I have a vague recollection of a book that sat on the shelf in my parents’ house. I never read it, but I do remember the title. It was called, “Are You Joking, Jeremiah?” It seems like a good question. Jeremiah was a prophet shouting himself blue in the face in a time of national crisis and self-satisfaction, trying to recall the People of God to their mission and ministry. This harsh passage we heard this morning is pretty typical of what Jeremiah had to say a lot of the time, which goes a long way toward explaining why most people thought he was a kook! He was trying to warn about great destruction coming soon upon the people if they didn’t get back to their primary purpose – to be a people who embodied, who were containers for, the presence and righteousness and loving faithfulness of God.
There were plenty of other prophets in Jeremiah’s time, and most of them were on the payroll of the King. When you’re a hired chaplain in the royal courts, it can be pretty hard to say anything that might suggest that things aren’t going fine. The Prophets on the Payroll weren’t as interested in telling truth as much as they were into putting the right ‘spin’ on things. They were Spin-Doctors of Divinity,’ and as we’ve all seen over and over, ‘spin’ is just a modern word for lying.
Their spin was, “Every thing’s, okay, King, you’re doing fine, it’s going great!” while Jeremiah was shouting, “From prophet to priest, everyone deals falsely. They have treated the wound of my people carelessly, saying, ‘Peace, peace’, when there is no peace.” (Jeremiah. 6:13-14) The Professional Prophets whistled, “Every thing’s okay, King, God is on our side. After all, he lives right here in our Temple. Our temple, our God, no problem,” while again Jeremiah shouted out a different word – “Hear the word of the Lord, all you people of Judah, you that enter these gates to worship the Lord. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your doings, and let me dwell with you in this place. Do not trust in these deceptive words: ‘This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.’ For if you truly amend your ways and your doings, if you truly act justly one with another, if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own hurt, then I will dwell with you in this place.” (Jeremiah 7)
All in all, then, it’s not too surprising that Jeremiah’s not exactly there to write a glowing review for the Jerusalem Ceramics Society when he drops in to a local potter’s house. And what he says makes me wonder, in my strange fashion, how the clay feels about things. Minding its own dirty business one moment, the next it is dug out of its comfortable surroundings and slammed down upon a table. The breath is pounded out of it until there’s no trapped air left, it’s wet and kneaded and worked and has half its mass sliced off by a sharp wire.
If that weren’t enough, it’s slammed down again and whirled around in circles , shaped by skilled but unfamiliar hands, wet over and over again, pounded down, shaped again, and then thrown in an oven. Just when it’s had a chance to cool off it’s plopped onto a shelf waiting to be sent to some humble kitchen.
From the clay’s point of view, almost all of the process is unremitting disruption and violence, which ends with getting fired! It makes soft, malleable, gooey earth hard, and brittle, and disposable, and fragile! The pot gets dropped once, and it’s done for, its integrity shattered, and the remaining shards are only good for being scratched into a grocery list or a receipt.
This potter’s house was no Oregon Coast atelier or Royal Doulton factory hand-throwing or mass-producing ceramic works of art and beauty – it was more like an tin can factory, a place for cranking out everyday containers. It was a place of usefulness, practicality, and necessity. And the Word that Jeremiah heard there from the Lord was just as useful, practical, and necessary.
“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. Now, therefore, say to the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: Thus says the Lord: Look, I am a potter shaping evil against you and devising a plan against you. Turn now, all of you from your evil way, and amend your ways and your doings.”
History and scripture both tell us that Jeremiah’s words were not heeded, and their hope and heart were torn from them as they were sent as exiles, refugees to Babylon. In their way of thinking, everything that happens or will happen comes as a direct result of God’s decision and providence. I’m not so sure about that (let the heresy trial begin) – I’m not sure that God is the one who raises up and casts down the kingdoms of this world. How could we believe that God authors the death and destruction that and massive horrors of this and any other century? But I do know this. I know that this side of the death and resurrection of our Lord, the totality and depth of God’s love for God’s children is plain, and that same love and grace and desire for healing permeates even the harsh words of Jeremiah. God’s poignant aching love is all there – “Let me dwell with you in this place.” “Do not go after other gods to your own hurt.” “I will change my mind about the disaster.”
Jeremiah in fact shows himself to be a true prophet in that he afflicts the people when they are too comfortable but he also comforts them when they are afflicted. And in all things he is speaking out of the love of God. Despite the fact that he has been ignored and ridiculed and the disaster he has warned of comes to pass, he goes with them into exile, shares with them in their suffering, and demonstrates in his ways and his words that ‘love that will not let me go’ when he says to them in their hopelessness and despair: “For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you. When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart, I will let you find me, says the Lord.” (Jeremiah 29)
It all adds up to pretty good news for the clay, maybe if it’s a nation, certainly if it’s a church, definitely if it’s a hungry soul like me, or you. No Cannon Beach potter or Wedgewood artist could possibly match the passionate love and surpassing artistry with which the potter of our lives is shaping us into both useful vessels for his transcendent power and works of individual beauty. Remade in waters of baptism, shaped on wheels of wisdom by nail-scarred hands, fired with the baptism of the Holy Spirit and astonishingly glazed with grace, we are being fashioned by the living God. There’s no question in my mind that we, you and I, are being re-formed, re-molded, re-shaped into what will be new and surprising forms of faithfulness. God has and will use us.
All I can ask for myself is that I be compliant clay, willing to be shaped and reshaped and reshaped again by a loving artist. And in those inevitable times when it’s tough for us to feel like the clay – when life seems to be spinning wildly out of control, or when we wonder why a part of the lump has been sliced off, or when we feel the heat and fear that it is a fire of destruction rather than a path to beauty, then there’s one thing that is absolutely crucial.
The greatest problem that we have as a congregation is not declining numbers, although we do have those. The greatest problem that we have as a congregation is not a tight financial situation, although we do have that. The greatest problem that we have is not that the world has changed around us, although it certainly has. The greatest problem we have as a congregation is not that we have been hurt along the way, although we have certainly have been, each and together.
No, the greatest problem we have as a congregation is that we are afraid. It’s time again, and again, and again, to renew and recapture our trust in God. “For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.”
Let us pray:
thank you, O God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness’, that you have shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory your glory in the face of Jesus Christ. But since we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to you and does not come from us, make us supple and compliant clay, we pray, and help us to rejoice and trust in your impeccable artistry, we ask in Jesus’ name, and for his sake, amen.
