Entering the Chaos

“Fix what is broken” says Jonathon Gainey

When I was a kid, I lived with my grandfather who was a carpenter, like my dad, my uncle, cousins, and others in the family. Have you ever heard that car salespeople don’t drive new cars, doctors are always sick, and carpenters never live in finished houses? Well, that’s a pretty definite generalization, but with the carpenter thing, I can say that’s pretty true. We always had at least one wall without sheetrock in the house, or some addition going on.

Imagine a world in which everyone does everything he and she can to repair everything that is unfinished or broken around them. In this world, there are no cars with flat tires sitting on the side of the road. In this world there are no unfinished walls in houses, there are no torn shirts, no divorced couples, and no wars (all differences are immediately settled).

Wouldn’t it be great if everyone did everything they could to repair all that is broken in the world?

I’m not preaching at you as if to say, “I do everything I can to fix everything that is broken, and I’d like you to be like me.” I don’t do all I can. In fact, the shoes that I have on are my favorite shoes. I spent a pretty good amount of money on these shoes, and now that the soles are wearing out, I plan to get the soles repaired. I wear these shoes all the time. They are very important to me and to what I do on a daily basis. So, I will do whatever it takes to take care of them.

In my house there is a hole in one of the bathroom walls where one side of the towel rack has been ripped out of the wall. The hole is covered with a really bad spackling job that needs to be sanded, re-spackled, and painted. Then the towel rack needs to be reinstalled. I know how to do all the work that needs to be done, yet, I have still not done it.

Just for the sake of illustration, I’m going to suggest a few excuses for why the hole in the bathroom has not been repaired and the towel rack has not been reinstalled.

1. It’s in a bathroom that I don’t use.
2. I have other things to do.
3. I have other things to do.
4. It’s in a bathroom that I don’t use.

Aren’t most of the world’s excuses like this? There are actually very few reasons why we shouldn’t be fixing what’s broken, and yet we don’t fix them unless they impact us personally or we have nothing else to do. What if other people’s problems, problems that don’t impact us personally, became just as important as the problems that hurt our own lives? What if repairing the hole in the bathroom that I never use became just as important as repairing the soles of my favorite shoes.

There is an audio teaching by Rev. Ray Vander Laan that is titled, “Tikkun Olam”. Vander Laan and others teach about the phrase, tikkun olam. You can also Google tikkun olam and read articles about this Hebrew phrase that has a deeper meaning than the English can fully grasp. In simple terms, tikkun means: to restore to order, and olam means: everything that is broken.

Tikkun olam: Restore to order everything that is broken.

Last week we discussed the choice of Eve, when she took fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This action took the paradise that God had created as His Spirit hovered over the chaos, and re-introduced chaos into the world.

God is order. God is purpose. God is harmony. God is community. As Ray Vander Laan teaches “The opposite of God is division. The opposite of God is individualism. The opposite of God is disharmony. The opposite of God is anything that does not have purpose and does not work properly. The opposite of God is chaos.”

As the husband and father in my house, the members of my family often expect me to fix things that are broken in the house. As the children of God, Jesus expects us to fix the things that are broken in the world.

The Kingdom of Heaven is the people of God doing the will of God on earth. The Kingdom of God’s mission is tikkun olam, repairing everything that is broken in the world.

Jesus said to the rich man, sell all that you have and give it to the poor. Tikkun olam: Fix some of the poor with what you have and you can enter the Kingdom (Matt. 19:16-21).

Jesus said to his disciples, take five loaves of bread and two fish and feed the multitude. Tikkun olam: use your own food to feed the hungry people that are all around us (Matt. 14:16-17).

Jesus said, “Don’t stop the children from coming to the teaching and person of Jesus. Tikkun olam: even when it is inconvenient for you, encourage children to be taught and blessed by the Messiah (Matt. 19:13-15).

Over and over again, Jesus says, “Tikkun olam,” repair the world. Fix what is broken. Repair what is not working. Feed the hungry, visit the lonely, give water to the thirsty, love the unloved, befriend the friendless, give jobs to the jobless, educate the uneducated. Tikkun olam! Welcome the outcasts, heal the sick, encourage the hurting, lift up the downtrodden, bring Jesus to the godless, Destroy chaos. Tikkun olam!

To the ancient Jews of the first century, moving water had a significant meaning. To these Jews, moving water, like the Jordan River, represented chaos and all that was uncontrollable, and in disorder. The moving water of the Jordan represented the chaos or disorder of the world. In Genesis we read that the Holy Wind of God hovered over the chaos in the beginning. The chaos was the purposeless water and earth. Vander Laan says that the Hebrew word for hover is represented by a dove that comes toward its nest and then reverses its flight to come to a complete stop before completing its decent into the nest. It is the exact point of the dove’s decent when the dove is just above its nest and neither moving toward or away from its nest that is the picture of God’s Spirit hovering above the chaos of world before He began the six days of creation.

When Jesus was baptized, the spirit of God hovered over His son who entered the moving water of the Jordan River. There the Spirit of God was present as the Son, by his baptism in the Jordan, entered the chaos and proclaimed, without words, Tikkun olam!

Looking at the stories of John’s baptism in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, we come to see that John’s baptism was not a repentance of sins for those who were not believers in God. As I said before, John’s baptism was a symbol of recommitment for those who knew God, but had not been living according to the will of God. As these Jews came to John for his baptism, we are also to note that to be a follower of God was to be a member of the greater community of God. Therefore, this was not merely a personal baptism for personal sins and a recommitment to personally get my life together. John’s baptism was a commitment to tikkun olam, to repair everything that is broken in the world.

Jesus’ baptism was his commitment to join us in our chaos. The hole in the wall of the bathroom he doesn’t use, is just as important as the shoes he wears. He was entering our turmoil, crying with us, hungering with us, thirsting with us, dying with us, and promising to repair the world with us. Jesus entered the brokenness of the world in order to be a part of the repair. All of us who claim to be followers of Jesus lie if we do not commit ourselves to entering the chaos of our world and to be an active part of the repair. If I am only following Jesus so that I can be saved, then I am not following Jesus. Jesus entered the chaos of our world to repair the world. I am in the Kingdom to repair the world, not just to repair myself.

Tikkun olam requires unconditional love of a caring community. It requires that we be willing to help the people whom we do not want to help; the frustrating, selfish, bitter, unkind, manipulating people.

Abraham Joshua Heschel said, “The world is torn by conflicts, by folly, by hatred. Our task is to cleanse, to illumine, to repair. Every deed is either a clash or an aid in the effort of redemption. Man is not…Our task is to bring  eternity into time, to clear in the wilderness a way, to make plain in the desert a highway for God.”

The hole in your bathroom has to be on the same level of my priority list as my own favorite shoes. Only the unconditional love that is exemplified in the love of the Savior of all mankind can repair all of the brokenness that is in the world.

I love what Stephen Covey said in his wonderful book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, “When we violate the primary laws of love-when we attach strings and conditions to that gift-we actually encourage others to violate the primary laws of life. We put them in a reactive, defensive position where they feel they have to prove ‘I matter as a person, independent of you.’ In reality, they aren’t independent. They are counter-dependent, which is another form of dependency and is at the lowest end of the Maturity Continuum. They become reactive, almost enemy-centered, more concerned about defending their ‘rights’ and producing evidence of their individuality than they are about proactively listening to and honoring their own inner imperatives. Rebellion is a knot of the heart, not of the mind. The key is to make deposits-constant deposits of unconditional love” (p. 199).

Jesus entered into the commitment of repairing the world by caring deeply for you and me. The heart of Jesus’ message to his followers was “Love the lord, your God, with all your heart, soul, and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:34-40).

Tikkun olam is not an easy way to go. It is paved with pain and disappointment. You cannot enter the pain of the world without feeling its hurt. But we must be willing to enter the chaos, baptizing ourselves into the promise of Tikkun olam.

Writer: Capt. Jonathan Gainey was born in Jacksonville, FL in June, 1969. He has been married to Staci, the daughter of retired Salvation Army officers, for twenty years and they have four children ages 18, 16, 12, and 4. Jonathan was commissioned as an officer in June of 2002, and is currently serving in his third appointment in New Bern, NC, USA. He is working on a Masters of Divinity from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and is the creator and manager of the Flocks Diner website, where his passion for learning and teaching is expressed and shared through writing and a weekly podcast.

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