A few years ago, a friend of mine sent me a reflection. It struck me for its honesty and wisdom and so I have kept it in my files to reread it as the season of Lent unfolds.

This past week I went to a very touching confirmation service. It was refreshing to worship as a welcomed guest with a different liturgical tradition. As I heard familiar scripture, the words seemed to leap off the page and dance in new ways right in front of my eyes. Call it the Spirit or the fact that my kids were quietly drawing at my feet, but I was actually able to listen. The sermon progressed with a common theme and was predictable until the preacher turned to the adult confirmand and said, “If you are saying yes to the church, because you think the church is going to make you whole, it is not.” At this point I sat up straight in my chair. What was he daring to say? As a preacher he was being almost too bold; he was telling the tenuous truth about the church that is rarely recognized or overtly advertised. He continued, “The church is made up of broken people, broken parts of the body of Christ.” As he explained the church as a motley band of faithful followers who sometimes get it right and at other times get it absolutely wrong, my heart swelled with emotion. He said to the young woman confirming her faith, “Your job is not to fix the church; your job is to join the church in its brokenness and its desire to love God and the world. By the end of the sermon, my eyes were laced with tears. It is true! The church does not make you completely whole or always happy. The church is made up of people, broken people who live broken lives, tainted by sin.

Often people shop for the perfect church, seeking out the church that does not look broken, rundown, stuck in a rut, or out of date. Will they ever find a church that is not at some level broken? Sometimes members just stop going to church, frustrated with this issue or that person so it seems easier to just give up and not go. How can churches heal and grow when people give up, don’t talk, and avoid brokenness? As a church we are transitioning into the season of Lent…when we individually and corporately follow Jesus to the cross. It is not an easy road, but a necessary journey of intense introspection. In many ways we are asked to feel the splinters of our own brokenness and rediscover our need for Jesus who offers complete forgiveness. The church is made up of broken, yet forgiven parts. The church is not a perfect place, but it is a place where forgiveness is given perfectly.

Since the church God calls us to share and to be is not about us as individuals, there is a different sense of identity offered in the church compared to the rest of the world. We can be a part of a country club and yet among the club members there is a level of knowing of who owns what and who interacts with whom. On the field of sport, the team may find an identity under a team name, but individual accomplishment is still sought and rewarded. In almost every aspect of society, individual identity is preferred over the identity of the community.

I can only speak to one example where this has not been true. In the year 2000, when the cast of the television show Friends was preparing to go through contract talks, the six stars were brought in separately for negotiations. Yet, after the first meeting, the six stars met and realized they had more power as a cohesive community standing together than standing alone. The result was a higher equal salary for the stars because they stood as one instead of continuing the tradition of every man for himself.

As we continue the Lenten journey toward Holy Week, I am reminded that in our common identity as children of God we are able to find strength for future steps. I thought it might be helpful to share encouraging Scriptures in these days under the shadow of the cross.

And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another – and all the more as you see the Day approaching. ~ Hebrews 10:24-25

For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. ~ Romans 12:4-5

How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity! ~ Psalms 133:1
I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought. ~ 1 Corinthians 1:10

I pray that this Lent will be a time of seeking for our hearts, that we too might join the whole church in its brokenness and its desire to love God and the world. God be with you in these days. See you in church. – Pastor Chris

(This article was first printed in Ascension’s March 2015 newsletter).