Pasadena Presbyterian Church Sermon Text
September 5, 2004

"Cracked Pots, Mended"  

Preached by The Rev. Dr. Barbara Anderson

Scripture:  Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18; Jeremiah 18:1-11

(1) The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: (2) "Come, go down to the potter's house, and there I will let you hear my words." (3) So I went down to the potter's house, and there he was working at his wheel. (4) The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter's hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as seemed good to him.

(5) Then the word of the LORD came to me: (6) Can I not do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done? says the LORD. Just like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. (7) At one moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, (8) but if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will change my mind about the disaster that I intended to bring on it. (9) And at another moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, (10) but if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will change my mind about the good that I had intended to do to it.

(11) Now, therefore, say to the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: Thus says the LORD: Look, I am a potter shaping evil against you and devising a plan against you. Turn now, all of you from your evil way, and amend your ways and your doings.

- Jeremiah 18: 1-11

This morning's Old Testament lesson from the Prophet Jeremiah uses one of those images that crops up periodically in scripture, that of pottery and clay.  The most familiar passage, of course, is that of God saying, "I am the potter, you are the clay."

In today's passage, Israel is not in the best state of affairs.  God tells Jeremiah to go to a potter's house; he'll receive a message from the Lord there.  So Jeremiah goes to a potter's house, walks in, and sees a potter spinning a pot on a wheel. 

We have a potter in the congregation - Lennie Rusch.  The dark pots on the communion table are some of Lennie's pottery.  These are made in  a style of pottery that is intentionally left a little rough and imperfect in the way that it is shaped and finished.  (I thought about asking Lennie to bring his potter's wheel here and spin a pot for us during worship, but was informed by our facilities manager that he had just cleaned the carpets and he'd appreciate it if we didn't do that.  Those of you who have watched a potter spinning pottery, know that it's messy, and clay and water fly all over the place.  It would have been a big mess.  So, I leave that element to your imagination.)

Nevertheless, part of what I find fascinating in watching potters, is that which the Prophet Jeremiah describes in this passage.  Jeremiah says that when this piece of pottery that was being worked on reached a certain point, the potter decided it wasn't coming out quite right, and that he needed to start over. 

Have you ever watched a potter re-do a piece of work on a wheel?  They slice it off the bottom.  They pick it up.  And they slam it back down again.  It's very powerful.  It takes your breath away if you're not expecting it. 

Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah and said, "I am the potter and Israel is the clay, and I can, like this potter, create something that is becoming beautiful.  But if I discover along the way that it is not turning out the way that I hoped,  and then like the potter, I can do something dramatic:  start over again.  Or, on the other hand, my creation may not be turning out the way that I had hoped, but then suddenly begins to turn into something new and different and more beautiful, and I decide not to destroy it after all." 

In the time of  Jeremiah, God sends armies to re-do the work that needs to be done, and reshape Israel all over again.  We don't experience that type of divine drama  much in our lives these days, but we do experience the sense of our being clay, God being the potter, and our being still unformed.  As we were planning worship together this week, Greg Norton pointed out that one of the wonderful parts about this text in Jeremiah is that the pot has not yet been fired.  It's not hard and set in its ways, so to speak, and so it can be reshaped, as we ourselves are constantly being reshaped by God and by circumstances.

One of the other things I have noticed when watching a potter working clay on a wheel, is that it takes both external pressure on the outside, and internal pressure as well, both from the potter's hands, to bring the clay up into the desired shape.  The wrong proportion of pressure won't make the shape that's intended.  So too, as Christians we need to do both the internal and the external work that will cause us to be shaped in God's hands into the creation we are to be. 

I love pottery.  I collect pottery of all different kinds, and I love wonderful works of art done in pottery. I have a painted vase that is very beautiful and very special to me.  It was given to my grandparents on my mother's side when they were married, and my grandparents gave it to my parents when they were married.  My mother wasn't willing to give it up quite yet when Mark and I were married 23 years ago [today], but she surprised me by giving it to us a few years ago. The vase has a fragile piece of paper inside in my mother's handwriting that describes the history of the vase.  Each time we've moved I've been very careful of this vase, and every time that anyone in the family picks it up, I find myself catching my breath for fear they'll drop it or break it or not treat it with the care that it deserves.  It's still in wonderful, pristine shape, and if it ever falls and breaks in an earthquake, I will be really crushed (advanced warning!).  

I also have other pots and mugs and bowls that are not in that pristine shape, but which I would not consider getting rid of any more than I would that family heirloom.  This huge bowl, for example, is one of my favorites.  Some of you may have seen it.  It was made for us by a potter in the first congregation that Mark and I served after our ordination, in Port Clinton, Ohio.  On the weekend that our elder son Chris was born, the potter placed a matching casserole on the front seat of our car, filled with our dinner for the evening.  She was a very nice potter and a very good cook. 

This bowl is our primary salad bowl; has been for 21 years.  It's the bowl in which we make our homemade bread when we get around to it.  It's the bowl in which we put the family popcorn, and it's the bowl in which we make and serve our salads at all major festive family occasions.  I think it's the only bowl in which Caesar Salad can be properly made in our home, and if we ever changed that tradition our sons would think they'd shown up at the wrong house.   

However, from time to time when other people are with us for a festive occasion, and I'm setting this bowl on the table in the midst of the fine china and the crystal, I suddenly notice that it has four chips around the edges, and a crack in the side.  But I still wouldn't dream of not serving our salad in this chipped and cracked bowl at these most sacred of times. This bowl has become sacred and belongs in the midst of those sacred times of hospitality.

For you see, there's something important about life that is captured not only in those beautiful, pristine, gorgeous vases and bowls and pots that have never been cracked, but also in the cracks and chips and broken places of our lives that are glued back together again, and valued.  They become, in the midst of all of that living, a way that we remember our own sacred stories. 

I've just shared with you some of the sacred stories of this bowl.  Each of us has stories about the broken, the chipped, the cracked places of our lives.  I would not recommend that any of you go home, take one of your valued plates or pots or bowls and smash it to the floor on purpose so that you can sweep it back up and put it back together again.  Nevertheless we do know that there are ways in which we are broken people, ways in which we are a broken community, and ways in which we are a broken world, and that even then, when the pottery of our lives has actually broken apart or cracked or chipped, God is still the potter who helps us to put it back together in a beautiful fashion.   If our cracked bowls and pots need not be thrown away, we need not be thrown away or discarded either when we are broken, chipped, cracked.  

Around the world exist cultures who place greatest value on old, worn, and even cracked pottery.  In some parts of Asia, the cracks in beautiful vases are filled with silver in such a way that the silver lines become part of the artfulness of the vase.  In homes and museums we can see absolutely beautiful pieces of work that have lines of precious metal have created an even greater work of art than before.  These highly valued through the centuries.  In many parts of this world the most valued bowls and pots are not the new ones, but those that have been handed down through the family, or the ones that serve as reminders of the ordinary, the special and the sacred occasions of life.  Their cracks, dents and chips make them more sacred than anything that is pristine and perfect.   

I sat last week with a mother whom I only see about every five years or so, and with her daughter.  Theirs is a family of plastic surgeons and technicians. She explained the cosmetic techniques that had been done to her face just recently ( I think she was wanted me to understand why she looked like a work in progress), and all the other techniques she hopes to learn by going back to school in order to work in the family business.  She told me all the many things she hopes to have done to her face and body.  As I ate lunch beside her, I felt myself being assessed and tried to hold onto my internal center of value.  

Later I reflected on what I know of the family and its agonies.  I know the daughter fairly well.  Absolutely stunning, she is one of those young women often described as "drop dead gorgeous."  In addition to that, she's bright and articulate, and academically, musically and artistically gifted - all of this in one person.

But I also know something of her inside, which is terribly tragic.  For you see, in this household where everything is judged by how much it matches an imaginary ideal, no one can ever measure up to perfection.  This young woman, who so longs to be loved for who she is, just as herself, without having to be perfect this young woman cannot believe that anyone in her life would really like or love her, because she isn't perfect.  It's tragic and sad to see how her pain, anger and cynicism manifest themselves in her relationships.  

It's not only the overtly broken places in our lives of which I speak today, it's also our thinking that we need to meet some ideal of perfection in our relationships, in our work, in our being, and in our appearance that gets in the way of our seeing and experiencing the purposes for which God has created us. 

These pots - these raku pots - are beautiful in their imperfection.  This broken pot is still beautiful and cherished by its owner.  And my bowl:  you couldn't pay enough for me to sell you this salad bowl. 

Each of us is loved by God as we are.  And God is the one who glues us back together again when we need somebody to sweep up all the shards that have broken apart on the floor.  And God is the one who, while we're still being formed, says "No, you're not how I want you to be yet.  Get reformed."  God is the potter, and we are the clay.

There's one more story that I want to share.  I've heard it set in several different parts of the world - sometimes it's set in China, sometimes in Africa.  I haven't yet heard it set in South America, but it would work there too, and in parts of the United States, as well.  It's a story that takes place where people have to carry water long distances.  A child carries water each day from the well to his home in the village.  He uses a pole across his or her shoulders to balance on jugs on each side, day after day, year after year after year.  One jug is completely whole and perfect.  He fills it with water and the same amount of water's in the jug at the end of the trip.  But the other jug has a slight crack in the side.  So by the time it reaches the end of the trip, half its water is gone. Not very helpful, right? 

So one time (in the way that stories like this happen), as the child was carrying the two jugs home, the jugs began to speak.  The uncracked jug, the "perfect one" that did its job well, patted itself on the metaphorical back, saying "I am such a good and perfect jug. I do my work just right.  You, on the other hand, are lousy and worthless.  Your purpose in life is to carry water from the well back to the village, and look at this:  Day after day, year after year, only half of your water makes it home.  You are half empty when you get home.  You're always going to be like this.  I think that somebody should get a new jug and replace you." 

The cracked jug was devastated.  It called out to God "Why have you done this to me? Why is my pot cracked?  I am no good."   

As also happens in stories like this, the child miraculously heard the conversation between the jugs, and the anguished plea to God.  He responded, "Yes, you are cracked.  I've known that for a long, long time.  But your crack doesn't make you worthless.  Look at the side of the road below your partner jug. It is dry and barren, and nothing grows there.  Now look at the side of the road below you.  Do you see the line of wildflowers all along the road?  They flourish because the water that drips slowly from your cracked jug gives life to what would not otherwise exist all along the road we travel.  Through your crack in this otherwise perfect jug, you have brought life and beauty to an otherwise desolate and barren stretch of road.  I will not change you for another pot, nor will I let anyone discount the good that your crack has done."

Today we gather at the Lord's table.  As we do so, we remember Jesus' body broken for us.  We will break bread here soon, and in the breaking of that bread we will remember that the breaking of Christ's body for us is the redemption of the world.  In Christ's brokenness and in our brokenness, God is able to work redemption and grace and healing: 

• In the world, where lives are shattered as lives have been in Russia this week;

• in our own church family, where we have experienced much loss and grief this summer,

• in whatever ways this world needs mending,

• in whatever ways this community needs mending,

• in whatever way you need mending.

Christ's broken body remembered today is the precious element of God's love that can mend your cracks, your broken places, the chips in your life and in this world.  Then you and I, and all of us together can stop pretending that they don't exist, and can instead let them be instruments of beauty and grace, healing and hope for this broken and needy world.  Amen.   

(c) Copyright 2004 by Barbara A. Anderson.  All rights reserved.  Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution.