Broken

Bob Dylan once sang,

Broken lines broken strings
Broken threads broken springs
Broken idols broken heads
People sleeping in broken beds
Ain't no use jiving
Ain't no use joking
Everything is broken.

As a priest, I stand Sunday by Sunday before a worshiping community and I break a piece of bread. It strikes me as a deeply profound and important gesture. "Everything is broken."


There are times when I am almost overwhelmed by the brokenness of life. There are so many things that do not work very well. I do not know any communities or institutions that run along smoothly without encountering tension along the way. Businesses falter; the economy seems to be in danger of sinking beneath the surface; social problems grow more acute every year; governments struggle to govern; churches flounder. We are not getting better and better as the years go by. Institutions don't work very well because institutions are made up of broken people.

I get to hear a lot of stories of peoples' lives. Many of the stories I hear are filled with pain and struggle. I see people who feel completely bewildered by the circumstances in which they find themselves. I see so much tragedy and suffering without even needing to leave the comfortable suburban confines of my little parish. I wonder sometimes how people manage to keep going.

The pain I see may not be the pain of fearing for your life of those who live in a wartorn country or those who face the bleak daily struggle to find enough food to sustain a family. I do not see the grinding poverty of the truly poor. But the pain and the brokenness I see are no less real.

What do I have to offer this broken world as I stand at the table of the Lord breaking bread to share among broken people?

I wish I was Jesus with the power to heal all the brokennes I see. But even Jesus left more unhealed than he made well. Even Jesus left in tact the injustice of Roman rule over his people and the awful religious oppression of his day. Surely Jesus could have done more. Surely Jesus could have taken all the brokenness and made it better. He left so much undone, so much unfinished buisness. What was he thinking?

Jesus knew something I sometimes forget. Jesus knew he did not come to establish a visible, tangible physical kingdom here on earth. Jesus said, "The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed." (Luke 17:20) Rather Jesus came to establish a kingdom within the hearts of those who opened to him, "in fact, the kingdom of God is within you." (Luke 17:21b)

All the brokenness, all the pain and the suffering of this earthly existence call us to open to a deeper reality within ourselves. The tragedies we experience summon us to recognize that God lives within us and that our ultimate peace and contentment lie, not in orchestrating the circumstance of life to work the way we wish they might, but in resting and trusting in the unchanging mercy and grace of God at work within our lives.

We cannot fix all the brokenness of life. We can only offer it back to God, surrendering our own wills and trusting in God's love. When we enter into this transaction with God, we will find that our lives become instruments of healing even within the terrible brokenness of life. We act, not in order to fix anything, but because the love that we discover when we surrender to God's mercy, compels us to be instruments of restoration. And so the world is a little bit more healed when our hearts open and embrace the loving mercy of Christ.

This is the hope I offer every time I stand at the table and break bread to share with broken people. There is hope within our hearts, because we do not face the brokenness of life alone. God is with us; God is in us. We are filled with the light, mercy, truth and grace of Christ that triumphs over all the pain and suffering we might ever confront. We are instruments of light when we surrender to the Goodness that sustians the universe and that dwells in the depths of our being.
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Where Is My Confidence?

In his book Hope Against Darkness, Franciscan priest and teacher Richard Rohr writes,

Greatness emerges when, above all else, people are confident. When we believe—together—that life is good, God is good and humanity is good, we become very safe and salutary people for others. We do exciting and imaginative things because we are confident that we are a part of a story line that is going somewhere and we want to be connected to something good.

But what about those of us for whom confidence is often difficult? What about those of us who wake up many mornings feeling the sky is going to fall as soon as our feet hit the floor? Is "greatness" closed to those who find it difficult to work the alchemy of confidence?

Sometimes it just does not feel that "life is good, God is good and humanity is good." Evidence may suggest that life is difficult, God is distant and humanity is dangerous. How do we find "confidence" when we feel we are in "a story line" that seems to be going nowhere?

The etymology of the word "confidence" is helpful. "Confidence" is made up of the intensive prefix "com" and "fidere," to trust. "Fidere" is also the root for the english word "faith." So "confidence" is intense trust or faith.

The important question to ask the concept "confidence" is "where are you placing your faith"?

Often "confidence" looks like self-assurance. A person who believes she can do anything seems to be a "confident" person. High performance atheles train themselves to believe in themselves; they picture their success and place absolute faith in their abilities. When they achieve a certain level of confidence, they can take great pride in their well-earned success.

The Hebrew prophet Habakkuk questions the concept of self-confidence and its partner pride. Habbakuk warns, "Look at the proud! Their spirit is not right in them." Then he goes on to offer a corrective to the proud human spirit saying that "the rigtheous live by their faith." (Habakkuk) Pride and self-confidence may have their place but they are not the same as faith.

At the end of his short book, Habakkuk offers a picture of the biblical vision of confidence. He outlines a series of terrible calamities, "Though the fig tree does not blossom, and no fruit is on the vines." The list goes on and on as the prophet paints a terrifying picture of all the worst things that could happen to people living in an agrarian culture. Then Habakkuk concludes, "yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will exult in the God of my salvation." (Habakkuk 3:17,18)

Everything in the prophet's vision suggests that life is not good, God is not good and the forces of creation are working against God's people. In response, the prophet does not proclaim, "In spite of all this I believe in myself; I choose to picture success and to have confidence that I will find a way through my difficulties." Instead, Habakkuk says, "yet I will rejoice in the Lord." In spite of everything I will take joy in God. Faith is the ability to find joy no matter what may be happening in the surface circumstances of my life.

Habakkuk understood what I so often forget. He understood that joy does not lie in making the circumstances of my life turn out the way I think they should turn out. Joy is not located on the surface of life; it is found in the depths of my being where I can know "the God of my salvation."

The problem with looking to my circumstances to give me joy is of course that my circumstances will never be good enough, or stable enough to insure that no calamity ever upsets my sense of well-being. There will always be more struggles to replace those I manage to conquer.

The difficult circumstances of my life are not an enemy to be defeated. They are an opportunity to be embraced. The difficult circumstances of my life come to me as a gift. They have the power to open me to a deeper place within myself where I know that the goodness of life does not depend upon anything as uncertain, changeable and unreliable as my circumstances.

I do not think we are looking for "Hope against darkness," as the title of Rohr's book seems to suggest. I think we are looking for hope in the midst of darkness. Faith offers us the opportunity to see light in the darkness. It offers us a living relationship with the power of God that makes it possible to find strength even in the wilderness of doubt, uncertainty and fear.

The problem for some of us is that we take our feelings too seriously. We believe that our feelings are reality. When I wake anxious in the morning and lie in bed with my stomach churning, I need to hear that churning calling me to a deeper place. I need to see that my insecurity is a gift that, if I will receive it, will draw me to a place within myself where I can know that the goodness of God does hold me no matter what the day may bring.

There is one word in Richard Rohr's paragraph that may help me find this place of depth and true confidence within myself. It is a surprising word. Rohr says, "When we believe - together." Doubt, fear, uncertainty, and insecurity are fueled by isolation. There are times when I need to be surrounded by people who have the confidence in God's goodness that I may lack. There are times when I need to be carried by the faith of others. Despair is fostered by loneliness. The spirit of those who find it easier to stay connected to the light and truth within themselves can help me to open to the presence of God that sustains and upholds me.

Community can be the birthplace of hope and the cradle of confidence. I need people of hope in my life. I need the faith of others to give me strength when I am wandering in the wilderness. And, at times, I may be able to help those who are lost find the source of life in their own being as I turn and trust again in the goodness and love of the God who created and sustains me through this journey of life.

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