Sermon: "Broken Windows"

3rd in the "Reframing Our Perspective on Jesus" series.
Delivered September 27, 2009 by Rev. John Schmidt.
Sermon Text: Luke 4:31-44

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Chad Hylton: I am Chad Hylton, and I am a stay-at-home dad. I started drinking when I was about 13 or 14 years old. Initially when I first started drinking, the opportunity to drink... it didn't happen very much, and by the time I got out of high school a couple of years later, I was daily using drugs and drinking... mainly drinking on the weekends, but using drugs pretty much every day, before school, during school, and after school.

Judy Huang: My name is Judy Huang and I am a neurosurgeon who specializes in cerebrovascular and neurosurgery. So my parents brought me to the United States actually when I was four years old, so we were the first generation in our family to arrive in the US from Taiwan, and we really didn't know anybody here when we got here and really had no family here, so we were pretty much on our own. So I think that resulted in my parents teaching me from a very early age to be pretty independent and self-sufficient. So you know, as I grew older it was imparted on me from my parents that everything we achieved and everything we obtained was really our responsibility. I actually didn't think I was missing anything.

Eileen Gathman: I am Eileen Gathman, and I am a full-time stay-at-home mom of two children. As with many young girls growing up, I had a dream and desire to have children and build a family. And it was one of those things in my life that I sort of took for granted that would happen. Several years into trying to conceive, we were struck with the reality that this might not ever happen for us. We began to ask ourselves questions like, "Are we, maybe, not supposed to have children? Or are we being punished for some kind of sin in our lives?" I would come each month and think to myself trying to muster up as much hope as I possibly could that it would maybe happen, and then to find out that it didn't happen. We were, again, not pregnant, and it felt like we had lost a baby every month that we had tried.

Chad Hylton: Because I started drinking so early in adolescence, I think my identity as opposed to naturally evolving, if you will, it all came out of a bottle. I had no sense of self... of being liked for me apart from alcohol and drugs. I am such that if I drink, I don't have room for anything else whether it's God, my family. Without staying sober, everything else will disappear.

Judy Huang: In my line of work, I come across people who are in sometimes desperate situations because of the severity of a problem they're faced with. It's usually an emergency situation, for example, a very bad injury involving a brain bleed. A few seconds before they were totally normal and healthy people and all of a sudden things have just totally changed. And for the family it is devastating.

Eileen Gathman: There was a sense of loss and grieving that we physically were not capable of doing it ourselves. For us watching countless friends getting pregnant and having children was at time beyond painful, and was it possible that God didn't hear us or didn't know the desire of our hearts? I felt alone and scared and very confused and was in a point of deep desperation. I learned in those early days that God alone was going to be the one constant in my circumstances.

John Schmidt: Let's pray: Lord, as we go into your Word, help us to hear, to understand, to respond in faith, to be available to you. So we just give ourselves over and open ourselves up to what you want to teach us. For we ask it in Jesus' name, Amen.

We can't get away from our brokenness. It's where we're going to have to begin. No matter how much time and energy we focus on being somebody, no matter how much time we focus on achieving something, no matter how many breaks we get in life, no matter how much effort we put into protecting ourselves and our families, we come to that moment when brokenness wins. It can be physical. It can be emotional, relational, spiritual, financial. There are so many different ways. We run into the fact that we are not all together. We don't have all the answers. We're not doing it all right. We're not in control of the things that are happening around us.

Until we die, we will always experience our relationship with God through the window of our own brokenness and through the window of the brokenness of people around us. We've just heard a word from three members of our community here at Central. They talked about their personal brokenness, their hurt, or the hurt that they observed others experiencing. They voiced some of their questions.

It's unresolved. What we've just seen is unresolved. We see them dealing with their problems, or deeply engaged in helping other people in their crises. But we don't know exactly where it's all going to end up. But that's the way it is with brokenness, with weakness, with hurt, with crises. We experience our lives falling apart, and we don't know if an answer is coming or what shape that answer is going to take when it does come.

We're in our third week on our series on "Reframing our Perspective on Jesus." And in week one, we looked at Jesus' statement of his mission in the world. By sending Jesus, God was dealing with tragedy and injustice in the world. Good News has come. Good News has come for the poor, for the prisoners, for the blind, for the oppressed. In other words, Good News has come for the broken.

God sent Jesus for broken people. Whatever the future holds... And God has given us enormous promises about the future. Whatever the future holds, right now God is on a rescue mission for broken people. Jesus not only preached that he was here for broken people, he did some rescuing right there in his ministry. And that's what we're going to look at right now... is Jesus rescuing people right there right then.

We're in the book of Luke, chapter 4, that's page 939. If you'd look at the Bible that's underneath the seat in front of you, you'll get a chance to read it along with us. I'm going to begin at verse 31 and go through the end of the chapter.

Luke, chapter 4, verse 31

Then he went down to Capernaum, a town in Galilee, and on the Sabbath he taught the people. They were amazed at his teaching, because his words had authority. In the synagogue there was a man possessed by a demon, an evil spirit. He cried out at the top of his voice, "Go away! What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are - the Holy One of God!" "Be quiet!" Jesus said sternly. 'Come out of him" Then the demon threw the man down before them all and came out without injuring him. All the people were amazed and said to each other, "What words these are! With authority and power he gives orders to evil spirits and they come out!" And the news about him spread throughout the surrounding area.

Jesus left the synagogue and went to the home of Simon. Now Simon's mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever, and they asked Jesus to help her. So he bent over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her. She got up at once and began to wait on them. At sunset, the people brought to Jesus all who had various kinds of sickness, and laying his hands on each one, he healed them. Moreover, demons came out of many people, shouting, "You are the Son of God!" But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew he was the Messiah.

At daybreak, Jesus went out to a solitary place. The people were looking for him and when they came to where he was, they tried to keep him from leaving them. But he said, "I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent." And he kept on preaching in the synagogues of Judea.

What we have here is Jesus in action across one or two days' time. It's a fairly short period of time, and here is Jesus, the Person who has a message of Good News for broken people, who's actually there dealing with people's brokenness on the spot. He actually heals as part of his ministry.

In verses 33-35, we see him specially confronting the oppression of evil in our lives, a demonic evil spirit that is in somebody's life. And he goes at it directly and quickly. There are no ceremonies. There are no secret incantations. He commands and immediately deliverance from evil happens in that person's life. He speaks with authority and power and there is wholeness and healing in the life of that individual.

Following that there is a personal story with Simon's mother-in-law and we see Jesus dealing personally with her when he rebukes a fever and she immediately gets up and begins to wait on them and has her health back. Then in verse 40 we see that at sunset people are bringing to Jesus all kinds of people who have various kinds of sickness. And so we see him healing all kinds of people at that point. Numerous people are coming to him and he heals many and he heals them decisively and he heals them quickly.

But yet, in verse 40, it says that, "He heals them individually." It says in verse 40, "Laying his hands on each one, he healed them." It probably would have been a little bit more efficient if he would have just stood outside of Simon's house and kind of raised his hands and said, "Okay, all of you be healed right now." I believe he would have had the power to do that. If he were an American, he would have done it that way. I mean, efficiency counts. But he doesn't. He deals with each individually. He touches each individual.

What we see in this passage, what we learn, we learn three important things here that I think we need to begin with as we look at this issue of our brokenness. The first is... is that Jesus has the authority and power to heal. He expressed that in his ministry and he expressed it with unique power. The second thing is that he's willing to heal... that part of his deliberate intent was to heal, to deal with the brokenness we experience. And the third one is that he heals each one individually.

All of this is rooted in the character of God. God, the Creator of it all, has the power to intervene and fix the brokenness that's in creation. God, the one who oversees it all and is deeply involved in creation right now, has compassion on us, and desires and is willing to bring us wholeness. That's why Jesus came. He came for the broken, not for the people who had it all together.

And then God, our Savior, knows each of us by name as he deals with us. There are no mass mailings from God where he says, "Well, I sent it out and if two percent respond, that's good enough return." It's not how God works. He deals with each one of us and he is concerned about each one of us.

What we don't learn from these verses is also important. What we don't learn is when and how and how often God heals. Jesus himself pointed to the fact that there is a certain mystery in God's purposes surrounding healing. Last week when I was talking to many of you, we talked about the fact that he brought to mind to his friends in his own hometown that in the past there were many people who suffered with leprosy, but God chose one person to heal through a prophet. And that person he chose happened to be a non-Jew... not a Jew. Many people ill... one person miraculously healed. There is a mystery to that in God's purposes.

Jesus himself adds to the mystery. I want you to look at verses 42-44 with me. In verse 42, "At daybreak... " Now Jesus has been healing all night. "At daybreak, Jesus went out to a solitary place. The people were looking for him and when they came to where he was, they tried to keep him from leaving them. But he said, 'I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent.' And he kept on preaching in the synagogues of Judea."

It's a perfectly understandable sentence about Jesus' purpose. He has to bring this news out to other people who don't yet know. But think about its impact in that town. The night before, person in house A is healed. There is a person waiting for healing in house B, just didn't get there the night before. They go out that morning. They're trailing behind the people that are trying to get Jesus to stay, and Jesus leaves and they're still unhealed. Their brokenness remains. There is a mystery. Why one family? Why not another family?

In the Bible, healings on this scale that we see happening in this particular passage happen almost exclusively in the ministry of Jesus and the ministry of a few apostles. And it's almost always at the moment the Good News is first proclaimed to a new set of people. When the good news about what God is doing in the world is proclaimed to a group of people who have never heard it before, it's very often at that moment that the power comes and people's lives are healed in major ways.

Now healings continue through the New Testament and they continue in the history of the church. Church members are given healing gifts, and we're told to continue to pray for healing. Nothing stopped there. We're still told to pray because God heals. But one thing we see very clearly is that both in the New Testament and in the life of the Church, daily life for the Church is not like these moments of power in Jesus' ministry.

In other words, every time the church assembles, we do not have instantaneous, continuous healing for everyone present. It's just something we've seen, something we've experienced. It comes in waves. There are moments when God is doing something and there are other moments where we don't know exactly what the issue is, but it's just not the same. And that mystery continues with us right now.

We're all broken in some ways, and yet there is a mystery as to why some people have to face much bigger issues than the rest of us. Why this family? Why not that? We don't know. Some have fast solutions... instantaneous, obvious miracles. I have friends, many friends, who have been healed miraculously. I have had miracles happen in my own life even if they haven't been of physical healings. But it's not everybody, and it's not always.

So what we always come back to in the church is that Jesus is on a rescue mission for the broken. Healing was a priority for him and we have every reason to believe that healing still is a priority for Jesus in all of our brokenness, not just physical, but spiritual, emotional, relational, all the areas, financial.

So where does that leave us? When we add it all up, what should we actually expect when we bring our hurts and broken places to God? That's what I want to talk about for a minute or two.

The first thing is, we should expect God to heal our brokenness. Jesus healed. He sent the disciples to heal. The apostles healed. Church members are given healing gifts. We're told to pray for healing. We should expect God to still be at work. That's where it begins.

The second expectation, we should expect that many times we will not be healed immediately or miraculously. The fact is, over the history of the church, in the New Testament miraculous models are not the primary models that God seems to use; although, he does use it often.

God used Paul in miraculous healings, and yet he had a disciple, Epaphroditus; we read about him in Philippians 2. Epaphroditus got ill, and Paul talks about the fact that they prayed earnestly for him over a long period of time before he got well. And he talks about how gracious God was to spare him the loss of Epaphroditus dying from his serious illness.

Now if this would have been an easy or an instantaneous event that would have never shown up in the book. Instead we would have had a little footnote that would have said, "And by the way, Epaphroditus got seriously ill. We prayed for him and naturally, immediately he got well." It didn't always happen that way, even for Paul. And it's not the only occurrence in the New Testament. So, there are many times that God does intervene and does heal, but it doesn't happen instantaneously.

The third thing is, we should expect God to use natural and supernatural means to heal our brokenness. It begins with prayer and submission to God, but God also uses medicine, time, hard work, smart doctors, life changes, the help and support of friends as all part of healing. It's all part of what God uses.

So many of us have had profound healing, but it hasn't happened in a quick and instantaneous fashion, but it's happened across time through the intervention of a lot of different means that God has used in our lives.

We should expect also that sometimes God won't, and this is probably the hardest one for me to preach. We should expect that sometimes God won't deal with the problem we're focused on at all. Paul, talking about himself in 2 Corinthians, talks about a thorn in the flesh that he prayed for God to release him from three times, and God actually revealed to him why God didn't answer that request. But sometimes God doesn't reveal it to us, but we still experience it.

Paul's eyesight was poor and he writes, "Here I'm writing in extra-large letters because otherwise I wouldn't be able to see it. That's how you'll know it's from me." I'm certain he would have prayed and maybe did for his eyesight to be better. If we had one hundred percent batting average in prayer on these things then we'd never die because every time we got close to that we'd pull together a prayer meeting and kind of keep things going. That's not the era we are living in.

Tragedies still happen and even when we pray, they still happen. And sometimes we find that when God does not heal what we bring to him, God is actually dealing with something much deeper in our lives because God has a purpose in us that's deeper than the things that immediately put pressure on us. And so sometimes we, in retrospect, see that deeper work of God that's going on. He doesn't take away the brokenness there, but he deals with a deeper level of brokenness.

We live in a time when we have some "already" and some "not yet" things in our lives. We already see healing. We already know that God heals. We already experience power in our lives, but we're not yet at the point that we always experience healing, always experience power, experience power on every aspect of our lives. We are not there yet. We are living at time that something has begun that's not brought yet to its fullness, and the New Testament clearly shows us that.

And so right now we live in a time where there is a mystery that sometimes we experience something, and sometimes we don't experience it the same way. There is a temptation then to blame those who don't experience it. We can't judge, in this age, we can't judge those who don't get the instantaneous or miraculous answer.

I was reading a testimony of someone who was buried under rubble in the Twin Towers Disaster on 9/11. And they clearly said, "I prayed about it and God delivered me. To God be the glory." I absolutely believe that person prayed and God delivered them and to God be the glory. But I also believe that among those 3,000 people there was another believer who prayed and they were not delivered. That happens. Why one? Why the other? We don't know.

We do understand why history is where it is, why things are still incomplete. There is a day still ahead where Jesus Christ will come back and every knee will bow, every tongue will confess, all evil will be crushed under the power of God and all sorrow, all weakness, all brokenness will be healed and be pushed away. We understand that's coming. We also understand we're not there yet. That we have good theological answers for. What we don't have an answer for is... why right now the brokenness of the world hits this person this way and it hits you so differently? We don't have answers.

One more thing... one more thing we should expect. We should expect that God will never abandon us in our brokenness. "I will never leave you or forsake you. I have come for the brokenhearted and for those who are crushed in spirit." What we say often at funerals we need to say maybe some other times. In life and in death, we belong to God. Even in our brokenness, God will not abandon us. Let's see how God has worked in some of the lives of the people we just heard from.

Chad Hylton: By the time I was almost 20, it became pretty clear that I had to stop. Initially I had a really tough time with God in this because I did not... I mean, I felt like I could do it on my own. I felt like I should have been able to change on my own. I think God had started really to ask me, you know, "Who do you think I am?" But I was on a retreat, had been sober a little over a year and we had... Catholics will recognize this... adoration. It was a very, very quiet room. It's the quietest room I'd ever been in. I wouldn't have called myself a Christian at that point. I left that room knowing that if I continued to seek God, and try to know him and do his will, that I would be taken care of. It's a miracle that I am sober and happy to be that way. And I have remained happy to be that way for as long as I have.

Judy Huang: I remember taking care of one gentleman who had a problem that was a pretty serious problem, and getting him through it. And he was incredibly grateful. And he told me when I saw him about a year afterwards for follow up, he told me that since the time I started taking care of him, he prayed for me every day. I thought... there has to be something to this. There is a greater picture out there. There is something beyond me that I'm just only beginning to grasp.

It was actually all part of a bigger picture that I had not previously acknowledged or been aware of. Sometimes people don't get better and in other situations you think that the prognosis is terrible, but all of a sudden, miraculously they recover. So why is that? It's being faced with patents in those situations that has made me realize it has to be... it has to be Jesus. It has to be God.

Eileen Gathman: An issue of National Geographic came in the mail and the cover article for that month was about modern-day slavery. And there was, in it, a picture of a little boy. And I looked at the article. I looked at the picture, and I pulled Andy into the kitchen and I said, "Andy, I think we need to adopt." And he looked at me and said, "Okay."

We now have two children, both whom have joined our family through adoption from Guatemala. And I can say with confidence that God has exceeded the desire of our hearts in Juan Carlos and Angelina. I would have given anything to have carried those children in this physical body, but I am deeply grateful to the women, very brave and strong women, who shared their children with us. He is a loving God in restoring hope and peace and meeting my heart's desire in them.

John Schmidt: Jesus had the power to heal. Jesus was willing to heal, and Jesus dealt with each one as an individual. That's where we start and end as we approach God to the things that are hurting us. There are no formulas. There are no guarantees that God is going to answer a certain way. We can see very real answers that God provided that were not the initial answer. We can see, even in these testimonies, how God used the weakness of one individual and their crisis to be a witness to another individual. No formulas.

What we want in life is to have the power to control it all so that if we do something a certain way, we're bound to win, we're bound to be safe, and so we just want that kind of life where we can get it all right so that there is going to be no trouble. But it doesn't work that way. No formulas, just the assurance built of faith and centuries of experience with God that he does care about our struggles and he does heal.

And the awareness too, this too built on the experience of Christians from every age and culture and clearly in the Word of God that what he does in us is tailored just for us, and he is present, at work, when we do get what we desire. And he's also at work when we don't. He deals with each one of us as individuals.

So today, as we're here in worship we all have something broken that we can bring to God. In just a moment, we're going to have a point in our service where we get a chance to express that. We don't have to pretend that we have it all together, but we come together because we're the ones who have already solved the problems. It's not true. We can come admitting that we're still broken, admitting that we still have struggles because God is on a rescue mission for broken people.

And so in just a moment we're going to go and each have a chance, if we want, to go and write the name of something broken in our lives. We can write it down on this piece of broken tile and throw it in the basket, admitting that this is where we stand. Here God, this is one of those broken places. It's one of those needs.

The one I'm writing down... it's different than the one I wrote earlier. The one I'm writing down now is that I feel so weak sometimes when I have to lead without having all the answers. It tears me up to watch what happens in people's lives and to not be the person that even if they don't have the answers, somehow, God has gifted me so that I have the answer. And friends, those of you who have walked together through some difficulties, so often, I don't have the answer, but I'm called to be with you anyway.

So that's part of the brokenness I bring is I just don't have what it takes. What about you? What do you bring to God? We don't have to pretend we have it all together. There is no choice but to come broken because that's who we are. But the good news is this, we don't have to come all whole to impress God. We can come broken, and nothing can tear us away from the embrace of the God who still loves us anyway.

Let's pray: God, work in us now. Just help us. In our brokenness, Lord, help us to seek again in a fresh way your face, your grace, your power. And so work in us in your sovereign ways, in your gracious ways, in your compassionate ways. For we ask it in Jesus' name, Amen.

© 2009, Rev. John Schmidt
Central Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD 21204 410/823-6145
www.centralpc.org