10.31.21 Jeremiah 18:1–11
1 This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: 2 “Get up, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will reveal my words to you.” 3 So I went down to the potter’s house, and he was making something on the wheel. 4 But the pot he was forming out of the clay was ruined as he shaped it with his hands, so the potter formed it into a different pot, whatever he saw fit to make. 5 Then the word of the LORD came to me. 6 House of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter does? declares the LORD. See, like clay in the potter’s hands, that is what you are in my hands, house of Israel. 7 One time I may say that a nation or a kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down, and destroyed, 8 but if that nation I spoke about repents of its evil, then I will relent and not bring the disaster I had planned to bring against it. 9 Another time I may say that a nation or a kingdom is to be built and planted, 10 but if they do what is evil in my sight by not listening to my voice, then I will not bring about the good I said I would do for them. 11 Now therefore say this to the men of Judah and to those who live in Jerusalem. This is what the LORD says. Look! I am forming a disaster against you. I am devising a plan against you. Turn from your evil ways, each of you, and reform your ways and your actions.
My son recently asked for a Japanese Chess set as a gift. When I saw the price of it, I decided to try and make one instead. It involved cutting small little wooden pieces and burning a Japanese inscription on them. So over the course of a couple days I sat, watched TV for an hour or so, and burned symbols on these pieces of wood. I found it very relaxing and satisfying to be able to work with my hands and make something in a rather short time. So now he has the board at school and is going to try and play the game with some of his friends.
Jeremiah uses a similar illustration to describe how God makes US and forms us, but instead of wood He uses clay and makes pottery. We showed a video before the service started on how the potter would use his feet to rotate the clay and then shape the clay with wet hands, being able to form it in a variety of ways, however He wishes. It is very personal, very hands on work.
The Potter Reforms the Clay Into His Kind of Pot
It is a powerful picture of God, and a passive picture of humanity. Yet, of course, God, with all of His power and will, formed us into so much more than jars of clay that are baked in an oven and hardened into an immobile object. Humanity has eyes and ears, heart and soul, intellect and will. We are created to be able to make music, from the beauty of Bach to the blah of Bieber. We have been able to invent spaceships, automobiles, computers, and so much more than any animal could ever do! All of this comes at the hands of God, who formed us to do so much!
Jeremiah, in today’s text, was specifically referring to the whole country of Israel as having been formed by his hands. But the pot he was forming out of the clay was ruined as he shaped it with his hands. The verb for ruined is a PASSIVE verb. It wasn’t ruined by the potter. The clay became bad and ruined. How so? According to Jeremiah, the Israelites were cheating each other in the marketplace, swearing falsely, and refusing to set their slaves free after six years of service, along with a litany of other things. But the main sin was in how they started worshiping Baal, which specifically included child sacrifice.
One of the problems that can happen with clay is that it becomes too dry, and therefore it is hard and not malleable. If you noticed the video you saw how the potter had to keep on adding water and getting his hands wet. You just can’t shape dry clay and form it the way you want it. This dryness is a picture of Israel, which became stuck in their sinful nature, unwilling to bend to God’s will. So in the final verse of today’s text Jeremiah warns, “Turn from your evil ways, each of you, and reform your ways and your actions.”
And there we have our theme of the day! REFORMATION! Repentance! It was the same call that Luther had of the Catholic Church when they were selling indulgences in order to raise money to build a cathedral, telling people they could shorten their time in purgatory. And Luther wasn’t just writing the 95 Theses against the Catholic Church. His very 1st Theses stated that the entire LIFE of a Christian was to be one of repentance. The people were the ones BUYING these indulgences, trying to get OUT of repentance. They needed to repent as well. So the Reformation was similar to the theme of Jeremiah. Repent. Reform! It starts with the INDIVIDUAL! Listen again to that last verse, Turn from your evil ways, each of you, and reform your ways and your actions.
Just as the potter has the power to change the object of the clay, so the WORD of God has the power to change lives. That’s why God was sending PROPHETS like Jeremiah, to speak God’s Word to them and change lives! Listen how forcefully he speaks to the Israelites at Jeremiah’s time. This is what the LORD says. Look! I am forming a disaster against you. I am devising a plan against you. He was going to send them into the Babylonian Captivity, and they had a choice. They could either bow the knee to the Babylonians or die a miserable death trying to revolt. God was trying to SOFTEN their hearts by warning them of a great disaster to come.
Do you think that God has changed? Think of what Jesus says in the Gospel. He warns of wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes, famines and persecutions. He draws a scary picture of what will happen before the end of the world. Why? To reform us too!
Do you think it’s a mere coincidence what is happening here in America? Our dollar is losing its value. Supplies are becoming more and more scarce. A deadly disease is rampaging through our population. Crime is on the rise. Sports are becoming more and more politicized: less and less tolerable to watch. Weather disasters keep on occurring with flooding and hurricanes. Do you think that this is all just a mere chance coincidence? Or is it also a result of God lifting His protective hands from our country as a punishment for our sins? Is God taking away our forms of entertainment in order to bring us to our knees, to focus us on HIM again?
The American solution is to offer slogans like “Give peace a chance. Black Lives Matter. All Lives Matter. Go green. Tolerate. Love is love. Follow the science. Get the jab. My body, My choice. Live and let live.” Different sides offer different solutions. Buy guns. Stock up on dried foods. Go off grid. Some are suggesting a peaceful divorce of America as the solution.
But where is repentance in all of this talk? How does this prepare you to meet your God? Jeremiah told the Israelites, “You’re going into captivity. But if you give up, you will thrive in Babylon. Stop trying to save yourselves. Repent of your own sins! Listen to the WORD!” The problem was that the Israelites absolutely did NOT want to bow the knee to the Babylonians. They hated even the suggestion of surrender. It was considered to be traitorous. So in a false sense of patriotism they hated Jeremiah too. They let their POLITICS get in the way of their RELIGION.
And when we tell people to repent in light of the social problems, the natural disasters, and Covid? That is hated too. “Repentance won’t save you from Covid. It won’t save you from getting robbed. It won’t save you from a hurricane. You go ahead and pray. You trust in God. I’ll trust in guns. I’ll trust in science.” Is God against guns or science? Of course not. But don't turn your God into a gun or a vaccine. All of this is about winning an argument. What does it have to do with repentance over sins? What does it have to do with seeking Christ? They are diversions from the bigger picture, the deeper picture, of how we are going to stand before a holy God.
The good news is that as long as we’re alive, it’s not too late. That was God’s message to the Israelites. Don’t think it’s too late, but don’t take God’s grace for granted either. One time I may say that a nation or a kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down, and destroyed, 8 but if that nation I spoke about repents of its evil, then I will relent and not bring the disaster I had planned to bring against it. 9 Another time I may say that a nation or a kingdom is to be built and planted, 10 but if they do what is evil in my sight by not listening to my voice, then I will not bring about the good I said I would do for them. God says that the future can be changed, through us and with us! And it all banks on whether we will LISTEN and REPENT. It starts with you each individually, young and old. If we want to start a real revolution, then let God start one in your own HEART by LISTENING to what HE has to say, and then leave the results in HIS hands, not yours.
God did that with Paul on the way to Damascus. Nobody thought he would EVER change, and yet God changed his hearts. He brought Paul to his knees, and then He showed him grace, mercy and forgiveness. That was what God did for Luther too. He showed Luther that in Christ God offers a full and free forgiveness, through faith alone. He didn’t have to whip himself for it. He didn’t have to suffer for it. Jesus did it all, on the cross, free of charge. God gave it to him by faith. It changed Luther’s heart and direction. Instead of hating God and being afraid of God, He loved God and was attracted to Him. He remodeled Luther, and through Luther, he remodeled the church. It wasn’t easy. There was a lot of pain and death involved as a result of the divorce from the Catholic Church. But in its own broken way, it worked, and it still works.
You may be called to give up someone or something that you don’t want to give up. What is it? Is your relationship with God being hampered because of your drinking or work habits? Is your marriage hurting because of your selfish insistence on acting as if you didn’t have a spouse and children? Are you cutting corners in a relationship by skipping over what God’s Word says about sex? Are you continually going back to the sources of sin that lead your mind to see things you shouldn’t see, and text things you’d never say? You know it’s wrong. You know you’re sinning. You know what you should do. But you don’t want to. It’s too hard to give up. It’s too shameful to admit.
But then we remember what God says. There’s forgiveness. It’s free. There’s a God of grace who died for you and rose from the dead for you. He doesn’t want to condemn you. He wants to save you. He doesn’t want to shame you. He wants to cover your shame.
This God knows what HE wants to make you into. Think of what He did with Joseph, allowing him to be sold from home, tossing him into prison, allowing him to be falsely accused. Joseph lost everything, only to gain all and more back in Egypt, being a savior to his family and to the world. God had good designs for Joseph, but it was a painful pathway to get there. He has good designs for you. But if you don’t want Him to get His hands on you and put some pressure on you, well then you’re not going to end up where He wants you to be.
Imagine getting married to someone and not wanting anything to change in your life. “You can’t change the wall hangings. You can’t see my bank account. You can’t spend my money. You can’t live upstairs. You have to live in the basement.” That just won’t work. God has come here, and He is the holy One. He is the One who knows how to manage your life. He has lots to bring. You don’t marry a Chip or Joanna Gaines and expect your house to stay the same. You want it to change. You need it to change. Sometimes that involves a sledge hammer and a new design. But in the end, there’s improvement.
Think about your own life. How do you compare to the old you? Do you see some difference for the better? Yes, you may not look as good as you used to. Maybe you used to go out with your friends and seemingly have more fun. But you also remember in our younger years how immature you were, how impatient you were, how quick you were to rush into sin. We may want to go back physically, but spiritually? I doubt it.
When we stay in the faith, we always change for the better, and it's never easy. When He knocks a wall out, it may be painful. Trust me, He wants to make you stronger, in Christ. The Word works in us through the failure and the sin. The Supper keeps on forgiving us, telling us God is dedicated to us, committed to us. It’s difficult, but we want God to dig into our soul, point us to heaven, bring us to Jesus, again and again. God is the expert Potter. He’s here to change you, to form you, to give your life direction. That’s HIS specialty.
There is a well known poem by William Henly called “Invictus.” It reflects a type of stoicism, written by a man who had one leg amputated due to tuberculosis and then almost had the other one amputated as well. In the midst of this difficult life, he wrote this poem. It closes with the line, ''I am the master of my fate, / I am the captain of my soul.'' That seems to run counter to the illustration of the clay and the Potter. God is the master of your fate, not you. Yet you, as a Christian, are far from helpless either. There IS a responsibility on the part of the Christian to listen to His warnings and to heed the call of God to repent.
Luther, a seemingly lowly monk and professor, tried to call out the entire church to repentance over their sins of selling indulgences. That ship refused to change. They dug in their heels. They excommunicated him and tried to hunt him down as a heretic. God had different plans. He planned on forming another church, the Lutheran church, who would proclaim salvation by grace alone, by faith alone, by Scripture alone, in Christ alone.
So here we are, a little Lutheran Synod in a big world of sinners, trying to keep our tiny, bruised, ship on the path to heaven through faith in Jesus. We’ve been trying to keep on course through the Word and sacrament, focusing on Christ alone. We ask God, the Potter, to keep us on course through the storms and the curves and the pirates, to form us and reform us time and again back to His grace and mercy in Christ, for we so often go astray. Oh Captain, my Captain Jesus, keep on reforming us, and keep us on course. Amen.
