In The Potter's Hands
Sermon
Sermons on the First Readings
Series III, Cycle C
Object:
I am not a potter, and I do not play one on television! However, as a student of the scriptures and the life and times of the people in the biblical narrative, I can say with some certainty that crafting pottery is one of the world's oldest professions. Alongside bone and bricks, fragments of earthenware or pottery have long been gathered and studied by archeologists to understand something of the ancient inhabitants of the Middle East and nearly every other ancient culture throughout the world.
Few of us can remember when there was no such thing as plastic for bottles or melamine for dishware; most of us can't remember a time without cardboard boxes! But for thousands of years, various forms of pottery, hollowed-out gourds, and animal hides were all that people had with which to transport water from one place to another, prepare meals, or secure precious documents. Additionally, clay figurines were shaped by hand to serve as earthly representations or reminders of the "gods" that were worshiped by the Canaanites and other peoples of the region.
Archaeologists tell us that in the time of the prophet Jeremiah, pottery was used for storing foods and ointments, for carrying water, for standard measurements of all kinds of items, and for washing clothing. Oil lamps of various sizes were also crafted from clay and fired in ovens. Every community would likely have had at least one potter who could supply the various needs of its residents. Because pottery was quite easily broken, there would always be a strong demand for his or her wares. It was a common fact of life that some of a household's water jars would be dropped or otherwise broken in transit, in much the same way that drinking glasses and pitchers are broken in our own homes.
When Jeremiah is directed to go down to the potter's house, it is likely a very familiar place to him. God's intent in this section of Jeremiah is to provide a highly recognizable visual aid to make his case for his anger with the house of Israel. As Jeremiah watches the potter, he finds that the vessel upon which the artisan is working is not measuring up to his plan for it. It is not going to be the vessel he intends. And as many of us have done countless times with play-dough or modeling clay, the potter abandons the form he has been creating by folding the partially formed vessel in on itself. He shapes it once again into a simple lump of clay so that he can attempt to rework it into a vessel with which he will be pleased.
Because I am not a potter, I do not know how common an occurrence this is, but it seems that every time I have watched a potter throw a pot, as it's called, I have seen them "go back to square one" with clay at least one or two times. Because there are so many factors that go into the shaping of a useful and beautiful piece of pottery, it seems that the starts and restarts serve to get the temperature of the clay, the amount of water added to it, and the vision in the mind of the potter to become one.
When the word of the Lord comes to Jeremiah, we discover that God identifies very closely with this potter. And for the prophet and those who would hear him speak the word of the Lord, this would not be a foreign idea. Not only are clay vessels and figures an integral part of daily life in Jeremiah's time, the image of humanity as clay in God's hands is a very familiar one as well. In Job 10:8-9 Job refers to himself as having been formed by God and fashioned like clay:
Your hands fashioned and made me; and now you turn and destroy me. Remember that you fashioned me like clay; and will you turn me to dust again?
-- Job 10:8-9
Job, even in the in the midst of great suffering, acknowledges his maker's right to destroy him whom he has made.
And in the later writings of the prophet Isaiah, God's people make this confession:
Yet, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.
-- Isaiah 64:8
This imagery characterizing a fragile humanity and its maker may be inspired by the second account of creation:
Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.
-- Genesis 2:7
Here is narrative that would inspire any artist, as lifeless clay is shaped by God and lives when God breathes into it. The relationship between artist and art, between creator and creature is very clear. The power the artist holds to create or destroy is implicit in this scene from creation.
So much has changed since the day the Lord God created the man and woman and planted a garden in Eden. No sooner than had that garden been planted, it seems that the creatures forgot that they were creatures in the hands of a gracious creator. When offered the opportunity to become like their creator, the creatures "bit," and the beauty and order of God's artistry became flawed.
This first sin, creatures rejecting their identity as God's creatures, is at the core of all sin and brokenness. Isaiah quotes the Lord God who names this core sin for what it is:
You turn things upside down! Shall the potter be regarded as the clay? Shall the thing made say of its maker, "He did not make me"; or the thing formed say of the one who formed it, "He has no understanding"?
-- Isaiah 29:16
Yes, you and I turn things upside down. We believe that we ourselves are the final authority on the way we should live and how we should give. We choose to act selfishly toward others and with contempt toward God, as if to say, "He did not make me!" We make this life all about ourselves -- what we need, what we want, and how we will get it, because we somehow think "He [God] has no understanding."
What is it that we think God does not understand? Is it our desire to be in control? Is it our search for meaning, for purpose? God does understand these things about us ... because we have been created in God's image. It is because we stray from God's image of grace and generosity, of love and service, that we struggle with issues like control and the quest for meaning and purpose.
It is because the house of Israel has strayed from the God who created them that the Lord says to Jeremiah,
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. At one moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, 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. And at another moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, 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.
-- Jeremiah 18:6-10
God's people have become something other than God created them to be. Like the spoiled vessel on the potter's wheel, we do not resemble the vision God had for us when the idea of us formed in the mind of God. And so, like the potter, God has the right, and as an artisan, the responsibility to collapse the spoiled vessel, add more water, and work with it once again to achieve the desired result. God will not throw out the clay, for it is valuable and holds the promise of something beautiful within. But to release its beauty and purpose, the clay will need to be reformed in the potter's hand.
The people of Jeremiah's day were not prepared for the nature of that reform. As Israel was defeated by Assyria and led to live in the land of their enemies, so too Judah would face defeat at the hands of Babylon, and its artisans and leaders and their households would be forcibly relocated to Babylon. The forty years they spend there are a time of grief and loss, but those years also serve to reform them into a people more responsive to God. Those who return to Judah are deeply committed to serving God in their generation and preparing the way for future generations to acknowledge God, as well. Through the experience of exile, the clay that is God's people Judah, is reshaped by God's promises into a people more closely resembling God's original intent for them.
Even the experience of exile and return could not fully form God's people for life with God. So in the fullness of time, a child is born who is God's perfect plan in every way. This child, born in Bethlehem of Judah and named Jesus, is truly the Son of God and the Savior of the world. Jesus reveals the will of his Father as he takes clay into his hands and places it on the eyes of the blind man, restoring his sight. In everything he does, he reflects God's values of life, wholeness, justice, and compassion. But this broken creation cannot see God's ideal in Jesus -- they see only judgment and threat to their way of being. So they kill him, nailing his hands and feet to the tree of a cross.
However, God's hands are not tied by humanity's rejection of his Son. Though they believe themselves to be in control (as we still do today), God rolls away the stone that seals Jesus' lifeless body inside. He raises Jesus from death to life and declares Jesus' reign over all creation. Saint Paul writes:
He [Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
-- Colossians 1:15
Jesus shows us God, and he shows us what God has created and intends us to be, as well.
Although we fall short of that intention, although we "turn things upside down" in our hunger for control and our misguided ideas about meaning and purpose, God in grace places us in Jesus' hands, as we in baptism are joined to Jesus' death and the power of his life. Again, Paul writing to the Corinthians, declares:
But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies.
-- 2 Corinthians 4:7-10
The treasure in fragile clay jars is our lives, formed by the hand of God according to God's plan for all creation. God's light shines through the cracks and flaws that define our human existence.
I am not a potter, and I do not play one on television. But I do have two priceless pieces of pottery. They are not absolutely perfect in shape, nor are their glazed surfaces vibrant or particularly distinctive. They are precious to me because they are the handiwork of our two sons, crafted when they were students in elementary school.
God looks at us crackpots that way, too. Each of us is unique -- no two of us alike. God loves each and every one of us as if there were only one of us. And God loves us just as we are, but too much to let us stay that way.
We will be remolded and reshaped by God, sometimes in dramatic ways, sometimes in subtle, almost imperceptible ways. But no matter what, God's purpose in reshaping us is always the same: that we might more faithfully reflect God to the world around us.
So let us trust life in the potter's hands, making the words of Adelaide A. Pollard our daily prayer and song:
Have thine own way, Lord! Have thine own way!
Thou art the potter; I am the clay.
Mold me and make me after thy will,
While I am waiting, yielded and still.1
In the name of Jesus. Amen.
__________________________
1. "Have Thine Own Way, Lord," words by Adelaide A. Pollard, 1902. In the public domain.
Few of us can remember when there was no such thing as plastic for bottles or melamine for dishware; most of us can't remember a time without cardboard boxes! But for thousands of years, various forms of pottery, hollowed-out gourds, and animal hides were all that people had with which to transport water from one place to another, prepare meals, or secure precious documents. Additionally, clay figurines were shaped by hand to serve as earthly representations or reminders of the "gods" that were worshiped by the Canaanites and other peoples of the region.
Archaeologists tell us that in the time of the prophet Jeremiah, pottery was used for storing foods and ointments, for carrying water, for standard measurements of all kinds of items, and for washing clothing. Oil lamps of various sizes were also crafted from clay and fired in ovens. Every community would likely have had at least one potter who could supply the various needs of its residents. Because pottery was quite easily broken, there would always be a strong demand for his or her wares. It was a common fact of life that some of a household's water jars would be dropped or otherwise broken in transit, in much the same way that drinking glasses and pitchers are broken in our own homes.
When Jeremiah is directed to go down to the potter's house, it is likely a very familiar place to him. God's intent in this section of Jeremiah is to provide a highly recognizable visual aid to make his case for his anger with the house of Israel. As Jeremiah watches the potter, he finds that the vessel upon which the artisan is working is not measuring up to his plan for it. It is not going to be the vessel he intends. And as many of us have done countless times with play-dough or modeling clay, the potter abandons the form he has been creating by folding the partially formed vessel in on itself. He shapes it once again into a simple lump of clay so that he can attempt to rework it into a vessel with which he will be pleased.
Because I am not a potter, I do not know how common an occurrence this is, but it seems that every time I have watched a potter throw a pot, as it's called, I have seen them "go back to square one" with clay at least one or two times. Because there are so many factors that go into the shaping of a useful and beautiful piece of pottery, it seems that the starts and restarts serve to get the temperature of the clay, the amount of water added to it, and the vision in the mind of the potter to become one.
When the word of the Lord comes to Jeremiah, we discover that God identifies very closely with this potter. And for the prophet and those who would hear him speak the word of the Lord, this would not be a foreign idea. Not only are clay vessels and figures an integral part of daily life in Jeremiah's time, the image of humanity as clay in God's hands is a very familiar one as well. In Job 10:8-9 Job refers to himself as having been formed by God and fashioned like clay:
Your hands fashioned and made me; and now you turn and destroy me. Remember that you fashioned me like clay; and will you turn me to dust again?
-- Job 10:8-9
Job, even in the in the midst of great suffering, acknowledges his maker's right to destroy him whom he has made.
And in the later writings of the prophet Isaiah, God's people make this confession:
Yet, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.
-- Isaiah 64:8
This imagery characterizing a fragile humanity and its maker may be inspired by the second account of creation:
Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.
-- Genesis 2:7
Here is narrative that would inspire any artist, as lifeless clay is shaped by God and lives when God breathes into it. The relationship between artist and art, between creator and creature is very clear. The power the artist holds to create or destroy is implicit in this scene from creation.
So much has changed since the day the Lord God created the man and woman and planted a garden in Eden. No sooner than had that garden been planted, it seems that the creatures forgot that they were creatures in the hands of a gracious creator. When offered the opportunity to become like their creator, the creatures "bit," and the beauty and order of God's artistry became flawed.
This first sin, creatures rejecting their identity as God's creatures, is at the core of all sin and brokenness. Isaiah quotes the Lord God who names this core sin for what it is:
You turn things upside down! Shall the potter be regarded as the clay? Shall the thing made say of its maker, "He did not make me"; or the thing formed say of the one who formed it, "He has no understanding"?
-- Isaiah 29:16
Yes, you and I turn things upside down. We believe that we ourselves are the final authority on the way we should live and how we should give. We choose to act selfishly toward others and with contempt toward God, as if to say, "He did not make me!" We make this life all about ourselves -- what we need, what we want, and how we will get it, because we somehow think "He [God] has no understanding."
What is it that we think God does not understand? Is it our desire to be in control? Is it our search for meaning, for purpose? God does understand these things about us ... because we have been created in God's image. It is because we stray from God's image of grace and generosity, of love and service, that we struggle with issues like control and the quest for meaning and purpose.
It is because the house of Israel has strayed from the God who created them that the Lord says to Jeremiah,
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. At one moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, 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. And at another moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, 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.
-- Jeremiah 18:6-10
God's people have become something other than God created them to be. Like the spoiled vessel on the potter's wheel, we do not resemble the vision God had for us when the idea of us formed in the mind of God. And so, like the potter, God has the right, and as an artisan, the responsibility to collapse the spoiled vessel, add more water, and work with it once again to achieve the desired result. God will not throw out the clay, for it is valuable and holds the promise of something beautiful within. But to release its beauty and purpose, the clay will need to be reformed in the potter's hand.
The people of Jeremiah's day were not prepared for the nature of that reform. As Israel was defeated by Assyria and led to live in the land of their enemies, so too Judah would face defeat at the hands of Babylon, and its artisans and leaders and their households would be forcibly relocated to Babylon. The forty years they spend there are a time of grief and loss, but those years also serve to reform them into a people more responsive to God. Those who return to Judah are deeply committed to serving God in their generation and preparing the way for future generations to acknowledge God, as well. Through the experience of exile, the clay that is God's people Judah, is reshaped by God's promises into a people more closely resembling God's original intent for them.
Even the experience of exile and return could not fully form God's people for life with God. So in the fullness of time, a child is born who is God's perfect plan in every way. This child, born in Bethlehem of Judah and named Jesus, is truly the Son of God and the Savior of the world. Jesus reveals the will of his Father as he takes clay into his hands and places it on the eyes of the blind man, restoring his sight. In everything he does, he reflects God's values of life, wholeness, justice, and compassion. But this broken creation cannot see God's ideal in Jesus -- they see only judgment and threat to their way of being. So they kill him, nailing his hands and feet to the tree of a cross.
However, God's hands are not tied by humanity's rejection of his Son. Though they believe themselves to be in control (as we still do today), God rolls away the stone that seals Jesus' lifeless body inside. He raises Jesus from death to life and declares Jesus' reign over all creation. Saint Paul writes:
He [Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
-- Colossians 1:15
Jesus shows us God, and he shows us what God has created and intends us to be, as well.
Although we fall short of that intention, although we "turn things upside down" in our hunger for control and our misguided ideas about meaning and purpose, God in grace places us in Jesus' hands, as we in baptism are joined to Jesus' death and the power of his life. Again, Paul writing to the Corinthians, declares:
But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies.
-- 2 Corinthians 4:7-10
The treasure in fragile clay jars is our lives, formed by the hand of God according to God's plan for all creation. God's light shines through the cracks and flaws that define our human existence.
I am not a potter, and I do not play one on television. But I do have two priceless pieces of pottery. They are not absolutely perfect in shape, nor are their glazed surfaces vibrant or particularly distinctive. They are precious to me because they are the handiwork of our two sons, crafted when they were students in elementary school.
God looks at us crackpots that way, too. Each of us is unique -- no two of us alike. God loves each and every one of us as if there were only one of us. And God loves us just as we are, but too much to let us stay that way.
We will be remolded and reshaped by God, sometimes in dramatic ways, sometimes in subtle, almost imperceptible ways. But no matter what, God's purpose in reshaping us is always the same: that we might more faithfully reflect God to the world around us.
So let us trust life in the potter's hands, making the words of Adelaide A. Pollard our daily prayer and song:
Have thine own way, Lord! Have thine own way!
Thou art the potter; I am the clay.
Mold me and make me after thy will,
While I am waiting, yielded and still.1
In the name of Jesus. Amen.
__________________________
1. "Have Thine Own Way, Lord," words by Adelaide A. Pollard, 1902. In the public domain.
