sermons
The Way of Jesus
GOOD GRIEF: Let your heart break so your spirit doesn’t
Ivy Anthony
Nov 02, 2025
Good morning! I am Ivy, a pastor here.
Today we are entering into a participatory liturgy service, called, “Good Grief: Let your heart break, so your spirit doesn’t.” If you haven’t been with us for one of these participatory liturgies – welcome! It’s a little different than our usual Sunday morning service (but we do these only about 2x a year – so hang in there!).
The title comes from the late poet Andrea Gibson, who died earlier this year. Their work often holds space for both ache and aliveness, reminding us that heartbreak and hope often live side by side. In a way, that’s what all of our services aim to do: to tell the truth about what it means to be human, to feel pain, loss, and uncertainty, and also to remember what it means to be human with Jesus. To keep engaging our spirits toward hope, mercy, and grace, even when our hearts are breaking.
This season we have been exploring The Way of Jesus and Jesus’ healing ministry. Acknowledging in part that many of us are enduring heartbreak after heartbreak after heartbreak in constant succession — with little to no opportunity to heal.
It can feel, as Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians, that we are
“pressed on every side, perplexed, persecuted, and struck down.”
And yet, even in the breaking, light still finds a way through. Every traditional service we hold and every special liturgy we create holds in tension this truth: to be human is to experience heartbreak. And to follow Jesus is to trust that God’s creative power is still at work in the very places we feel undone, that when something breaks — it can break open — making room for the Spirit to fill.
And so that is the spirit with which this liturgy has been framed. The slight difference is that there is no central sermon from the front — the service is set-up to invite your collective participation, which is central to this service. And with it, I’m excited to see what unfolds together.
Along the way, you’ll hear the voice and wisdom of the late Vincent Harding, a civil rights leader, theologian and speechwriter for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Though he spent much of his later life teaching in Denver, his roots included time here in Boston, where he connected with King’s circle and the early justice movements that shaped this city. Please let his voice accompany you this morning as well.
And one last bit before we begin: throughout our time together, you’ll hear and be invited to speak a simple refrain: “Let there be…”, echoing the words spoken at creation. May these words become a prayer that moves in you as we make our way this morning:
- Let there be… Jesus in your heartbreak,
- Let there be… light in your breaking,
- Let there be good grief … the kind that lets your heart break, so your spirit doesn’t.
*Each part of this service is an invitation, not a requirement. Embrace it with freedom. Bring all that you can, and trust that it is enough. Remember, you are not alone in this space. This is why we gather — to acknowledge the power of the presence of others beside us, surrounding us, joining with the presence of a God who is already here, always here, already creating something new and possible among us.*
Prayer
Oh Jesus — one of heart and spirit, would you tend to our hurts and hearts this morning? For those of us who have become accustomed, expectant even of heartbreak — could you return us to your deep and ever-abiding love? A love that raised you from the dead, a love that casts out fear and demon-esque pain, a love that roots for our participation in this life, that roots for our thriving, that roots for us to embrace the belief that with your help, we can create beautiful things — even those we can not yet imagine. Amen.
Part #1 | Heartbreak
You’ll now hear the words of Vincent Harding from an interview in 2012.
“I am. You are. A citizen of a country that does not yet exist —and that badly needs to exist.”
Harding spoke those words as a Black man in America, carrying the heartbreak of knowing how far we are from that dream. His words often blurred the line between history, prophecy, and invitation. And oh, did he carry heartbreak. Heartbreak for the gap between the America that is and the America that could be… and yet he believed that facing the pain of the world was part OF LOVING IT IN TO BEING. He invites us to consider that to love a place, or a people, is to hold both the beauty and the brokenness at once.
WRITE
As we sit with Harding’s words, I invite you to take a moment to name your own heartbreaks, the gaps you feel between what is and what could be.
Maybe it’s a heartbreak for our country, or our world, or for something closer in: a relationship, a loss, your school, your career…
Whatever it is, this is a space to name what aches.
On your plate in front of you, write as many heartbreaks that come to mind.
On-line folks I invite you to share with one another in the chat.
SHARING
In groups of six or so, you are invited to share what you would like from your plate with those in your group. You don’t have to share everything and you don’t have to explain anything. Just read what you prefer and are comfortable with.
Let this be an act of love and prayer, to see clearly, and name truly what breaks your heart.
Guiding principles: Freedom & Listen
Freedom — share what you’d like or pass.
Listen — if you are not speaking, your job is to actively and compassionately listen. Fixing, advising or additional questions is not the name of the game here today.
Communal response: “Let there be God in your heartbreak.”
2 Corinthians 4:7-9, 16 & Good Grief
“But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. I am hard pressed on every side, but I am not crushed; I am perplexed, but I am not in despair; I am persecuted, but I am not abandoned; I am struck down, but I am not destroyed.”
Good Grief!
Let your heart break
So your spirit doesn’t (Andrea Gibson)
v16 Therefore we do not lose heart.
(IVY) We do feel pressed on every side, perplexed, persecuted, struck down. But sometimes, what our spirits need most is not to hold it together — not to RUSH to hope or healing — but to let something break.
This morning you are going to be invited to break the plate that you just wrote your heartbreaks on. You are invited to put it inside your canvas bag, pull the drawstring, and as a table (group of six or so at a time), go to one of the six breaking stations. (two at the front, two at the back and two in the Dome Gallery).
As you move toward the breaking station, you’re invited to break your plate as an act of release — not of destruction for its own sake, but a small symbol of trust that even in the breaking, God is creating. That the fragments of our heartbreak can become part of something sacred and shared — even if we cannot yet see it.
As you approach the breaking station, your group will also be offered the chance to receive communion together, if you would like.
As Jesus gathered with his friends for a final meal, on the night before his death he knew heartbreak intimately — the kind that comes from love. He knew what was coming: betrayal, loss, and the shattering of what they thought would last forever. Still, he took bread, blessed it, broke it, and said,
“This is my body, given for you.”
In that moment, the breaking of the bread became more than sorrow — it became communion. The table became a place where heartbreak and hope sat side by side, where love took on flesh even in the face of loss.
As we take part in this ancient practice today,, may we remember that Jesus meets us not beyond our heartbreak, but right in the middle of it. All of you are welcome to receive the gluten-free cracker and the grape juice, as you do may you hear and hold this prayer:
“Let there be light in your breaking.”
A Couple of Guardrails:
There will be ‘breaking station’ attendants. They’ll give you safety eyewear, show you how to place your plate face down, and invite you to give it one firm, healthy strike with the hammer.
- Be careful, move slowly.
IVY: “As you find yourself back at your seats you can let the phrase,
“Let there be light in your breaking”
— be a prayer for yourself, and those still breaking.
PART #2 | Oath & Spirit
IVY:
“We won’t back down”
might seem like a tall order when our hearts are shattered. And yet, maybe it’s a reminder of the stubborn hope of our spirits —hope held in community, held in love,
and held by the belief that we can still help shape the world as it could be, as it should be.
Here are the words of Vincent Harding again, video & audio.
Reading | 2 Corinthians 4:7-9, 16 & Good Grief
“But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but we are not crushed; we are perplexed, but we are not in despair; we are persecuted, but we are not abandoned; we are struck down, but we are not destroyed.”
Good Grief is to let your heart break, so your spirit doesn’t (Andrea Gibson)
v16 Therefore we do not lose heart.
Therefore we do not lose heart.
We might not be used to language like ‘making an oath’. But it seems worth remembering that, as followers of Jesus, we’ve already made one, by the way we live our lives out. Our oath is to believe and embody that we love and serve a living God, a God who is very much alive and involved in our lives.
One who desires that we, too, be fully alive.
Alive! Not shredded by the shards of our broken hearts.
To take an oath, then, is to say something like,
“I deeply feel the heartbreak — and I will not give up….”
It is good grief to let our hearts break, so our spirits don’t.
So maybe even now, we can say oaths like:
I will not give up on love.
I will not give up on healing.
I will not give up for myself, for my kids, my neighbors, for this world God so loves.
With that we turn now to the words of Scripture again. You have on a card in front of you the words of 2 Corinthians. Take a second to sit with the version that uses the pronoun “I”.
And when you are ready at your table, say the phrase that most resonates with you this morning:
Example:
“I am hard pressed on every side, but I am not crushed…”
Communal Response:
“Let there be mercy.”
It is so good to acknowledge what we, individually feel and how we can orient to God as our heartbreaks. And it is good to know that we are not alone. That we, as a community, are holding one another.
As you are ready let us read the 2 Corinthians version with “we” as the pronoun together:
But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that
this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.
We are hard pressed on every side, but
- We are not crushed;
- We are perplexed, but
- We are not in despair;
- We are persecuted, but
- We are not abandoned;
- We are struck down, but
- We are not destroyed.
Therefore we do not lose heart.
One last time, I invite you to listen to Vincent Harding’s words .
“You will be what you could be. You will be what you should be.”
Those words might feel big, maybe even impossible, especially when our hearts still feel so fragile. But maybe that’s exactly where God begins.
We cannot rush healing.
But we can keep moving.
We can refuse to give up.
We can choose not to let our spirits break, trusting that even now, God is creating something beautiful out of all that’s been broken.
When our heartbreak feels too sharp to hold alone, when the pieces cut too deep, we need others to hold the weight of our heartbreak with us, to remind us that love can hold what we cannot.
In just a moment I’m going to invite you to move to the walls and take two things with you,
1) your marker and 2) your heartbreak bag (by the drawstrings!)
- You are going to pour the contents of your bag, the fragments of your broken plate, into the communal bowl at each panel of the wall.
- And then you are going to write a “let there be…” word/short phrase on one of the empty plates on the wall. A prayer — of “let there be…” for the world that could be, should be…