"God's Work of Art"
Jeremiah 18:1-11
I have entitled this sermon, "God's Work of Art," but I am unsure as to whether this is an appropriate title or not.
Let's see where we go from here, and perhaps you can let me know if I gave this sermon a proper name.
Nowadays, pottery-making is an art form.
Very few people today use real pottery for anything except to show off.
We eat our meals, most of us, off of mass-produced plates.
If any of us owns a piece of pottery at all, chances are it's an art object we put on a shelf or whatever.
I remember making a clay bowl in art class as a young kid.
It didn't turn out real well.
It was a bit miss-shapen; it was a sad sort of thing.
I painted it blue and then it was fired in the kiln.
And I ended up giving it to my mom for either Mother's Day or her birthday.
She made a real big deal out of it though.
It stayed in our kitchen for many, many years...
...although it was never used to hold salad or anything else.
Even though it wasn't the most beautiful work of art in the world...
...my mom loved it...
...because her little boy had made it for her.
Back in Jeremiah's day rough clay pottery was what everybody used, and every town had its potter.
The Prophet Jeremiah needed a powerful metaphor to use in reference to Israel and what God was calling Israel to be, and so God told Jeremiah to "Go down to the potter's house, and I'll give you instructions about what to do there."
So, Jeremiah goes to the potter's house, and it's nothing fancy.
It's a small house, really, with the front room used as the shop.
And in the center of the room is the potter sitting at the potter's wheel.
With one foot he pumps a pedal, that causes the turntable to spin.
Except for the relatively recent edition of a motor, the technology of a potter's wheel hasn't changed much from Jeremiah's day.
It's one of the earliest machines ever invented by the human race.
We could imagine that the potter nodded to Jeremiah, but kept on with his work.
He stops the wheel from spinning, and removes the finished pot he has just made.
Then, the potter reaches into a barrel at his side, and pulls out a lump of moist, brown clay.
He forms it into a ball and throws it down on the wheel.
Then he begins the foot pedal again.
The ball of clay starts spinning faster and faster.
Then the potter wets his hands and gently applies pressure to the clay.
And before Jeremiah's eyes, that lump of clay starts to take shape.
First, it gets taller and thinner.
Then, it gets narrow at the base.
Next, the potter places his fist at the top of it, and presses down, as he hollows out the inside.
Jeremiah watches as the potter wets his fingers again, and presses in on the outside of the spinning pot, but the whole mass of clay starts to wobble.
And then it collapses.
So, the potter stops his wheel, and in the center is just a mass of clay.
But, this isn't the end of the clay.
The potter simply moistens his hands again, picks up that clay again, and forms it into a ball again.
Then he slaps that ball back down on the wheel, and gets back to business.
Jeremiah writes, "So I went down to the potter's house; he was working on the potter's wheel.
But the piece he was making was flawed while still in his hands, so the potter started on another, as seemed best to him.
Then the Lord's word came to me..."
Have you ever felt the Lord speaking to you through some kind of a metaphor or situation?
Jeremiah was watching this potter working on this clay...
...and he saw in it a picture of God working on the people.
God is the Potter; the clay is the nation of Israel.
The Lord continues to speak to Jeremiah: "House of Israel, can't I deal with you like this potter...
...Like clay in the potter's hand, so you are mine..."
As Jeremiah sees though, clay doesn't always do what the potter intends for the clay to do.
If the potter is trying to make a cup or a bowl, the clay may very well rebel against what the potter is trying to shape it into.
It may very well collapse in on itself, and have to be remade.
And if the clay does that for a long enough time, it will eventually become dry and hard.
It won't be good for anything.
The potter will just have to throw it away and start over with a new piece of clay.
And thus, the clay will never be able to be used for the good purposes it was intended.
Apparently, at the time that God was giving Jeremiah this message, the nation of Israel was not complying with God to become what the Potter had planned for it.
The nation had turned its back on God.
It wasn't listening.
It was trying to take things into its own hands.
It was not yielding to the will of God.
And so the Lord says, "At any time I may announce that I will dig up, pull down, and destroy a nation or kingdom; but if that nation I warned turns from its evil, then I'll relent and not carry out the harm I intended for it.
At the same time, I may announce that I will build and plant a nation or a kingdom; but if that nation displeases and disobeys me, then I'll relent and not carry out the good I intended for it."
This image of God being the Potter and we being the clay is pretty popular.
We sing about it when we say: "Mold me and make me/after thy will."
Paul speaks, in Romans Chapter 9, about God being the Potter and we being pottery.
And Isaiah says, "We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand."
So, it's legitimate to think of the pottery image as God shaping our individual lives.
But here in Jeremiah, God is talking to the entire community of faith.
And I think that is really cool too!!!
Because we are all on this journey with Jesus together.
We all need one another.
Every member of this congregation serves an extremely important function, and if we don't exercise our function, if we don't allow God to mold us to God's will...
...the entire Church suffers, the neighborhood to which we are called to serve and make disciples of suffers, the Kingdom of God suffers...
...and if enough of us are not functioning, so that the whole cannot function...
...well, there is an unavoidable note of judgment in this Scripture passage, is there not?
"Like clay in the potter's hand, so are you in mine...
...at any time I may announce that I will dig up, pull down, and destroy..."
It's been written that "Every potter exercises constant judgment about the condition of the clay and the shape of the emerging work, and responds accordingly.
She may moisten the mix, press deeply here, shape quickly there.
For a time, the clay is pliable; the piece can be mended or recentered as needed.
Sometimes a flaw in the clay itself or a problem with its emerging shape is beyond fixing, leaving the potter no choice but to scrape the piece off the wheel and start again."
God is determined, out of love for the people in this area, to shape East Ridge United Methodist Church so that our life as "the Body of Christ" in this part of the world will be a conduit through which people are saved, children are given hope, families are brought back together, the depressed are lifted up, and the poor are brought out of the pits.
If this isn't happening we will be broken down and left desolate.
Clay pots, clay dishes, clay cups are meant to be used.
They are meant to bring life to the lips, put food and drink in the tummy, and dish out the Gospel of our Lord to all!!!
They are, indeed, a means to an end.
When I was serving as an Associate Pastor in Macon, Georgia the choir took a tour of a number of churches within the United States.
When they returned, they told the story of this one church they came to.
The building was big, new and expensive.
They had all the latest gadgets, bells and whistles.
They had a huge playground with the nicest equipment.
But there were no children to play on the playground...
...and there were very few people in the church at all.
The folks from Macon wondered what had happened to them all.
Where did all the people go?
Had they refused to yield to the Potter for too long?
Does anyone remember Heritage USA?
That was the humongous "Christian" theme park that Jim and Tammy Baker were building in the 1980's.
It had a waterslide, rides, all kinds of stores, and huge luxurious hotels.
It was supposed to be the "Christian" version of Disneyland or Six Flags.
If you go to Youtube and type in Heritage USA, you can see what it looks like today.
Buildings stand unfinished...frozen in time...
Weeds have grown up through the asphalt of the monstrous, empty parking lots.
Games, burger stands, everything you can imagine have just been sitting there, rotting away for the past 25 years.
When we try and take things into our own hands, when we begin to "play god," and get thinking we are in charge...
...when we try and usurp the potter, instead of being clay...
...that is when we become so flawed that there is nothing to be done with us except to be dug up, pulled down and destroyed.
As Isaiah says in Isaiah 29:16: "You have everything backward! Should the potter be thought of as clay?
Should what is made say of its maker, 'He didn't make me?'
Should what is shaped say of the one who shaped it, 'He doesn't understand'?"
We are the Body of Christ, and Jesus is our Head.
We are to do what Jesus tells us to do.
Otherwise we will just trip, stumble and fall all over ourselves.
But if we listen to our Head, Who is Jesus, we will bear a resemblance to the potter, even though we are still clay.
Clay work is messy, as those who have ever tried to make pottery know.
And as those who are called to carry God's divine message into the world we should expect to get our hands dirty, run some risks, and--on occasion--face failure as we respond to the Potter's hand.
What is the Potter's hand molding us to do as the Body or Church of Jesus Christ?
Why are we here?
Is everyone here actively involved in what God is doing at East Ridge United Methodist Church?
Do we all tithe?
That means giving 10% of our income to the work of God's Church.
Will we all be at the Spaghetti Dinner on September 18th...even if we are not helping to cook...
...will we all, at least, be there to support it, support one another, and bear witness to our community for the sake of Christ?
Are we all helping to clean the church, now that we have decided to no longer have a paid custodian?
Are we all inviting others to come worship with us?
Are we all worshiping rather than griping?
We are to be the light of the world--God's very own light...
...We are to be the salt of the earth--God's very own salt.
This really is a fantastic Church family.
Do we realize how blessed we are?
Do we realize how many people are on the outside of our doors...
...living in fear and darkness, not knowing the joy of salvation and fellowship...
...the joy of being clay?
At the end of the day, a potter steps away from the wheel covered with the stuff of his art, spattered head to toe in clay.
Jeremiah is inviting us to see God or envision God up to His elbows in our making and remaking.
And you know what?
Ultimately, God even becomes clay Himself when He comes to us in the form of a human being--Jesus Christ.
That's how involved in our making, in our lives God really is.
That's how much God loves you and me.
That's how important our lives really are.
That's how important this Church is--Christ died for His Church!!!
And in the Potter's Hand, what can look like a disaster, is ultimately a Resurrection!!!
You, the Church of Jesus Christ, when You are allowing yourselves to be molded by the Divine Potter--You are God's work of art!!!
I guess I did name this sermon correctly, after-all.
As Paul puts it so eloquently in Ephesians Chapter 2: "We are God's accomplishment, created in Christ Jesus to do good things. God planned for these good things to be the way that we live our lives."
May we get on with the work of being "willing and pliable clay" in the Wonderful Potter's hand?
Amen.
