A Humpty Dumpty Gospel

The Sea Island Pulpit

“A Humpty-Dumpty Gospel for a Covid 19 World”

II Corinthians 5: 16-21

Humpty-Dumpty sat on a wall,

Humpty-Dumpty had a great fall,

All the king’s horses and all the king’s men,

Couldn’t put Humpty together again.

Do we have any idea concerning either the source or subject of this, one of the most commonly known nursery rhymes of all time?  Humpty-Dumpty is not an egg as we commonly think, nor is this a simple nursery rhyme.  Humpty Dumpty is the name given to a powerful cannon during the English Civil War (1642-49), mounted on top of the St Mary’s at the Wall Church in Colchester, defending the city against siege in the summer of 1648.  Colchester, a Parliamentarian stronghold, had been captured and held by the Royalists for 11 weeks. The top of the church tower was blown off by a shot from a Parliamentarian cannon, sending “Humpty” tumbling to the ground. The King’s men tried to put “Humpty” back on top of another wall, but failed. 

This poem has a life of its own, both as a seemingly innocuous nursery rhyme and ever more so as descriptive of our human condition in times of despair.  As humans we know what it is like to sit on the wall in relative security, feeling as if we are impenetrable. Then, wham, a mortar shell of evil comes in and knocks us off the wall.  For most of us life was moving along smoothly in January and February of this year, when we heard about a virus, the Corona virus…was that a beer…and our world was shattered beyond belief. 

What will we do after Covid 19 has diminished in its power and vengeance?  Will we be able to look at the shattered pieces of our lives. pick them up and start anew? Rudyard Kipling put it this way:

(If you can…) watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;

Starting anew is rarely easy. To see the life one built destroyed by others or worse, by our own mistakes, is demoralizing and devastating.  How can we start anew when we lose all that we ever desired?  Can we turn ourselves around and start over?

Paul knew the struggle of having to start a new life.  A rabbi passionate about God and life, Saul (pre-calling name) was blindsided on the road to Damascus by our Lord.  For the next three years he studied scripture, reflecting upon the truth that God had come in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.  His fervent belief that Jesus was an “imposter” and his followers “heretics” lay in shambles.  Now Paul must  reassemble his entire life/belief structure in light of the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

The key verse of our Corinthian text is verse 17: “So if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new.”  The central tenet of the gospel — and the center of its powerful impact is found in this verse.  The old person, with all their faults, sins, hatreds, prejudices and imperfections, in Christ this person is being transformed.

The person before Christ, as Paul understood the gospel, lived by their own intelligence, their own beliefs, their personal perspective and values. This person is not always an abject failure in the world; often they are an unmitigated success in the ways the world keeps score. This person can be quite intelligent and captivating in mind and personality.  However, if this old person does not die, does not pass away, the new person that is in Christ cannot come to life.  We must “say yes” to the person God wishes to make of us as we “say no” to the person we have been. This personal “death and resurrection” is incredibly difficult. 

The key concept for Paul is found in the words “in Christ.” This phrase appears repeatedly in Paul’s epistles , framing his understanding of a person post-Christ.  Pre-Christ we are “in ourselves;” our identity, desires and lifestyle is the singularly our concern.  Post-Christ we are “in Christ” and our sole concern is no longer our desires, but that of Christ.  

Being “in Christ” is much harder to accomplish than we often believe when first coming to Christ.  After all, we’re “pretty good people” — we do not need a complete makeover — just a little touch up here and there will do; just a little color in the hair, a new wardrobe or accessories and voila, the new me right before my very eyes.  

If we are to come to Christ and be transformed by Christ, then it is imperative that  we envision ourselves in a different light.  We must see ourselves not as needing just a simple touch up, but as needing as entire makeover.  We must see ourselves as Humpty-Dumpty — crashed, lying beside the wall in need of someone putting us back together.  We must admit that we have fallen and cannot fix ourselves.

For we who have been trying to follow Christ for a long time, the greatest danger is that we forget what our life was like pre-Christ.  We develop spiritual amnesia, i.e., forgetting how self-centered and self-consumed we were in our pre-Christ existence, how driven we were to dominate and have our own way.  “In Christ” those drives and desires are hopefully moved to the rear and no longer dominate.  The reality is that we must be ever diligent as to our focus…we can think we are “in Christ” but in reality be “in-self” more than we dream.

Why is Paul so dramatic in his statement that in Christ we are a “new creation?”  To use the other metaphor of this passage, Paul sees us, apart from Christ, not as friends but as enemies of God.  As natural human beings we perceive ourselves to be on God’s side; however, scripture affirms that apart from Christ we are estranged, i.e., separated from God, i.e., in opposition to God.

How can we know if we are living in opposition to God?  The answer to a simple question provides a clue: Who is guiding my life, my values, my desires and my actions?  Am I — or is God?  How do we know?  What evidence is there in our lives that God is leading and we are following?

In Christ we enter into a union of ourselves and God, a union in which God plays the dominant role.  Paul introduces us to “reconciliation” — a key concept representing God’s accomplishment in Christ Jesus.  Richard Hays, professor of New Testament at Duke University, says “…that the interesting thing about the word "reconciliation" in ordinary Greek usage is that it is not typically a religious term…it is a word drawn from the sphere of politics; it refers to dispute resolution. 

How does this image sit with us this morning?  Do we really think of ourselves as at opposite ends with God and in need of reconciliation?  Could it be that the deep unease of our souls is not just the angst of Covid 19 and the disruption of our world, but the angst of separation from God?  Could it be that what we desperately need more than anything else is not just a truce, but a full reconciliation with God through Christ Jesus?

The reality is that, no matter how hard we may try, we cannot reconcile ourselves to God.  We are incapable of overcoming the chasm between us and God. What we can do is to accept the reconciliation that God has offered in Christ Jesus, knowing that as we do the God’s grace flows to us and through us. In this reconciliation we begin that journey of transformation — “the new life in Christ” — which results in us being “in Christ.”  

Seeing ourselves as “ministers of reconciliation” means that not only are we as followers of Christ reconciled to God, but we are to be enabling others to be reconciled to God as well.  Too often we see someone, fairly successful, seemingly happy in their family and home life, active in their larger community — and we mistakenly believe that they are not in need of God;  nothing could be further from the truth.  If one is not “in Christ,”  then that one is estranged from God — and therefore from themselves in the depths of our souls.  I fervently believe that only in and through Christ Jesus are we fully reconciled to God — and therefore enjoy God’s peace living in us.  

Our soul/personal unity depends upon our union with God through Christ.  We may search for God’s peace in religion, rites or ritual.  We can engage in counseling (not a bad thing at times in our lives) of one type or another.  As a general rule counseling is a really good way to deal with the challenges and issues of life.  However, the best counseling, in order to be truly effective and life-changing, must be enable us to either experience a deeper relationship with God, or to grow in that direction.  My experience has been that we say must continually yes to the God we meet “in Christ” in order to experience reconciliation all the way down and all the way through our lives.  Another put it well: “I am redeemed, but there are unredeemed parts of me. There are parts of my person that have never heard the gospel.”  Only as these parts hear and surrender do I move closer to full unity with God in Christ. 

Quite honestly, often I find persons who, even as believers, remain in an adversarial relationship with God — usually due to some aspect or experience of their lives.  Their deepest fears — which surface when “Humpty takes a great fall,” — belie their surface demeanor. I have known person after person, who, while claiming belief in Jesus Christ, harbors anger and bitterness toward God over some event in their life history.  Only in opening up our soul — fully and without reservation — to God, are we “put back together again.”  When we are willing to accept the love and grace of Christ, when we are willing to allow the peace of Christ’s Spirit to flow in and through us, then we will know the wholeness which comes only from Christ Jesus.  

So, on one level the nursery rhyme is correct: we cannot put Humpty back together again.  But, on another level we see that Christ can and does, time and again, in response to our surrender.  And while that is all that matters, it is also incredibly challenging.  

“So if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new.”

Amen.

Robert U. Ferguson, Jr., Ph.d.

The Sea Island Chapel

173 Marshland Road

Hilton Head Island, South Carolina 27262

April 26^th, 2020