Picture – free image source: https://www.artlovingitaly.com/the-japanese-art-of-kintsugi-explained
Bible reading Ephesians 2:1-10
Reflection
I wonder if you have ever gone shopping, seen something you liked or you thought would be useful, decided not to get it, then, deciding you really wanted it after all, went back only to find it was gone?
If you haven’t then what I’m going to say may not make sense, but if you have ever done that, then you may be aware of the disappointment and annoyance at yourself for not taking the opportunity of getting it when you could.
At the beginning of December I was Christmas shopping for gifts and have to say that it wasn’t going well. Most of the stuff I was looking at wasn’t essential and most of the people I was buying for actually were getting rid of stuff rather than wanting more bits and bobs. I also like to get something, if possible, that reflects the season, that this is the time we celebrate Jesus’ coming. There is not a lot in the shops that does that and be useful so finding gifts is hard for me.
However, I found some wooden wall signs that said, May GRACE, HOPE and PEACE be with you. Wonderful, I thought, these will be ideal, but they were very poorly made, in fact I would even say damaged, I went through the pile on the shelves and not one was in a good enough condition to buy as a gift, or even for myself. Why would you have a tatty looking sign like that, and feeling a bit disgruntled at the poor quality, I left the store without getting any.
Then as I was preparing these reflections I came across the reading in Ephesians 2 and I was struck by the thought that we are so like those wooden plaques that I saw in the shop, we are in effect damaged goods, some of us worse than others, through knocks in life we carry the chips, for health issues the scars and brokenness, where we have been hurt by others we feel rejected, we are not perfect. I realise now that I was looking for something to buy that was perfect, I rejected the merchandise not for what it said or was but because it didn’t match up to what I wanted in outward appearance.
I am cross with myself for not getting one now, for now looking back, that less than perfect sign of Hope, Grace and Mercy being with us – is for me a modern parable – that despite me being less than perfect, despite my chips, my scars and wounds, my sense of being rejected, God’s grace, hope, mercy and love is with me and in me. In my brokenness God does not reject, in fact if I had looked at that sign and filled in all the missing bits and cracks with God’s love it would have been a perfect piece. I was actually sad at the time it didn’t also say “love”, yet as I look back I am aware that anything we buy or do for someone you care about – that love is there!
In this day and age we are being encouraged to up cycle, to reuse or repurpose old things. God has been doing that in us since we were born, so there is nothing new in that idea. But there is a Japanese practice called kin tsugi, literally it means “kin” golden and “tsugi” repair. This traditional Japanese art uses a precious metal – liquid gold, liquid silver or lacquer dusted with powdered gold – to bring together the pieces of a broken pottery item and at the same time enhance the breaks.
It doesn’t cover up the cracks if anything it highlights them, but what it does is make them precious, special, it repairs with something even better than was there before.
St Paul writing to the Ephesians knew about being broken, he knew about having a long term medical problem, he knew about rejection yet he writes :-
it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.
I am still a little cross with myself for not getting that wooden sign, because looking back, Christmas was and still is about God restoring us to himself by sending his Son, It is Jesus, in the power of the Holy Spirit who is the gold that fills the cracks in our lives and makes us new creations, and maybe I should have had one of those signs to put up on my wall to remind myself of that!
So come to the God of creation, who made and formed you, and offer to him who you are, not who you want to be, and please don’t wait until you feel you are good enough, but come just as you are -and open yourself, and also those whom you love and pray for, so that his “liquid gold” of love, grace, mercy and hope will fill the chips, dents, scars, hurts – and believe they can be filled and somehow be made more beautiful than we could ever imagine or hope for.
What is amazing is that God takes what we offer him, however battered that may feel or be, however broken and painful, however unlovely it may seem to us and he pours his hope, grace, mercy and love into us. He doesn’t reject us because we are not perfect! So when you see something broken, or reject something for not being perfect, remember that we have a God who would never do that to us. Amen.
Prayer taken from StF 693
Beauty for brokenness, hope for despair, Lord, in your suffering world this is our prayer.
Lord, end our madness, carelessness, greed; make us content with the things that we need.
Lighten our darkness, breathe on this flame until your justice burns brightly again;
until the nations learn of your ways, seek your salvation and bring you their praise.
God of the poor, friend of the weak, give us compassion we pray: melt our cold hearts, let tears fall like rain, come, change our love from a spark to a flame. Amen
Haiku
God of the broken
Heal and make us whole again
Enfolded in love
Deacon Denise Creed
