In my imagination, I can see Jeremiah standing just inside the door intently watching the potter. The potter stands on one foot, peddling with the other so that gears make the potter’s wheel spin. On that wheel is a lump of clay, and the potter is using both his hands to shape that clay into the vessel he has in mind.

He works and works to get it just right. A lot of time and much effort are invested in the effort to produce the vessel he sees in his mind’s eye. Jeremiah watches him intently. Jeremiah is impressed with the care, the skill, the patience, the expertise the potter displays as he works to shape that lump of clay into a vessel that is both beautiful and useful.

But something goes wrong. The vessel is not turning out to be the vessel the potter intended. He tries to correct the flaw; he invests more time trying to reshape the clay into the vessel he has in mind. Finally, in frustration, he stops the spinning potter’s wheel, and smashes the spoiled vessel until it is once again just a hunk of clay. Then, once again, the potter starts the wheel to spinning, and once again he begins to work on shaping and molding the clay so that it can finally become the vessel he has in mind.

Jeremiah stands there, just inside the door, watching the potter go about his daily labor of making vessels from clay, and as Jeremiah watches, he realizes why he has felt such a strong a desire to visit the potter’s house that day. In watching the potter, Jeremiah understands the message God wants him to deliver. God is the potter. The people of Israel, the house of Judah, is the clay. And Jeremiah understands it is not merely the people as individuals who are clay in the hands of God, but also their society, their nation. In fact all societies, all nations are clay in the hands of God.

Jeremiah had his sermon, the sermon God wanted him to preach. The people of Israel were resisting being molded by God. They were trying to shape themselves. They were trying to mold God in their image, and they were trying to shape history the way they wanted it to be. The people were not in an open rebellion with God. The clay does not get up off the potter’s wheel and throw stones at the potter. The clay simply had a mind of its own, and resisted being molded as God intended.

The people of Judah still claimed God as God. They still claimed to be God’s chosen people. The problem was they wanted the privileges that came with the title of being the chosen people, but they did not want the responsibilities that went with the title. Their behavior revealed that what they really wanted was to mold God to suit themselves rather than be molded by God to do God’s will.

And so, Jeremiah standing there in the potter’s house understood the message God wanted him to deliver. God was saying, through that experience in the potter’s house, that if the people who claimed to be God’s people did not allow themselves to be molded by God then God would do to them what Jeremiah saw that potter do to the clay vessel that was not turning out the way the potter intended.

There are consequences in life. Jeremiah saw it clearly. If the people are unwilling to change as God intends them to change, if they are unwilling to be molded into being the persons and the society God intends, then they will suffer the consequences of their stubbornness and willfulness. Those of us who have read the book know this is just what happened. The people refused to allow God to mold their living, and the consequence was great suffering.

This story from Jeremiah is a story for all times and especially for our time. There is good clay in this society of ours. Each of us have freedom and opportunities to help shape our society. We have marvelous resources. We are the wealthiest society on the face of the earth. We as individuals and as a society have been given much.

But we dare not forget what Jesus said—that to those who have been given much, much is required. We who have been given so much also have great responsibilities, and if we fail to accept those responsibilities we, as a society, will lose what we have. It may be that my generation will not be here when the bills comes due; my children might even make it to the grave without the full weight of the consequences falling upon them. But if we, as individuals and as a society, do not repent, if we, as individuals and as a society, do not change, our children’s children will pay the bill.

Using the metaphor Jeremiah used, our problem is not a lack of resources or abilities; our problem is that we are not allowing ourselves as individuals and as a society to be molded by the God revealed in Jesus Christ.

For example, we are in a great economic boom, but from all I have read it seems clear that the gap between the haves and the have-nots is widening rather than narrowing. And the real gap is not merely a money gap, but also and primarily an education gap. For a variety of reasons, our society has a growing number of uneducated and seriously undereducated adults. And so, even though there are jobs available, all too many adults are locked in poverty because they do not have the education, they do not have the skills required to do the work. For a variety of reasons, too many adults are undereducated and uneducated, and we as a society tend to blame them and shame them, but we do very little to enable them to get the education needed to support a family in our economy. And so frustration and resentments grow on both sides of the economic gap, and if the situation is not addressed it is only a matter of time until there will be some sort of social explosion. We, as a society, are not yet the vessel God intends us to be.

Another example. Recently, Rita and I went to see a movie. In watching the previews, I was once again made aware that in our society blood and gore, gratuitous sex and violence sells tickets. And such movies are not going to go away as long as we as a society continue to make millionaires of such movie makers. The entertainment a society endorses with its money reflects something of the values of the society. We, as a society, are not yet the vessel God intends us to be.

Another example. In our society, the drug problem is not going to be solved merely by arming more troops in Latin America. As long as there is a great hunger for drugs in our land, someone, somewhere is going to find a way to make a lot of money to feed our addictions. As real as the problems are in Columbia and elsewhere in regard to drug production, the real problem is in our midst in regard to drug consumption. We, as a society, are not yet the vessel God intends us to be.

What is more, our passing stiffer laws, having longer sentences, building more prisons to hold more prisoners has not solved the drug problem or any of the other crime problems. According to an article in last Monday’s American Statesman, the last five years we in Texas have doubled the size of our prisons; nevertheless, today our prisons are overcrowded to the extent that according to one of the articles I read, we will be releasing and placing on parole many prisoners more than usual. In this day and time when statistics tell us that crime is down, we are still overcrowding our expanded prisons. What would we be facing if the economic times were not good and the rate of crime was up? We, as a society, are not yet the vessel God intends us to be.

And let none of us simply point fingers at elected officials. We, as a society, elected them; and by our votes or by our silence we have endorsed and encouraged them to implement the policies that are now in existence. In a democracy, when a problem has been building as long as the ones facing our society, scapegoating elected or appointed officials misplaces the responsibility and the blame. In a democracy, the responsibility is ours. Regardless of what cynics say, this is still a government of the people, or it can be to the extent we care enough to become involved.

God is the potter. We are the clay. God is still trying to mold and shape us into being the persons and society God intends us to be. God has not given up on us, and therefore, it is more than a mistake, it is a sin, a rejection of God’s grace, for us to give up on ourselves as persons or as a society. As the potter can work and rework clay until it becomes the vessel the potter has in mind, so God continues to work with us and among us so that we humans can become and be the persons and the society God intends us to be.

There is hope. But it is only the hope that resides in our being willing to be clay in the hands of God. There is hope. But it is only the hope that is possible when we allow our living to be shaped by the will of God. There is hope. But it is only the hope that comes when we live placing our trust in the God of grace who has been revealed in Christ. It is only as we strive to have our lives and the life of our society shaped by what we see revealed in Christ that there is true hope for ourselves, for our nation, for the world.

 

God, help us live in the clear understanding that you are the potter and we are the clay. Mold us and make us into the persons and into the society you intend us to be. Amen.

Pastoral Prayer:

God, when we look at the problems in the world and throughout our society, we are sometimes tempted to give up. God, in the face of all that causes pain, in the face of all that causes trust to deteriorate and hope to evaporate, in the face of all that undermines that which is constructive and amplifies all that is destructive, in the face of all that discourages us and drains energy from striving toward the ideal, in the face of all this evil at work in the world, God we need your help. We need to be aware of your grace at work in our lives and at work in the world. Help us to be sensitive to the activity of both your judgment and mercy. Strengthen our faith so that regardless of what we are facing, we are able to live confident in you and your tough and tender love. Help us to know in the depths of our being that we are Easter people, that we are people who, through Christ, have come to realize that crucifixions are not the last word in life. Help us to live in the confident trust that just as you transformed the cross of Jesus into the salvation event for the world, you can take the crosses we must bear and use them for good beyond our imaginings. Fill us with such confident hope in you that we are energized to strive to be instruments of your will.

"God of grace and God of glory, on your people pour your power" so that in each moment of each day we will be able to live as Jesus was teaching us to live when he taught us to pray: "Our Father …"