Joy in the Broken Places

Zechariah 9:9-12

Mark 11:1-11

“Those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting, ‘Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!’”

During these days of Lent we have engaged in the vulnerable work of opening ourselves to the broken places in our lives and in our world.

We’ve gathered before worship to talk about illness and separation and trauma and death—not easy topics for a Sunday morning. But as we’ve talked about these things, we’ve also found ourselves talking about healing and restoration and renewal and what might even be called the power of the resurrection.

We’ve brought broken items large and small, things that don’t work, things that are damaged and shattered—symbols, perhaps of our own lives. Led by Connie Schumm, members are reassembling these pieces, transforming them into a stunning visual work of art that expresses brokenness and healing.

We’ve gathered in this sanctuary to listen as scripture told about being alone in broken places, being judged in broken places. And as we’ve listened we’ve also heard that we are together in broken places, that we receive and give compassion in broken places, and that we might even find a perhaps unexpected generosity in broken places.

As we conclude these Lenten Sundays, I want to consider joy in the broken places.

Now, Peter Gomes, the late minister at Harvard’s Memorial Church once said with his characteristic understatement: “To preach on joy is not an easy thing.”

It isn’t.

My guess is that it is not an easy thing to listen to preaching on joy either—in part because nothing takes the joy out of joy more than dissecting it and holding it under a microscope and in part because we have all sorts of objections and reservations about joy. Where is the joy in illness? In separation, in trauma, in death?

Where is the joy in the broken places?

Our reservations come, in part, because we so often confuse joy with happiness—although they are not the same. “Happiness,” Frederick Buechner says, “comes and goes with the moments that occasion it, but joy that is always there is like an underground spring no matter how dark and terrible the night.”[i]

Joy is not an easy thing.

And yet here we are on Palm Sunday, and with the Psalmist we make this exultant proclamation: “This is the day that God has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it!” This day—any day—is meant to be a day of joy.

Buechner, again, tells us that we never take credit for our moments of joy because we know that we are never really responsible for them. The unspeakable joy sometimes of just being alive. The miracle sometimes of being just who we are with the blue sky and the green grass, the faces of our friends and the waves of the ocean, being just what they are. The joy of release, of being suddenly well when before we were sick, of being forgiven when before we were ashamed and afraid, of finding ourselves loved when we were lost and alone.[ii]

Joy!—in the broken places.

Here we are on Palm Sunday, hearing again the shouts of “Hosanna!” a word of joy that originally meant “save us,” which is not how we today generally want to talk about life or even the life of faith.

To shout, “Save us!” suggests that here in the broken places we can’t take care of ourselves, that we can’t use our own ingenuity, or thoughtfulness, or scientific skills, or creativity to solve the problems that beset us. To shout, “Save us!” suggests that we’re not strong enough or tough enough or stoic enough to bear up under whatever weighs us down and not complain. In other words, it says, “We can’t do this on our own.”

And yet, we have the suspicion that joy shows up in just such circumstances, meeting us in the broken places, crying with us.

Something like joy can be seen when refugees are pulled from the water after the boat they were in has capsized. Rescuers race toward them with looks of anguish, fearing the worst. As they lift one victim after another, we see something of relief, something of thanksgiving, something of joy over lives saved.

And that, in a sense is the story of each of us, all of us—pulled from the waters quickly rising above our heads. It is joy, what has been called “an undeserved and unexpected outcome which confirms the goodness of God.”[iii]

This day of joy is also a day when we recognize our brokenness and cry out: “Hosanna!”

Joy!—in the broken places.

As Jesus and his followers walk from Galilee toward Jerusalem, things are not good and they seem to be getting worse. He’s had several run-ins with the religious authorities. He’s attracted the attention and aroused the suspicions of King Herod, who has beheaded John the Baptist.

A couple of times as they walk along, Jesus stops, looks at his disciples, and tells them that he is going to be betrayed and killed by human hands. He adds some strange words to the effect that three days after such a death he will rise again. But no one really understands this and, being human, they are afraid to ask Jesus what he means. Another time Jesus tells them that their reward for following him will be, among other things, persecution.

Things are not going well.

This, of course, allows us to hear the Palm Sunday story with open ears and open hearts. We are familiar with things not going well.

Here we are: among those who seek to follow Jesus and are saved sometimes. Here we are: among those at times saved from greed, hatred, and confusion and being saved for kindness and creativity, wisdom and compassion. Here we are with palm branches and “Hosannas” of our own.

This past week we marked 15 years since our invasion of Iraq and the seemingly endless war in which we are involved. The President wants John Bolton as his new National Security Advisor, a man who is still convinced that that invasion was the right thing to do. Those who speak loudest about the sanctity of marriage and the family are quick to tear families apart for the sake of border security and outdated and unrealistic immigration policies. And in our own lives we know, illness, grief, uncertainty…

I could go on, but I don’t need to, do I?

We all know it. We know it all.

Hosanna! Save us!

Given the reality of brokenness in our lives and in our world, we might say that each week is Holy Week. Many of us want to avoid the betrayal and growing shadows of Maundy Thursday, the crucifixion and death of Friday because we encounter them every day.

This morning, then, simply look at Jesus as he heads into the city. What we see is one human being entering into brokenness with resolute determination.

It could have been different. Jesus could have stayed in relative obscurity and complete safety. Instead he made the difficult decision to act in accordance with his calling to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind; to proclaim the year of God’s favor.

Look at how Jesus lived—so that you might enlarge your own ideas of both living and dying. Jesus embraced the journey of life. Jesus embraced death just as he embraced whatever life brought him—his conflicts and his confrontations—with a kind of joy that was that consistent underground stream of strength.

However we go through the days between now and Easter, whatever we do—or don’t do—to mark Holy Week, we can’t avoid the hard parts in our own lives or in the world. Illness must be walked through in all its pain and uncertainty and treatment and healing day by day. The sorrow of grief is with us when we wake each morning. The anxiety about tomorrow keeps us awake in the night. And we know quite well that we will not suddenly arrive on the pleasant shore of racial harmony, interfaith understanding, or international peace. The perilous journeys to such lands are long and needing our best efforts each day.

We don’t need to enter into Holy Week and try one more time to work ourselves up into thinking about the suffering of Jesus and imagining how he might have felt. Instead, we are given the opportunity today and in the days ahead to hear and see once more that God has entered into our world, bringing a change to our lives.

This is why we can speak of joy even in the broken places, especially in the broken places.

In a sense we live always in this time between Palm Sunday and Easter—every week is a “holy” week. We are familiar with suffering and sorrow. And at the same time, we know that we are not alone in these days.

We have one another in this this church—and that is a glorious advantage. Ask anyone who has been through a difficult time and they will tell you that they made it through in part because of the other members here—people whom you are sitting next to, maybe even you yourself. We bear one another’s burdens.

We also have the sustaining presence of God, the One who in Jesus Christ suffers with us. This is not an unmoved, impassible god, but the One who responds to human pain. God enters into the very heart of our brokenness. In Jesus God takes on human suffering, bearing it fully. That is our wholeness, our well-being, our salvation.

In the days ahead, remember: Our hope is in God’s power to renew our lives and our world.

We are often broken.

Even Jesus was broken and died.

That was not, however, the end of the story.

But that is Easter. And we have much to learn in the days to come before we once again face the empty tomb.

May the crucified and risen Christ continue to be with us in the broken places.

 


[i] F. Buechner in  The Magnificent Defeat

[ii] http://www.frederickbuechner.com/quote-of-the-day/2017/10/28/touched-with-joy

[iii] Peter Gomes