Broken, But Not
Luke 24:36b-48
While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’ They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. He said to them, ‘Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.’ And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, ‘Have you anything here to eat?’ They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence.
Then he said to them, ‘These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.’ Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.
In the passage we just heard, yet another version of Jesus revealing himself to his disciples after the resurrection—his disciples see him, and yet continue to have trouble believing. This was something that came up in Bible study this week—that even after all the signs and miracles they’ve seen from Jesus, even after Mary Magdalene told them the good news, after everything they still struggle to believe—they still struggle to see what is right in front of them. Jesus has to show them his hands and feet, and he has to purposely eat a meal in front of them to prove to them he’s real, that he’s not a ghost. And even after this, he has to explain the prophesies, the laws, everything that led up to this all over again. It takes all this for the disciples to finally understand, for them to finally realize what it all meant, what had to happen, and to understand that soon Jesus will ascend and they have been true witnesses to all of this—from the sermons and miracles, to unthinkable grief and torture and death, and finally to true hope and resurrection, and now it’s on them to go out and spread the word. But it took a lot to get there.
Church, in following the news about entirely unnecessary death of Daunte Wright, and now Adam Toledo, not to mention another mass shooting this past week, I couldn’t help but have a similar thought—how much does it take? How much grainy body cam footage, how many traumatic cell phone recordings of young people of color being senselessly killed do we have to see for us to believe? For us to know that there is a deep rot in this country, for us to know that something has to be changed. How many reminders do we need? How many protests? What will it take for this country to believe in the plight of black folks? What will it take for us all to be true witnesses of these things, instead of turning a blind eye and pretending it’s not our problem? What will it take for us to be a true witness to the nonviolent and equalizing work of Christ in such a broken world?
Just when things start to feel so hopeful, doesn’t it seem like things become irreparably broken again? I try not to become too despairing and discouraged, Church, but it’s hard. I want to go out and be a witness for the peace, nonviolence, and full equality that Jesus commands us to spread, but it’s hard not feeling a little hopeless sometimes. It’s easy to feel small and inconsequential, easy to feel like things are just too broken.
I got a new book the other day, by Makoto Fujimura. He’s a deeply Christian thinker and artist, and his book is called Art and Faith: A Theology of Making. There’s a chapter in the book in which he talks about the ancient Japanese art of kintsugi. Kintsugi is the skill of putting broken and shattered, usually tea sets, but also vases, bowls, other ceramics with a gold adhesive, actually showcasing the cracks and breaking points, making them part of the art, making the cracks and breaking points beautiful in and of themselves. Now, I’ll tell you, when I first read this, I thought, What a perfect metaphor for Jesus, coming back from the dead complete with cracks and scars, but more beautiful and hopeful than ever! And one simple google search helped me to discover I am not the first pastor to have make this connection—there were enough sermons and essays and articles that I almost abandoned this idea altogether. I mean it is a pretty obvious parallel, right? But as I continued to read this chapter, Fujimura writes about a visit he has with a kintsugi master, Nakamura-san. He meets Nakamura-san at a very tiny, cramped, very noisy coffeeshop (this was obviously pre-COVID). This is, apparently, where Nakamura-san does most of is incredibly skilled, delicate work. He says to Fujimura, “I do not like to work alone. I like to invite others, even those who may not have any experience to join me.”[i]
So here’s this man, a master at this sacred and skilled craft, who works in a dingy little coffeeshop and invites complete strangers to join him. No gatekeeping of this tradition, no snobbery, just someone passionate about this art, inviting others to experience the same joy and passion he derives from this skill. This, I thought while reading this—this is witness. This is spreading knowledge, peace and joy to others—showing them how to make something that seems broken and useless, whole and beautiful and different.
And Nakamura-san—he often takes ancient pieces of pottery and art, some dating back from the 12th century, and includes random forgotten shards from different modern materials, and newer ceramics. It’s more than just putting something back together—it’s about creating a brand new thing. The philosophy around kintsugi is that by showcasing the breaks and the cracks, you’re showing that those breaks and cracks are part of the story, you’re not trying to hide them, to pretend they were never there. And Nakamura-san takes this a step further—not only does he showcase the cracks and the breaks, but he introduces new materials, new shapes, new designs into these sometimes ancient vessels. These shards with a difference in age some times hundreds of years come together to make something new, something beautiful, something practical.
When Jesus revealed himself to his disciples this time, he openly shows his wounds. Not only to prove who he is, but to show that he is changed—to show that he went through the ultimate trauma, and the ultimate sacrifice, and he is back, he is risen, he is resurrected… but he is different. The scars show his story and his journey. The scars show both the tragedy of what Jesus had to go through, as well as the hope that he brings in his defeat of oppression and death.
This world feels so wounded, so broken. And for so long, those in power have tried to put band-aids on the deep systemic problems in this country. We’ve tried to paste the cracks with weak, invisible adhesive. We’ve tried to hide the sins of the past, tried to pretend things weren’t or aren’t so bad, tried to drown out people who are truly trying to witness to the truth, to the harsh realities of this world. We’ve tried to negate the needs and cries of others. That’s not what Jesus calls us to do—Jesus calls us to witness. And Church, to witness is to listen to those who are crying out. To witness is to listen and learn and then to go out and spread the truth we have heard. To witness is to humble ourselves and pay attention, to witness is to understand that it’s not about us, it’s about spreading the Christ’s messages of peace, solidarity, and love. Church listen to what Jesus says, that this is “to be proclaimed to all nations.” There are no caveats here. There’s not gate-keeping. No one is left out of Christ’s message, of Christ’s love. His message is all-encompassing, it is wholly inclusive. And it is not one of fire and brimstone, Church—it is one of forgiveness and love. It’s one of acceptance, no matter what cracks and breaks we’ve experienced in our own lives.
What will it take, Church? What will it take for the people of this country to get the point the disciples finally get to after so much instruction, after so many reminders? What will it take for us to be true witnesses, to believe what we see with our own eyes, and to work to try to call attention to and to stop the evils that we see? The methods that have been attempted over and over are clearly not working. Throwing platitudes or more money at the problem isn’t working. Riling people up and putting more fear of the other into this world, that is not working. People’s differences in this country seem to only continue to divide us, to move us further apart into our own isolated cliques and bubbles.
I worry that this could sound all a little kum-ba-yah—that if only we came together everything could be okay, but it’s just not that simple. Because the type of coming together that I think is perfectly represented in the philosophies of kintsugi and the kintsugi master Nakamura-san is that our traumas and our sins and our tragedies are a part of us we cannot forget. This was true for Jesus—the marks on his hands and feet and in his side, they did not go away when he rose. This is true for us, and our own personal stories—our history, no matter how much we want to forget some of it, it shapes us, it makes us who we are, for better and for worse. And this goes for this country, and all the economic and humanitarian crimes this country has committed, all the crises and momentous events it has successfully weathered throughout the centuries. We can’t whitewash over the hard things and pretend they never happened. We have to face them and move forward and work so that this violence won’t continue happening.
I wonder, Church—I wonder what this world would look like if we were able to come together like one of Nakamura-san’s ancient and transformed pieces. The author and artist Fujimura wonders this too. He writes, “What kind of a church would we become if we simply allowed broken people to gather, and did not try to ‘fix’ them, but simply to love and behold them, contemplating the shapes that broken pieces can inspire? What type of bowl would their hands make, a visceral communication that can be passed on for ten thousand years?”[ii]
What kind of world can we make? What kind of world, complete with cracks and differences, complete with past sins and hew holiness can we make? Church, I pray every day that we can come together—not to fix each other and not fix the world, per se, but to create something brand new. The old ways just aren’t working. The old methods aren’t relevant to us anymore. We witness so much violence daily—on TV, on the internet, in real life. And when we witness this violence, it’s our responsibility to speak out against it. It’s our responsibility to witness to do the work of Jesus. And that witnessing is going to look different today than it did when Jesus called his disciples to witness. We have to combine what we witness today with the commands of Jesus.
What will it take? What will it take for us to believe what we see with our own eyes? What will it take for us to see that so much of this world doesn’t need to be fixed—that it needs to be truly transformed? What will it take to create a world in which young people of color aren’t constantly killed out of irrational hate or panicky fear?
I can tell you that it will take facing the sins of our past, of our history. I can tell you that it will be risky and it will take courage to go out and bear witness to what we see in the world, both the love and goodness Jesus teaches, and the hate and violence that is all too real and present and working against the love and goodness. I can tell you it will take understanding, humility, and a yearning for justice. And I can tell you that eventually, every broken and unique piece will come together and create a new Kingdom of God here on this Earth. And I can tell you it will be beautiful. Amen.
[i] Fujimura, Makoto Art & Faith: A Theology of Making (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2020) pg. 49
[ii] Fujimura, pg. 50
