“In the Middle of Broken Places”

We often describe people of faith as those who look steady, who speak with confidence, and who do not seem to carry much fear. We imagine them as people whose trust is not easily shaken by circumstances or conditions. That would be the faith we long for – or at least, we hope it is, don’t we?

So when we read the Psalms, we hear them from a distance. Language that sounds like it belongs to someone else. Someone we admire, but do not recognise as ourselves. But the Psalms are not songs of people who never fell. They are records of people who survived. Before they are songs of confidence, they are words that have passed through trembling. So reading the Psalms is not about looking at people with ‘good faith’. It’s about honestly facing ourselves when our own faith is shaken.

Today we read Psalm 40. This is David’s confession, his testimony.  How do you remember David? The shepherd boy? The hero who defeated the giant? The great king? But David has another story- a story we all know. Bathsheba. Uriah. His broken family. David the hero? No. David in the pit. “I was brought up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog.” This confession was not metaphor. This was David’s real life.

And usually, we only look for God when we fall into the pit. When we can no longer see the bottom. When the way is blocked in every direction. When we cannot hold ourselves anymore. That’s when we finally call God. And in our heart, we say: “God, please, just pull me out now.” We want to get out first, more than we want to find God.

But the Psalm tells a different story. David is not someone who looked for God in the pit. He was someone who was already standing before God in the pit. David says to God from that place: “I waited patiently for the Lord…” This is not the voice of someone speaking from a safe, comfortable place. This is not the voice of someone who has everything under control. This is the voice of someone who could not hold himself without God.

David didn’t choose waiting. He chose not to let go of God. God was not an option for him. God was the only place left to stand. He did not call God to fix his life quickly. He called God as the one he would entrust his life to until the end.

That is why David’s waiting was not simply patience. It was a posture of faith. And David confesses, “He lifted me out of the desolate pit and the mud.” God did not only took David out of the pit.
God stayed with him in it. David did not meet God after leaving the pit. He met God there. Before David escaped the pit, he was already standing before God inside it. And that was enough.

Faith, it seems, often looks like this: standing before God in the middle of broken places. Paul saw this too, not in one person, but in a whole community. The Corinthian church was a pit-like community. Division. Parties. Comparison. Boasting. Confusion. Jews and Greeks misunderstanding each other. The rich forgetting the poor. People quietly measuring who was more spiritual and who was not. When we see this kind of community, you know what happens. We start categorising. “That church? Bit of a mess.” “Those people? Not quite there yet.” “Too rigid.” “Too loose.” We sort people. We can’t help it.

But Paul looks at that broken community and says one word: “Saints.”

Paul didn’t call the Corinthian church mature or perfect. But he didn’t call them abandoned either. He saw God among them. So he said, “God is faithful.” He was not praising the church.
He was trusting God in the middle of the church. Paul did not trust the church. He trusted God in the church. His confidence was not in their maturity. It was in God’s faithfulness. So he didn’t leave that community. And he left that God in their midst.

Paul knew this. The church is not a place where shining people gather. It’s a place where people stand facing the light. It’s people choosing to remain before God. So Paul didn’t hold onto them. He entrusted them to God. And the pattern doesn’t end with David.  It doesn’t end with the Corinthian church. It continues with us. What kind of community are we?

Dear beloved saints, we are still becoming. But we are not abandoned. We are still clumsy. We shake. We fall often. Sometimes we assess each other. Sometimes we get disappointed. Sometimes we think, ‘Why are we like this?’  We are people who chose to stand before God. We do not place our hope in the perfection of the church, but in the faithfulness of God who lives within it. And God doesn’t leave that place.

Today is the second Sunday of Epiphany. The season the light appeared. When Jesus was baptised, the heaven opened. The Spirit descended like a dove. And a voice said: “This is my beloved Son.” Light appeared. Where did that light come? To the high mountain? To the splendid temple? The light came to the Jordan River. To sinners, to people repenting, to those standing in the water.

Epiphany tells us this: We didn’t go up. The light came down. Like David. Like the Corinthian church. God’s light comes to where we are. And in baptism, that light came upon you. You didn’t become the light. You received the light. Not complete. Not finished. But here. Before God.

We are not people who have escaped the pit. We are people standing before God in this very place. Today we don’t go home with all problems solved. Today we don’t go home with all questions answered. We simply go home as people standing before God.

And God still asks us today, “Where are you standing?” And we quietly answer, “Lord, I am standing before You.” Let us pray, Lord, thank You for not waiting until we are perfect, but for allowing us to stand before You now. Amen.