the fact that we depend on the Potter, our heavenly Father, to put us back together again (read Jer. 18).
Jesus was glorified in his complete and utter vulnerability while hanging from a cross (there is beauty in his scars!). God desires for us to live broken lives of vulnerability with one another too. After all, God's power rests in our weakness, God's ability is laid upon our broken dreams and best laid plans, God's love is met in our common confession of "I can't, but You can, Lord."
So let's celebrate 2024 as the year when Nouwen's words and the Japanese artform of Kintsugi collide in our hearts. And may we never let fear, worry or embarrassment stop us from loving our congregation and our community through the shared flaws and cracks in the fragments of our humanity. It's here, in the beauty of being human, where we will grow in unity and in love with God and one another. And right now, the church and the world needs this new life perspective in ways we'll never, ever be able to measure by human means.
So--may the gold and silver of Jesus' transformative, complete healing be what others see in the breaks and the cracks of our collective brokenness in 2024--and beyond.
To the glory of the One Who chose to be broken for us so that we would be made whole,
><> Pastor Will <><
John 3:30
