September 5, 2010

Jeremiah 18:1-11; Luke 14:25-33
“Making Pottery”

God talks to Jeremiah and ‘reveals’ something that all of us should know about how God works. This revelation doesn’t come during a vision or a dream or some test of Jeremiah’s faith – as is often the case in the Bible. It comes instead from an ordinary, everyday kind of thing. God nudges Jeremiah a bit and lets him know he needs to go to the local pottery shop for this ‘revelation.’ So Jeremiah goes and spends the better part of the day watching closely how the potter makes his pottery. While he is there at the pottery, God ‘reveals’ or ‘shows him’ that this is how God works to shape and create the lives of God’s people – in much the same way the potter creates a pot.

The Message (Peterson’s paraphrase of the Bible) says that standing there, Jeremiah observed that: 4 Whenever the pot the potter was working on turned out badly (when it became spoiled – NRSV; or marred – NIV), as happens when working with clay, the potter would simply start over (the potter reworked it – NRSV; formed and shaping it – NIV) using the same clay to make another pot. [Now and then there would be something wrong with the pot he was molding from the clay with his hands. So he would rework the clay into another kind of pot as he saw fit. – NET]

In the next verses, Jeremiah goes on to say, “Then God's Message came to me: "Can't I do just as this potter does, people of Israel?" God's Decree! "Watch this potter. In the same way that this potter works his clay, I work on you, people of Israel. [‘O nation of Israel, can I not deal with you as this potter deals with the clay? In my hands, you, O nation of Israel, are just like the clay in this potter’s hand.’ – NET]


Jeremiah observes that the potter reworked flawed vessels into other vessels, “as seemed good to him” (v. 4), which was the lesson about God he was to draw from the potter. Just as the chosen people of Israel and Judah were originally fashioned into a nation by the Lord’s gracious shaping, so now, flawed by their own unrighteousness, they remain under the divine will to be reshaped, as seems good to the Lord, into another vessel.

The main part of this ‘revelation’ is concerned with the flexibility of the divine will. The God of the OT – and the God of today – is highly interactive with history, taking the initiative in human affairs as well as responding to human actions.

When the potter creates pottery on the wheel, the clay must first be kneaded and wedged to push out little pockets of air trapped in the clay before it is usable for throwing. Water is applied and the clay is centered on the wheel. Sometimes if off-center or with an air pocket present, the pot will wobble and eventually collapse. A potter, noticing a flaw in the piece, might modify or alter the form during the throwing process, or might even stop and start over again from the beginning. Sometimes in doing so, an even more beautiful or useful pot is made.

John Hanneman, in “Shaped By An Artist,”writes:
“God, the master craftsman, …has a vision of what he wants us to become, a purpose for our lives that is unique and significant for each of us. He has designed us to be his holy people. We are vessels that house something very special — the Spirit of God. We may be ordinary clay pots, but God is molding and shaping us for his use — and he uses everything in our lives to accomplish his purposes. God is the potter; we are the clay.

Being like a shapeless lump of clay in the potter's hand doesn't mean we are wholly at the mercy of the artist's hand. Any artist will tell you that despite their preconceived plans, most times the material they work with refuses to cooperate causing a change of plan or two along the way. And that is when the creative juices flow. I can remember an art professor telling me in the sculpture studio that the large chunk of limestone setting on the floor before me would reveal what it was to become. I should first get to know it from the outside to discover its potential and begin making plans. However I had to allow the material to determine the final and ‘true’ form of the sculpture inside the stone I was carving.

God is flexible, and like an artist and potter, always creating. God does not give up on us if we are found to be flawed or imperfect or make mistakes. Instead God takes our shortcomings and works to make us better all the time. Like the potter, God takes us in his hands and molds us into the very best people we can be. God wants to reshape us, not reject us. Isn’t it exciting what we might become in God’s hands!