God’s Special Possession
We live a highly disposable society. If it is broken, we honestly believe in most cases that it is much easier and cheaper to throw it away and buy another one. For example, if a treasured bowl is accidentally dropped and broken, the usual thinking would be that it either can’t be fixed, or, if it can be fixed, it would take a lot of time and effort, and it still just wouldn’t look as nice as it did before. So, the easiest and cheapest option is to throw it away and buy another one.
Kintsugi is a traditional Japanese art of repairing broken, chipped and cracked pottery. Behind it is the assumption that all things will experience brokenness. But, instead of seeing the brokenness or imperfections as something to be thrown away or hidden, Kintsugi sees imperfections as the birth of something new. The art of Kintsugi uses lacquer to bring the broken pieces back together and then decorates them with gold. The result is a piece of pottery that is much more beautiful and precious than what it was before. It’s no longer just pottery, it’s a work of art. (Check out the video below about Kintsugi)
For those of us who have had the privilege of facilitating a restorative conference with students, we see the same thing being lived out. Two or more people whose relationships are so broken that it is not only easier to walk away from, but it often also draws them to cause further brokenness through their ongoing words and actions. Restorative practices though, is that beautiful process of bringing the broken pieces together, recognising and acknowledging the brokenness, and working towards bringing those broken people back together to create a new relationship that is so much more beautiful and valuable than it was before.
The Christian church is currently in the season of Lent: a forty-day season of reflection on our own brokenness, which hopefully leads us to seek forgiveness from God and others. That forgiveness is made a reality through Jesus’ death and resurrection which we celebrate at Easter.
It is in considering Easter, the promise of God’s unconditional forgiveness, that we are free to recognise our own brokenness, knowing the forgiveness and healing that is already there for us. In turn, this also frees to declare our own brokenness to others, to recognise the brokenness in others without judgement, and together, to stand under the healing power of God’s Holy Spirit. As we do this together, God not only forms us into a community, he creates us into something even more beautiful and precious.
When Peter wrote to the scattered and broken Christians throughout Asia Minor (now Turkey), he reminded them that through Jesus they have a new family identity. He writes,
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. (1 Peter 2:9)
God’s special possession! That sounds so much better than broken and scattered. And yet that is what God calls us, and through Jesus, makes us to be.
May God grant us the grace and conviction to not walk away from broken relationships but allow the grace of God to bring healing and create something more beautiful than it was before.
