The Humpty-Dumpty Conundrum: What To Do With Your Brokenness
Wildwind Community Church
David Flowers
April 18, 2008
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the king’s horses, and all the king’s men -- ?
He’s broken. He’s fallen and he can’t get up. Remember that commerical? I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!!
Do you ever feel broken? Broken – like things in your life are out of joint, or like there’s something about you so flawed, so out of whack, that you don’t know if you can ever get it back in whack again. What do you do with your brokenness?
I’ve sometimes wondered if that little poem Humpty Dumpty was originally meant to express a deeper truth. There’s no question that we can see in it a deeper truth, not hidden in the poem but really almost in plain view. Once Humpty Dumpty fell, it was all over – there was no power great enough to save him, no one to put back the pieces. Is that true of all of us too?
What are we to do with our brokenness? The short answer is take your brokenness to Jesus. He’s in a position to put you back together again, because he’s the only one you’ll ever find who’s not just as broken as you are.
The long answer will take the rest of this message, as I show you a woman who took her brokenness to Jesus. From here on out I’m going to make two assumptions, and I’m aware that for some of you neither of these may be true. Assumption 1 is that you do not need to be convinced that you are broken. You have looked honestly into your own heart and have seen your tendency to hurt other people, to judge people by standards they could never meet. You know you think and act in ways that can cause you shame, embarrassment, humiliation. Assumption 2 is that you do not need to be convinced that Jesus Christ was and is the Son of God and that he is capable of bringing healing to the broken places in your life.
If you are not convinced of these things, this message may or may not really work for you, but I encourage you to hang in there. Very shortly we’ll begin a series that looks carefully at the words of Jesus and helps us think about whether we really needed to hear what he had to say. If you are a skeptic in any way, I invite you to make every effort to attend that series, and I invite all of you to partner with Wildwind in getting as many people as possible within range of my voice during that time.
Now let’s look at the story of a woman who knew what brokenness was.
Luke 7:36-50
Jesus Anointed by a Sinful Woman
36Now one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, so he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. 37When a woman who had lived a sinful life in that town learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, she brought an alabaster jar of perfume, 38and as she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.
39When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, "If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is--that she is a sinner."
40Jesus answered him, "Simon, I have something to tell you."
"Tell me, teacher," he said.
41"Two men owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii,[1] and the other fifty. 42Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he canceled the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?"
43Simon replied, "I suppose the one who had the bigger debt canceled."
"You have judged correctly," Jesus said.
44Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, "Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. 45You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. 46You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. 47Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven--for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little."
48Then Jesus said to her, "Your sins are forgiven."
49The other guests began to say among themselves, "Who is this who even forgives sins?"
50Jesus said to the woman, "Your faith has saved you; go in peace."
We have here a Pharisee who invites Jesus to dinner. Pharisees were the religious elite – the “good people,” who attended church every weekend, rarely or never broke any of the commandments, and knew the scriptures very well. They were also a group who had allowed themselves to become puffed up with pride over how good they were and who didn’t even try hiding how superior they felt to everyone else. So there’s Jesus, sitting there at the table with Simon the Pharisee. I do not know why Simon invited Jesus. Later in this message you’ll see that it’s very clear that Simon was hostile toward him and did not have good intentions.
But for whatever reason, Simon invited him over. So there are Jesus and Simon, reclining at his table. People sat on mats on the floor in those days, so they would “recline” by putting one hand down on the floor and leaning on it (demonstrate on stage).
And the Bible records that word of this meeting spread through town so that this sinful woman got wind of it. And this woman suddenly shows up, uninvited, at Simon’s house. Not as if Simon’s failure to invite her was an oversight. She was known to have lived a sinful life, and Pharisees didn’t hang around openly sinful people. Even if she wasn’t a sinful woman, just the fact that she was a woman would have pretty much ruled her out, as a Jewish man would not have invited a woman to his house for dinner. I don’t know whether there were other people sitting around that table with them or not, but THIS woman definitely had not been invited.
The New International translation of the Bible refers to her as a woman who had lived a sinful life. Other translations refer to her as an “immoral woman.” Because of this we know that her particular sins were almost certainly sexual sins. The prevailing teaching about God at the time was that God loves those who do good things, and God hates those who do bad things. This woman has done more bad things than she can count, and has probably grown up certain that God has rejected her already.
Have you ever gone someplace where you were not wanted? Have you ever felt the loneliness and sting that comes from knowing that everybody wishes you’d just leave, or disappear, or die? That was the situation in this story. Here’s this lady. [Well, probably no one in her town considered her a lady, but I’ll call her a lady anyway, because that’s how Jesus treated her.] She comes uninvited into the home of a prominent and very religious (self-righteous) person in town. The homeowner is sharing a meal with a wildly popular teacher and leader, who claims to be the God she has already been taught has rejected her, already stamped her as not good enough.
At first she stands kind of behind Jesus as he reclines on the floor at the table. She doesn’t say anything – she just stands there weeping, with the jar of perfume she had brought. What was she weeping for?
Have you ever wept in prayer to God? Some of you have. Sometimes we weep for joy. Sometimes we are in pain. Sometimes we stand in God’s presence through prayer and weep tears of regret over the choices we have made in our lives – our tears are tears of brokenness. We stand in the presence of a holy God and see our brokenness for what it is – we see our selfishness and our fear of being known by God – we see our sin and our need for someone to lift us up out of the mess we are in. Those are the tears I am certain this woman was crying that day.
She was a sinful woman and she knew it. She knew it, Jesus knew it, and everyone in town knew it. She had lived her life in shame, although maybe she often masked it in defiance, pretending she didn’t care what everyone else thought. There were probably times when she managed to even fool herself. We’re all good at that, aren’t we? But Jesus was in her town, and maybe it had gotten her to thinking an awful lot about God. And when she thought about God she felt inferior, dirty, like a nobody. But I’ll bet she had heard that Jesus was teaching about love, that he had healed sick people and taught compassion for the poor, and preached that he had come to save sinful people like herself. She knew something about him, because she went to the house with perfume to see him that day.
And she risks going into a home uninvited. You know this woman doesn’t talk once in this whole episode? She just weeps. I think she didn’t say anything because she didn’t know what to say. What does a person who deeply feels their sin and brokenness say in the presence of God? What does such a person say in the presence of those they know have already condemned them – people like Simon the Pharisee? Words fail a person at a time like this, and here this woman’s tears give voice to the shame she cannot express, wetting and washing the unwashed feet of Jesus; feet that were dirty because his host had insulted Jesus by not providing a bowl in which to wash them, forcing him to sit at the table with dirty feet. She wipes his feet with her hair, kisses them, and pours perfume on them from the alabaster jar she had brought.
This woman came prepared to worship God. She was broken, and looking for God to put her back together again. She had fallen, and could not get up. She selected a jar of perfume in advance, knowing that she would pour it out on the feet of Jesus. Do we come to worship God prepared in our hearts? Do we just waltz into church, or into our daily devotional time, with a cavalier attitude? Or do we reflect on our lives, reflect on our need for God, reflect on what a privilege it is to be able to sit at his feet in prayer and silence? This woman showed up prepared to worship God, and her affection and love for Jesus flowed out in her tears, and in her humble service to him.
Now Simon is watching all this and he thinks to himself, “Well, that answers my question. I brought him here to really see for myself whether he’s a prophet, and the answer is obviously not. If he WERE a prophet, there’s no way he’d let this skanky chick touch him like that.” The Bible says this is what Simon THOUGHT – he doesn’t say it out loud. But Jesus knows his thoughts and responds with the story about the moneylender.
So Jesus tells this story, thereby placing Simon in the position Simon wanted to place Jesus in. As I said earlier, Simon probably invited Jesus to his home in order to trick him or get him to say something incriminating, but with this story, Jesus now forces Simon to incriminate himself. Two people owe money to a lender. One owes a bunch of money, one owes very little. The lender cancels both debts. Jesus asks Simon, “Which one of them will love him more?”
Simon knows the answer but doesn’t want to say it. He replies, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt canceled.” He can already see what Jesus is getting at. But Jesus goes on to point it out.
“…he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, ‘do you see this woman?’”
Of course the answer to that question was No. Simon in fact did NOT see that woman. He had NEVER seen that woman. He had as little to do with her as possible. He ignored her, criticized her in his heart if not out loud, shut her out of his world, along with everyone else like her. Simon’s problem was that he DIDN’T see that woman. When he looked at her he saw all kinds of things. He saw the huge sticker on her that said, “Damaged goods.” He saw the sign that said, “Kick me.” He saw a nasty, skanky, sinner. He saw a woman under a curse. He saw a lawbreaker. But he did not see HER.
And look what it says in verse 44. Jesus turned toward the woman, and asked Simon, “Do you see this woman?” Jesus turned to look at her. Jesus DID see her. And Jesus loved what he saw when he looked at her. What did he see? He saw her heart. He saw the bottom line. He saw everything she had that Simon lacked.
Jesus goes on to say, “I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. 45You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. 46You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. 47Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven--for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little."
Simon had insulted Jesus by not providing water for his feet, thus forcing him to sit at the table with dirty feet. This woman had watered his feet with her tears. Simon had insulted him further by not giving him a kiss – a custom in that time. This woman had bowed and kissed his feet. Simon had insulted him again when he failed to anoint Jesus’ head with oil. This sinful woman had anointed his feet with perfume. She had done all of it because she knew who he was, and who she was as she stood there in his presence. She was honest in her assessment of both his identity, and her own. Notice, folks, that Simon couldn’t see Jesus OR this woman for who they really were. His hypocrisy and sin blinded him to both.
Because he did not see Jesus, Simon had, in his behavior and in his heart, mocked Him. He had failed to treat his guest properly. He had insulted him. He had likely brought Jesus to his home for the purpose of humiliating or trapping him, and then sat there in self-righteous judgment on the woman who worshipped him. No wonder God doesn’t try harder to do miraculous thing in our world to make himself known. He knows what it’s like to sit at the same dinner table with someone who still does not recognize him.
Now Jesus tells Simon that those who have been forgiven the most are in a position to be most grateful for what they have received. Don’t mistake what Jesus says here. It’s not that Simon did not have a TON to be forgiven of – look at his arrogance and self-righteous attitude. The point is that he did not consider himself to NEED Christ’s forgiveness, therefore he was not in a position to receive it. And that’s what Jesus is pointing out.
Finally, it’s important to note that Jesus turned toward this woman while he made these final remarks to Simon. I’ll bet Jesus never took his eyes of her. In Jesus’ time, women bowed their heads and did not look a man in the eye. But Jesus turned toward her and then, looking at her, publicly rebuked and corrected this self-righteous religious man, the host of the home where he was dining. He put Simon in his place, and declared her sins forgiven.
She was SEEN by God. She was noticed, exalted, rewarded for her humility and love for God. I’ll bet she was hated by Simon more than ever after that, but I’ll bet it mattered less than she ever imagined it could from that time on. God had seen her – loved her – forgiven her – healed the places in her that were broken and desperate for acceptance and love. That’s what we are to do with our brokenness, folks, to have the humility to take it to Jesus – to go to Him with our regrets and pain and sin and anger and resentment and confusion and shame. But we must believe that we are really seen by God.
Now here’s a question worth asking: What on earth does this have to do with community? Well it has a TON to do with community. Jesus is no longer here in physical form. He is no longer here to speak words you can hear with your ears that assure you that even in your brokenness you can receive his blessing. When you are broken, he cannot struggle with you. When you are experiencing the sting of rejection and loss and abandonment, he cannot weep with you. Since this is true, what does it mean when I say, “Take your brokenness to Jesus”? Yes, it means to give your life to Him and allow him to forgive your sin and start you on a new path, but what it also means just as much is that you are to allow Christ’s body on earth – the church – to minister his love and grace to you. Jesus has given the church that exact job. Other Christians CAN put arms around you. They CAN speak the words that remind you that your brokenness is exactly the thing that allows God to love you. They CAN cry human tears with you.
You’ve fallen and you can’t get up. Only God can lift you up. You’re broken and you can’t be fixed. Only your Creator has the power to fix you. And your creator – God – through Christ – has set up the church to be the place where he does all these things. He will use other Christians to help heal your brokenness, and he will use you to help heal the brokenness of others.
How? Once again, not through hellos uttered in the foyer on Saturdays, but in intimate friendships you intentionally form and nurture with a few in a small group. If you’re not in a group, get into one. If you are in a group, stay the course. Keep attending and building those relationships. You will not become who you were meant to become if you give up or opt out on this part of the journey. You’re just at the beginning of all God desires for you to become through community with other close believers. Take your brokenness to Jesus, and allow your spiritual brothers and sisters to be his voice of forgiveness and his healing hands in your life.
If you’re here today and are a spiritual seeker – you’re not a Christian but are wondering what all this is about – I just want you to leave with the story of this sinful woman firmly in your mind. THAT’S who God is. God loves people who have failed and messed up, and there’s nothing he wants to do more than extend forgiveness for sin, and healing for brokenness. And the greater your brokenness, the greater God’s opportunity to demonstrate his grace! Let’s pray.
God you are worthy of our worship. Thank you for hearing our prayers. Thank you for wanting to walk with us and, little by little, heal our wounds of sin and insecurity and jealousy and pettiness and all the other wounds we suffer and inflict on others. Thank you for how open and accepting you are, that all we have to do is be willing to admit our need for you, and you are right there eager to take us forward. May we each stand up and accept the two challenges to take our brokenness to you, and to take it also to others, to allow a small group of people to minister your love and mercy and grace to us – to dare to enter into the community you have created for us. Amen.
