THE MYSTERY OF THE KINTSUGI CHURCH
Do you know the mystery of the kintsugi church? You’re probably thinking, “No!” Then you’re thinking, “It sounds Asian. Does it have to do with the persecuted church?” Not really. So then, it remains a mystery until I reveal it to you.
Most of us enjoy mysteries. When a documentary promises to reveal a hidden mystery of the ages, we are intrigued; we, the viewers, are allowed into a secret that few know about. I personally enjoyed the “Hunting Hitler” docs on History TV as they pondered whether Hitler fled to South America. You may enjoy a mystery novel that keeps you in suspense as you try to figure out if the butler did it. Other mysteries are like conspiracies for which the answers may never be known (like who shot JFK).
Paul speaks of a mystery in our text today. If by mystery we mean something impossible to understand, Paul means something else. “Mystery” in the first century meant something only known to the initiated. You had to be “in” to know the secret. There were in those days “mystery religions,” kind of like the Free Masons. But Paul uses “mystery” to mean something that is beyond natural knowledge and yet is opened to us by revelation through the Holy Spirit and the Word.
To give a better sense of “mystery” in the Bible, think of a treasure hunt. In a treasure hunt, you are given clues. You must figure out one clue in order to discover the next. When you have discovered all the clues and deciphered them, you arrive at the treasure. Finding the treasure, the mystery is solved. For Paul, the Lord Jesus is the treasure. In the OT, God gave his people many clues through the prophets concerning the Messiah. But they couldn’t put the clues together to figure out the treasure. Even the OT prophets didn’t really know the depth of the words they gave the people (Deffinbaugh).
Using simple imagery, I want to share with you the mystery Paul discovered in Jesus. And then I will reveal the mystery of the Kintsugi Church to you.
God Uses Unlikely People
Paul transitions from what he said about dismantling walls to what he writes now, “For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles…” (3:1). And then he stops. He won’t finish this thought until verse 14 (see v. 14).
As Paul wrote this letter, he was probably under house arrest in Rome (or he may have been in Judea). His chains will have clinked possibly as he reached for more ink, and he was reminded of something he wanted to say.
Imagine for a moment getting a letter of encouragement from a prison inmate at Stony Mountain Penitentiary. A murderer, a man who created trouble wherever he went, a disturber of the peace. This man sends a sermon to us at RFC and wants to tell us about the hope of Jesus. Would you take that letter with the weight it’s intended? Sounds incredulous, doesn’t it? That’s Paul.
He is a prisoner in Roman jail. Yet Paul does not say he is a prisoner because of the Jews, or of Nero. He says he is a prisoner of Jesus Christ. Paul was a captive of the grace of Jesus and believed that every situation could be used for glory.
In the last verse of this section (13), Paul talks about his sufferings. Imagine again a man confined to his bed in a hospital with an incurable cancer telling you how Jesus heals the sick. Ironic, isn’t it? Paul is not ill, but he is suffering in prison, has suffered shipwrecks and hunger and beatings, and he says, “this is for your glory,” that you would know Jesus through all these hardships of mine.
God chose this man, Paul, to be a servant of the gospel. Looking through the eyes of the first century readers you will perceive that this man is disqualified from credibility. Tradition says he was short, bald, and stooped. Then he is in prison (failure) and has suffered (weakness). F.R. Maltby used to say that Jesus promised his disciples three things: that they would be absurdly happy, completely fearless, and in constant trouble. Paul was all of these things.
That’s not all. He makes this confession about his own qualifications saying, “Although I am less than the least of all the Lord’s people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the boundless riches of Christ, and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things,” (8-9).
Paul is not shy about his past. Politicians will try to cover up their scandalous pasts for fear that it will be used against them. I’m reading in 1 Timothy for my own devotional time and remembered something Paul said there in relation to his messy past (see 1 Tim. 1:12-13). A blasphemer, a persecutor of the church, a violent man. Who would listen to a man like this? What an unlikely candidate for the awesome task of revealing God’s great secret.
That’s a mystery in itself. That God would choose an unlikely person to be his messenger. Paul realized that he was part of something much bigger than himself: part of the plan of God who created all things. He realized that the mystery of Jesus Christ overwhelmed his past and by the grace of God made him a steward of it.
God uses unlikely people: clue number one.
God Builds an Unlikely Church
Imagine that you are applying for membership at a country club or a private school. But you don’t meet the criteria. You have the wrong skin color; you don’t have the finances to afford membership; you don’t come from the right family. You are rejected based on things you can’t control for the most part. You are not “in.” You will never be “in.”
This was how the Jews viewed the Gentiles. This was us before Christ came. Before Jesus, there wasn’t an understanding that Jew and Gentile would become one and that all social distinctions would be nullified in the church. But now the mystery of God is revealed in Christ Jesus. Someone said it this way: When the Jews rejected Jesus, the Gentiles were not plan B. God had always intended to bring the Gentiles into his family.
Paul states the mystery clearly: “This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise of Jesus Christ,” (6). There never was a plan B. God is building a community of people, the church, with the most unlikely people coming together. Ordinary people. The gospel of Jesus is for everyone who wants to live for something more than the meaningless day-to-day existence. Built into each one of us is a desire to be part of something more. That’s God given.
The gospel of Jesus gives us something more, something that takes the ordinary “you” and your ordinary job and transforms you into a servant of Jesus. It takes our suffering, our illness, our pain, and gives it a purpose. It takes the humdrum and the lowly tasks you do and makes it a ministry. And we marvel that God has chosen us even though we are the least of all God’s people. The mystery of the gospel gives us confidence and hope in our trials. The mystery of the gospel is that God chooses YOU!
God wants to take your ordinary self and use you. Ray Ortlund writes: Don’t waste your life in the false peace of worldly comfort and small ambition and being cool. Jesus is looking for gospel hooligans who want to get messy and relevant and involved. He wants to use you for the advance of the gospel. Don’t miss out. Don’t settle for a life that won’t matter forever. Do you want people to say at your funeral, “What a nice person,” and that’s it? Your life can count for many people forever. All he asks of you, all you can do, is keep listening to him moment by moment and then take your next step, whatever that might be. You provide your weakness and need. He provides his strength, his wisdom, everything. And if we will together live that way on mission, we will experience what only God can do.
Clue #2: God builds an unlikely church with unlikely people.
God’s Purpose for Choosing the Unlikely
Why?!? Why would God choose the unlikely, the ordinary, and the rejected types like Paul to build his church?
First, why Paul? Paul wrote and said this to Timothy: “Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners – of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life,” (1 Tim. 1:15-16).
Was Paul the worst of sinners? Surely Nero was worse. He killed his own family members out of paranoia that they were plotting to take his throne. We can think of worse sinners than Paul. But Paul looked at himself and saw his own sin, his own spiritual bankruptcy, and in the presence of Christ realized his true condition. Brothers and sisters, that is how we should see ourselves. I, Darryl, am the worst of sinners. And look at the mercy of God that Jesus displays in loving me.
This leads into the second reason why God chooses the unlikely. Paul writes, “His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms…”(10).
I hope this rocks your world. The church has a greater and higher purpose than we can perceive with human eyes. God is showing his wisdom in the church. Think of all the ways God could show angels and demons, powers and authorities his great wisdom. Science continues to explore the information stored in our DNA and how it makes us who we are. The universe is filled with secrets yet to be discovered. But God has chosen to reveal his wisdom in the church.
John Stott puts it this way: It is as if a great drama is being enacted. History is the theatre, the world is the stage, and church members in every land are the actors. God himself has written the play, and he directs and produces it. Act by act, scene by scene, the story continues to unfold. But who are the audience? They are the cosmic intelligences, the principalities and powers in the heavenly places. We are to think of them as spectators of the drama of salvation. Thus ‘the history of the Christian church becomes a graduate school for angels’
When spiritually dead people are raised to new life, when former enemies become family, when we work for unity amid disagreements, God’s wisdom is revealed in the church. William Lane Craig has said that the greatest proof of the truth of the gospel is the existence of the church.
That’s why God chose Paul; to demonstrate his incredible grace to the worst of sinners through Jesus Christ.
That’s why God chose you, when you confess your ordinariness and sin, he demonstrates his patience and grace to you. One of my students handed in a paper late a few weeks ago. He wrote to me saying that he knew his submission was late and I could fail him if I chose to – he’d understand. I said that I’m not without grace and marked his paper. He still hasn’t handed in his next paper and I’m not going to be gracious again.
God never stops being gracious. He opens his arms wide and welcomes you when you have sinned (again). The worst thing you can do is NOT come to him. In this he demonstrates his patience and wisdom and love to the spiritual realms that must be staring in shock.
One more time, imagine that I am holding an elegant pottery item. I let it slip from my hands – butter fingers – and it smashes on the floor into many shards. The pieces are a variety of jagged shapes with no redeemable value. Someone will have to clean this vase or bowl up and throw out the pieces. Right? It’s useless now. It’s good for nothing but the trash. Right?
This is the mystery of the Kintsugi Church. Kintsugi is the Japanese art of putting broken pottery pieces back together with gold, silver, or platinum. Kintsugi is the combination of two Japanese words: “kin” meaning gold and “tsugi” meaning joinery or repair. Literally “golden joinery.” The art form does not hide the breakage or flaws but draws attention to how they are put together with the gold. Gleaming seams hold together what was once divided.
We are the Kintsugi Church. We are all broken people. We all need Jesus. And the grace of Jesus Christ is the gold seam that brings our brokenness together into one beautiful work of art.
Are you feeling broken this morning? Do you feel that you are irredeemable and good for nothing? Do you feel like you don’t belong in this group of people because you haven’t got your life on track yet? Or maybe never will?
You belong here. With us. In the presence of Jesus. I am the worst of sinners. I don’t have it all together. Yet Christ is in me is displaying his perfect grace and is using me to demonstrate his wisdom. If I am the worst of sinners, then you are in good company.
God is on the move. God is working in you. God is working in us TOGETHER to show the world the power of Jesus to transform lives.
God is on the move.
AMEN
