Different types of brokenness

5th October 2025

Harvest Thanksgiving

Rev’d Ed Cearns

I spent yesterday afternoon being an earthworm.I know, I know ,  it’s been a long week, but the curate hasn’t completely lost the plot.  Let me explain.  I took part in a council of all beings as part of the public art project that’s running in the old crown court rooms in the Guild Hall this weekend and if I’d encourage you to go and take a look. 

It felt a very appropriate way, after first presiding at the eucharist on the Feast of St Francis , to mark the end of creation tide and indeed reflect on our harvest thanksgiving today.

We have over the last few weeks been exploring the themes of creation, community , power, democracy and economy;  many of the same themes being explored in the Trials of Democracy installation at the guildhall this weekend . A council of all beings is an experiential workshop where the participants imaginatively represent the needs and concerns of other species; to be heard by one another and also with humanity.

It comes from the work of Joanna Macy but from much deeper roots of the practices of First Nation Northern Americans. What all the participants discovered yesterday was that each being had much to say to humanity    - I learnt how the earthworm challenges the two footed  obsession with boundaries and borders as well the crucial role in returning richness to the soil; the cycle of life and death and life again . 

The council also heard of the beings concerns and held a mirror up to our often wilful brokenness that harms us as much as our planet. 

The experience was powerful and gave an insight that all creatures both have needs and gifts that go beyond themselves.

And it seems to me that is what is being said by Jesus in our gospel reading.  He berates his friends and followers for following him because he has filled their stomachs - ‘though they say it is because he has filled their souls.

Of course both are needed and Jesus says that those have come to hear should be fed. They do need to be sustained so that they can be filled spiritually too.  And yet His disciples then ask for a sign . Now ,  if we are to read John’s gospel as chronological order,  he has already turned water into wine at a wedding  , fed 5000 people with a one basket of food from one boy  , and walked on waters in a storm and having had the blessing of visiting the Sea of Galilee,  I can testify how quickly the waters can turn stormy.

 But we are little different today, we demand signs and ignore the brokenness . When I look at what has been going on this week: the cycle of violence expressed across our world ; at Manchester synagogue and Gazzan Street ; brokenness begets brokenness in connected and disconnected ways.  

But it seems to me that there are different types of brokenness. One where we are aware of our fragility and our ,perhaps, glorious imperfection and diversity which lead us to seek both understanding of ourselves and others. 

Another kind of brokenness seems to me to be less honest and probably more dangerous and sadly at present more prevalent .And rather the bread of life that Jesus offers  , this brokenness feeds on anger and outrage and crucially ,fear . It is this brokenness that climbs halfway up lampposts to tie swags of patriotism and daubs red crosses on roundabouts  or clamours at the doors of migrant hotels.

And it is not just the peace that is broken across and between communities but we find also find this in the church itself. 

Perhaps the church as the body of Christ is always broken,  perhaps it needs to be, but my perception as a relatively new priest is that our church is more broken and more fragile than it has been for a very long time.

The appointment of Bishop Sarah this week is of itself a monumental moment but more importantly is how we as a church responds to it.

This morning we go to the altar,  to the body broken for us and with us and in that spirit today we bring these gifts to meet the need of a broken world. Only if we accept our brokenness and the brokenness of our neighbour can we truly accept our need for each other and for God.

We have in this season of creationtide both celebrated the diversity and beauty of the world, but also lamented and repented of our neglect and abuse and our role in its brokenness.

Jesus spells it out to his disciples;  I am the sign, I am the bread of life , I am the one who has come down to be in your brokenness and to be broken.

Today in this harvest thanksgiving we bring donations in brokeness. If we are to be the bread of life , Christ in the world,  then we must give that bread to others and we must do it in and out of  our brokenness.

We are the broken bread and wine outpored.  We come up to receive the brokeness of Christ and take out the broken bread of life back into a broken world.