Psalm 147:3

Dear Congregation,

A German proverb says: broken crockery brings good luck. It is an old German custom to smash crockery at a stag party on the eve of a wedding.

Shards bring good luck? Is that true?

Firstly, it's sad when there are broken pieces. How quickly it happens. An inattentive moment can break something that has lasted for decades.

No matter how annoyed and angry you are. Broken is broken.

A bomb over a house in Israel or Palestine. A destroyed house in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine.

An attack in Mamelodi. A fire in Kroondal. A fall from a ladder.

We have enough experience of how fragile/vulnerable our lives are.

Shards bring good luck? I put a big question mark over it because it remains doubtful whether it does.

This year, for various reasons, I have been working a lot on the topic of trauma. Trauma is a violent reaction to a situation in which destruction is experienced. Something is broken. Also, in the soul. As if it were being torn to pieces: As if your own life is now laid out in front of you in many puzzle pieces.

One book title reads: ‘The unexpected gift of trauma!’ It was written by an American woman who has had many traumatic experiences herself as a migrant from Venezuela and has been working with patients for more than 20 years.

She wonders how it is that some people can cope with very difficult life experiences and regain their zest for life, while others are destroyed forever.

In the context of trauma research, I have also become newly aware that we as Christians have a traumatic experience at the centre: The cross of Jesus.

But we talk about this cross as an unexpected gift: The unexpected gift of trauma.

The Day of Prayer and Repentance invites us to think more about this.

I have brought you some pictures for this.

A broken vessel: shards.

They symbolise what is broken in your life, in my life, in our world. A pile of broken pieces.

Small pieces: The whole no longer visible.

Many people have already come to terms with this.

Sometimes it helps to look around and see how things are going in other countries and other cultures.

There is a Japanese art called Kintsugi. It is the art of putting something broken back together again and gilding it. It is the ‘golden reassembly’

According to a legend, the technique originated at the end of the 15th century when the Chinese tea bowl of Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa broke. According to legend, he sent the bowl to China for repair.

When the bowl returned, it was mended with staples, a process in which metal is inserted into drilledholes on either side of the crack to hold the pieces together. Yoshimasa didn't like the look, and he asked Japanese craftsmen to develop a new, more aesthetic method - the beginnings of kintsugi.

I have brought a picture. You can see it there.

A marvellous new vessel is created from shards. Gilded scars.

In my opinion, this is a wonderful image for the significance of the Day of Prayer and Repentance. On this day of the year, we consciously come to God with our fractures and our broken lives.

God has not only mastered this Japanese art of healing since the 15th century. Bible verses that speak of God as such a healer are much older:

Psalm 147:3 reads, ‘God heals the broken-hearted and binds up their wounds.

God makes us beautiful again. God heals.

There are many other passages with similar content. Jesus Christ also healed - he mended broken hearts.

In my opinion, this is the meaning of the Day of Prayer and Repentance: it is an invitation to discover the unexpected gift of God amidst our crisis-ridden world or our own personal crises.

Yes, we will keep scars - life does not pass us by without a trace, but God's work in our lives can lead us to live well with these scars.

Take another look at the pictures.

Firstly, the broken things. The anger, sadness, resentment and guilt and many other feelings are associated with this moment.

If at some point such a force emerges: as Dietrich Bonhoeffer also expresses in his confession of faith, then new life is possible.

God continues to act, like a Japanese artist who creates a miracle with great patience, enormous effort and the most precious materials.

The new bowl stands there in marvellous splendour. Even more precious than ever before.

This is the repentance to which God invites us. A healing invitation. Experienced in word and sacrament. In Holy Communion we celebrate that God creates a new heart.

That is my wish for you at the end of this year: that the broken pieces bring happiness. That you continue to grow beyond the breakages and discover new life.

God heals.

God heals broken hearts and binds up wounds.

May the peace of God, which is higher than our understanding, keep our hearts and minds in Christ

Jesus.

Amen