March 9, 2025 · Rev. Derek van Gulden · Psalm 107
Opening the Lenten series on awe with the word wonder, Rev. Derek van Gulden shows the congregation the chalices in the pastor's office, among them a cracked one made for the 2007 ordination that sat unused for years. Picked up again this week, and still holding the wine, it becomes a picture of a broken world, and a broken body of Christ that can be made whole without being made new.
Transcript
People of God, would you join me in a moment of prayer? Gracious and holy God, this day I ask you to move the words of my mouth and the meditation of all our hearts by your love, and help each of us this day not to be the instrument of our own or anyone else's oppression, but to be an instrument of peace in every step and every breath, in every moment of every day. Amen.
So earlier I asked you to remember a word. Does anybody remember that word? Wonder? Wonder.
So, as I said, we are going to be following this feeling of awe. And every week we'll have a different word to begin with. Or is just this amazing thing. Sometimes it's hard for me to even put in words, even to go back in my own life and remember these days of awe. Of course, the day my children were born, the day my daughter arrived from Haiti. Some days just sitting out in a canoe in the middle of the day when it's quiet. Some days it's sitting down for me, with friends and family and just breaking bread together and sitting back and just going, wow! What a beautiful thing. Some days it's just sitting down to eat with whoever's there. The wonder that you find.
This week I've been trying to pay attention to. Every day, the things that we do that become routine, that we kind of walk through and at the end of the day, may not even remember, but to be more intentional about every action, every interaction I have, every reaction to things. And it brought me to a place. Oh, I think it's about eighteen years ago. And today.
In my office, if you ever come into it. But there's so much stuff in it right now, there's no room for anybody. I keep these chalices kind of out in the open. Because they all have symbols for me. Chalice. I was given in Kenya that I've used many times. This one was made by a potter in Byfield and I just loved it. Doesn't have the stamp. It doesn't have a handle, but it fits great in my hand. this one I picked up at the old sloop fair the first year I was here. There was a set, but I only took two. But it's been a favorite. All of these are favorites. This one I came across when I was on my first sabbatical. I wasn't looking, but came across this one. I haven't used in a while. It's become a holder of sea glass and shells.
It was my first chalice. It took me a long time. When I finally knew in my process towards ordination, that I actually was going to be ordained by God. And for me, the excitement was that I was going to be able to celebrate communion for the first time as an ordained pastor. A number of years ago, it fell and broke. I had one of the pieces for a while, but not the other one. And some of the folks here actually told me about a way the Japanese will repair things so that you can see that they were broken, but they repaired. But for some reason I never fixed it. I figured, oh, I will. But the big thing is, is I stopped using it.
The potter who made this I ran into in Vermont at a. It was an outdoor summer craft fair, somewhere in the middle of the state. I can't remember where, but I just love the work she had. And I asked her, have you ever made a chalice? And she said, what do you mean? And I explained it and she goes, oh, those aren't easy to make. What's it for? And I explained it to her. She goes, wow, I get it. She actually had a degree, same as mine, a master's in divinity. And yet her path changed and she became a potter. And everything she did, she did with prayer and blessing. And no one had asked her ever to do something like that. And I said, so you get it. And she goes, I do. And this will be fun. I didn't tell her the colors. I just said, I like blue. And we talked for a while.
Two months later, the day before my ordination, which was eighteen years ago this coming Sunday. Next Sunday. Well, Monday, seventeenth of March. And she came to see me the day before or we met for lunch about halfway, and she presented these to me and she said, I did something you didn't ask for at the bottom of the cup. There's a little bit of red to represent the blood of Christ. And on the patent, the plate that she made to go with it, there's like a kind. Of red. It moved me and.
My ordination, the part that stands out to me the most was doing communion, celebrating it for the first time, having about two hundred people come forward and not only take communion. Actually, I had in either side of the front of the church A Episcopal priest and a UCC minister on both sides, kind of representing the two aspects of my journey. And I hadn't thought of this for a long time. To me, it usually sits like that just because. I'm not sure why it's been that way for a number of years.
As I was reading. Some of the pieces you heard today. The parts from the Psalms. Parts from mystics, parts from researchers. Because those are the people we're going to be listening to over the last few weeks, the next seven weeks to Easter. I kept looking at this, and about halfway through the week I picked it up. And then from Tuesday through yesterday, I started using it again.
I look at this chalice in a new light. It's a very ordinary thing. It's made out of clay. Beautiful color has deep meaning for me, but it had become very. I don't know. It's like I put it on the shelf. It got dusty. I didn't use it. I figured it leaked. And I never bothered to find out if it did or not, because it does have cracks all the way down here and just sitting there. Tuesday is actually my day off, and I just was sitting in the office and all of a sudden I looked at it.
The Last Supper, Jesus met with his closest friends, his family, to celebrate the Passover. And after they had finished the Passover meal, he took items that were always around. You could say mundane. A loaf of bread was always there. Wine was always there. There was some cup of some sorts. I'm sure it wasn't very fancy. It could have been wood. It could have been clay pottery, but something that was just there. And he talked about his broken body and he invited people to remember him.
When we talk about the body of Christ given for us, and Jesus says, remember me. Not remembrance, but to put the body of Christ back together. Quite often, if we look around the world, we see that the body of Christ is fractured. It's broken. And part of our challenge as Christians is to put that body back together to make it whole. But sometimes we can't put it back together the way it originally was.
For me, this is what I heard. Cracked. Broken. May not hold wine or juice. Fruit of the vine. But amazingly beautiful as it represents so much in my own life. In my own faith journey. But in the world today. For me.
I started using this again Tuesday and as often I do communion either with somebody who's there or I do it by myself or in the presence of others. And so I've been using it. It holds the wine. The cracks are pretty big. I haven't cut myself on it, but it is so much more powerful for me. I look at it in wonder. Simple thing. We all have cups glasses around, but when we use it or I use it, the true beauty, the splendor. I'm in awe of what it does and how it changed the way I look at those simple things around us.
Jesus broke the bread and he held the two pieces up, and he said to those gathered with him, this is my body broken for you this day. Whenever you partake in the future, do so and remember me. After they had shared the bread between each other, he took a simple cup of wine with his wine. He blessed it. And he said to those gathered. This is my life poured out for you this day. Whenever you take it in the future, do so in remembrance of me.
The world is broken. Some of us are broken. Many of us. Some of us are struggling. Many are struggling these days. In my Day Tuesday, my day off, where I do slip into the office sometimes to do stuff that's not related to this church. This became. A moment of ah. Of wonder.
Where do you find awe and wonder in your life? I invite you to keep your eyes open. Look at those things that happen every day. The world and each day is filled with wonder and with awe. Where will you find it? And when you do, share that with somebody or share it with us. This is my story. Amen.