Forgive me for writing a sermon that might sound a little too autobiographical. Last September, I broke my left hand and right kneecap, and although people often asked about my injury and recovery, I worried that I would bore them by talking about it too much. But that event is what got me curious about the spiritual meaning of a word that appears often in the Bible: the word “broken.” Job refers to himself as a “broken man,” and now I have to call myself that too. As a Swedenborgian, I believe that everything in the physical world represents something in the spiritual world, and I have long been in the habit of searching for the spiritual meaning of physical events. So, what does it mean, on a spiritual level, to break a bone?
I discovered some surprising things. One is that, according to Leviticus 21, verses 17-19, there are certain religious rituals I shouldn’t engage in. It reads “No man...who has any defect, may approach to offer the bread of his God. For any man who has a defect shall not approach: a man blind or lame, ...a man who has a broken foot or broken hand.” But, of course, this is not literal; that rule carries a deeper meaning, which we will explore in a minute.
It does raise an intriguing intellectual question, though: are my foot and hand broken? They definitely were last September, but are they still broken now? I can pinpoint the exact day when I broke them – Sept. 22. But I’ve been on a healing journey ever since, and of course it is a long and gradual process. Unless things go wrong, there is an end; there will be a time when I can say I don’t have broken bones anymore. There just won’t be an exact day, so it is a process with a distinct beginning but not a distinct end. If I asked my orthopedic surgeon the question, “When are my bones not broken anymore,” he might say I reached that stage a month or two ago, or he might say it’s months into the future – but most probably, he would think that the question doesn’t make any sense. In a similar way, scientists can try to pinpoint the moment that the COVID pandemic began, but I don’t think they’d want to make predictions about when it will end. Perhaps we will see a day when we can say “COVID is over” – but if we do, it will be an arbitrary date, not an exact one. It’s like asking when your childhood is over and you are an adult: you could say it’s your 18th birthday, or your 21st birthday, but does that mean anything?
What interests me even more than broken bones is the phrase “broken spirit.” The Bible talks about broken bones a few times, but even more often about a broken spirit. What does that mean, exactly? To me, it invokes a feeling of despair, losing hope and motivation and drive. Job uses that phrase in Chapter 17: “My spirit is broken, my days are cut short, the grave awaits me.” I read excerpts from Lamentations 3, which reminded me why that book is called Lamentations – it is definitely written by someone who is lamenting, someone with a broken spirit. The phrase “broken spirit” makes me think of lost goals, or the recognition that what you were striving for is not attainable, or not worth it—like an athlete who gets to the Olympic games but comes in last place. Perhaps “broken spirit” brings up an image that you are no longer the person you used to be: that what used to make you you is suppressed or destroyed. It’s like Samson, whose whole identity was wrapped up in being strong. When his hair is cut and he loses his strength, what is he? His spirit was broken until he prayed for one last moment of strength, and became himself again.
The Bible also contains the phrase “broken heart,” which sounds like a different thing to me. That evokes a sense of sadness, unconquerable grief, the inability to feel joy. But does it carry the same connotation of losing your sense of self that “broken spirit” does? Not to me. We can more easily turn that phrase into an accusation: “You broke my heart!”
Both phrases raise the question: is it permanent? Can one recover from a broken spirit, or a broken heart? In our congregation, we have lost many beloved people lately. The death of Melissa Chaple last week, or Mary Manke the week before, left us broken-hearted. Perhaps you are still broken-hearted about losing Kathy Needle, or Russ Goodman, or Peggy Selander, or others. Just like a broken bone, there isn’t an exact time when you can say you are healed of a broken heart. Because broken hearts last an indefinite period of time, who among us isn’t broken-hearted? Who among us hasn’t been tempted to look up to God and say, “You broke my heart!”
What I read from Lamentations 3 is an excerpt, but if you read the whole chapter, it is very, very accusatory. When he says “He drew his bow and made me the target for his arrows,” it sounds very much like he is shouting at God, “You ruined my life! You broke my spirit!” And then in verse 21 it switches to an acknowledgement that the Lord’s compassions never fail and there is always hope. But the chapter ends in a way that sounds a little immature: “Pay [my enemies] back what they deserve, Lord, for what their hands have done. Put a veil over their hearts, and may your curse be on them! Pursue them in anger and destroy them from under the heavens of the Lord.” Will that heal a broken heart? Does revenge fix everything? When I have a broken spirit, I don’t even have the energy to lash out like that.
So the Bible passage that resonates much more with me is that phrase from Psalm 51: “a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.” The Lord does not look down on a broken spirit. And, in my experience, most ordinary humans don’t either. When you see another person whose spirit is broken, is your instinct to mock them and belittle them? I don’t think so. It seems more likely that you will feel compassion and love for them. Instead of despising them, that may be when you feel the strongest connection to them.
Everyone wants to be loved. But we may fall back into thinking that the way to be lovable is to be flawless: don’t ever do anything wrong, don’t be needy, don’t be sad – and if others truly saw your weaknesses and flaws, they would abandon you. Do you ever slip into that mindset? How curious – since it should be obvious that love is based on vulnerability. In fact, it’s hard to love a “perfect” person. It’s like a marble orb with a perfectly smooth, hard, polished surface: where can you even latch onto it? Where is the connection point?
On a Divine level, do you ever feel like God’s love must be even more conditional: that God will only love you if you succeed in conquering and eradicating every sin in your heart? If you are morally upright and pure and strong every moment of your life? No, King David teaches us in Psalm 51: God does not despise those with flaws and weaknesses. And when He was on earth in human form, Jesus loved to spend time with what kind of people? The pious religious leaders of the day? No, Jesus preferred the company of prostitutes and beggars and tax collectors – people with weaknesses. My father came from a family of twelve children, and he said that his favorite brother to spend time with was his brother Stanley. Why? Because out of the twelve, Uncle Stan was the only person who got divorced. His failed marriage made him humble and soft-hearted. There was no illusion of being perfect. Stan had a contrite heart.
My Offering
It was always easy for me to understand that phrase from Psalm 51 – “a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.” Oddly, I didn’t pay much attention to the phrase that comes right before it. David is talking about burnt offerings and sacrifices. People have always struggled with the question, “What gifts can you give to an omnipotent and omnipresent God?” So the Lord explained early on in the Bible what he wants as a gift: a burnt offering. Leviticus 1 even refers to a burnt sacrifice as “an aroma pleasing to the Lord.”
But here David contradicts that. He says “You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.” In other words, David is saying “My offering won’t be the usual thing, because I don’t think you really want that.” And then he follows that with the extraordinary phrase, “My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit.”
My broken spirit is my gift to you. That’s all I have to give, David is saying. And you won’t despise it. That’s an astonishing thing to think about. Instead of shouting in anger and defiance at God, “You broke my heart!,” David says “My broken heart is my gift to you.”
Why is it a gift? I go back to that image of the polished, perfect marble orb. What can you do with something like that? It is beautiful to look at and to feel, but it is not useful. Instead of marble, the Bible often talks about another substance that is very useful: clay. Clay can be molded and shaped, clay can be turned into vessels with many uses. And what is clay? Where does it come from? Clay may begin its life as rock – hard, durable, a good foundation, but something that cannot be molded until it is broken and ground up, and broken and ground up again. The more the rock is broken up into fine particles, the more it can bond with the water of truth, and then it can be shaped.
Likewise, if your heart had never been broken, you may feel impervious, and perfect, and shiny – but you cannot be shaped. You are not receptive. You will not listen. You are not useful.
What “Broken” Means in the Bible
This is all focusing on the emotional aspects of the term “broken spirit” and “broken heart.” What does Emanuel Swedenborg write about those phrases? That passage from Secrets of Heaven 9163 provides insight into understanding what the word “broken” means. It also explains why Leviticus 17 says I shouldn’t engage in certain rituals with a broken bone – although it also makes it clear that this is only a metaphor. The deeper truth here is that the life of heaven, a life
that truly works, is one in which everything is connected. One of Swedenborg’s main themes throughout all his books is that truths must be conjoined with good. If you believe a truth but don’t act on it, then it is not good, and eventually it will dissipate. And if you have good motives and a desire to be loving, but don’t understand the truth, then you can do more harm than good. Good and truth must be united to each other for either one to survive. And if they aren’t, that is a “broken bone.” So Leviticus 17 says you can’t perform sacred rituals if your beliefs are disconnected from your actions.
To put it more simply, when you break a bone, you literally become “disjointed.” I broke my patella, which is a very simple bone: it’s really just a cookie-sized disc. When the doctors told me about the long, slow, complicated recovery process, I wondered “Can’t you just make me an artificial patella?” No, I was told, they don’t exist. You can get a total knee replacement, which sounds like they replace everything, but even then, they keep the patella. Why? Because it is connected to everything else in your leg, and it’s the connections that are the hardest thing to do. A patella that is not connected to ligaments and tendons and muscles is useless.
Likewise, beliefs that are not connected to our behavior, our habits, our life, are equally useless. It is a crucial part of our spiritual journey that we connect those truths. As Swedenborg wrote, “Truths which are so connected make a one; and therefore when they are broken, the truths together with the good are dispersed.”
The problem with that is that it makes it sound like our spirits are perfect to begin with: all we have to do is to refrain from the things that would make our beliefs disjointed – just preserve that unity, and everything will be fine. But that is not how we are born. We are born full of tendencies toward evil, full of beliefs that do not fit with each other. You must go on a spiritual journey, and that journey does not begin in a state of perfection. That journey must begin with a recognition of your flaws, your sins, your weaknesses. In other words, it must begin by seeing within yourself that you are broken. And you need to be “reset.”
In order for true connections to be formed, old connections must be broken. Beliefs that do not fit with our life must be discarded or changed. We must be made humble. And when we come to the Lord with a broken spirit, that is a gift he will not despise. That is the beginning step. When will the process end? That is like asking “When is a bone not broken anymore?” Or, if you are feeling broken-hearted, like asking when your heart will be whole again. If you are willing to go through the process, you will achieve that unity. That day will come.
But in the meantime, when something happens that breaks your spirit, perhaps it is time to recognize that there is something about your life that needs to be reset. Something was disjointed, and it is time to begin the process of joining anew. A broken and a contrite heart is a gift.
Amen.
READINGS
Lamentations 3 (excerpts)
I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of the Lord’s wrath. He has driven me away and made me walk in darkness rather than light; He has made my skin and my flesh grow old and has broken my bones. He drew his bow and made me the target for his arrows. He pierced my heart with arrows from his quiver. I remember my affliction. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. For no one is cast off by the Lord forever. Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love. For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to anyone.
Psalm 51:14-17
Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God, you who are God my Savior, and my tongue will sing of your righteousness. Open my lips, Lord, and my mouth will declare your praise. You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.
Reading from Swedenborg: Secrets of Heaven #9163
In the Word “a breach,” and “to be broken” signifies dispersion and also injury. This has its origin from the spiritual world, where each and all things are conjoined according to the reception of Divine truth from the Lord.... From this it is that the truths in a person have a connection one with another according to their reception in good. Truths which are so connected make a one; and therefore when they are broken, the truths together with the good are dispersed. For while they are in connection, the one subsists from the other; but when they are broken, the one recedes from the other. It is from this that in the Word by “being broken,” as also by “being divided,” signifies dispersion, and likewise injury.