September 9, 2007
Jeremiah 18:1-12

The Rev. Dr. David A. Davis
“Clay Pots”

 

The potter and the clay. As in“Have thine own way Lord! Have thine own way! Thou are the Potter; I am the clay.”  I imagine I’m not the only one who finds that hymn etched deep within. The potter and the clay. “Yet, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.” That’s not a hymn text. That’s the prophet Isaiah. Chapter 64 and verse 8. The potter and the clay. It’s an old biblical example, an old image used for theological explanations, it’s an old metaphor about God and humankind. The potter and the clay, just an old worn out sermon illustration. The Apostle Paul, when he is trying to work on election and covenantal theology and God’s relationship to Israel there in those difficult chapters of Romans, he pulls out the one about the potter and the clay. “Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one object for special use and another for ordinary use? (Romans 9:21)”

Here in the work of the prophet Jeremiah, in the text offered in your hearing, it’s the potter and the clay. But Jeremiah doesn’t just pull out the old illustration, he doesn’t just lift it out of the file, he doesn’t go to the web site for sermon illustrations and type in “judgment” or “exile” or “the destruction of Jerusalem.”  Jeremiah goes down to the potter’s house. The word came to Jeremiah, “Come, go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear my words.” Jeremiah went down and watched and waited and listened. The potter was working at his wheel. Something went wrong with the pot. It went bad there in the potter’s hands. So the potter reworked it. The potter kept the wheel spinning and shaped another vessel. The potter did what seemed good to him. And the prophet/preacher was watching and listening.

There at the potter’s house, Jeremiah didn’t just toss in an old worn out illustration to try to make a sermon better. The potter and the clay. He sat there and took in a rather ordinary slice of life and listened for the voice of God. He took in what was far from a unique experience, a potter sitting at the wheel, and he waited for a word from the Lord, for God had promised to let him hear. Jeremiah went down to the potter’s house to take in the promise of God.

Over my years in the preaching classroom, I have learned that one of the mistakes often made has to do with thinking that a weak sermon can become really good if only the perfect example could be found. I’m afraid far too pastors toiling away in preparation think that a less than fulfilling sermon is only a great story away from being a memorable sermon. So preachers mistakenly spend hours searching for an illustration to make the point rather than trusting their observations of the ordinary and then inviting the hearers to feast on the promise of God.

Jeremiah must have sat there watching and listening in the Potter’s House. And he would have brought it all with him, his call from God, his desire to speak to the people of God, his laments, his concerns, his prophetic heart, his heavily burdened prophetic heart. He would have been carrying it all. His view of the world. The suffering of a nation. Devastation and destruction at the hands of the Babylonian Empire. Jerusalem on the brink. The end of temple life. The end of the monarchy. A people’s relationship to God redefined. The faithfulness of God re-affirmed. The faithlessness of the people called out. Jeremiah would have brought it all with him there to the Potter’s House. All of life. God. Israel. The present. The past. The future. The potter. The clay.
For one preacher, for one prophet, for Jeremiah the word that came in the Potter’s house was one of judgment and call to repentance and an affirmation that God could change God’s mind if the people would turn from their evil ways. “Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel….Turn now, all of your from your evil way, and amend your ways and your doings.” The Word of the Lord  to the prophet Jeremiah as he sat and watched and listened, as he brought his whole world with him to the Potter’s House that day. When, instead of pulling the old warhorse of a story off the shelf, instead of just reusing the old example, Jeremiah stepped into the promise of God.

Like any metaphor, if you stretch it too far, if you try to explain every part of it, it just sort of crumbles. If the potter is God, and God has the vessel in God’s hand the whole time, if the wheel is always spinning, how could God create something that is spoiled? Or a more philosophical attempt that tries to dissect the relationship of the clay and the vessel. If the potter destroys one vessel and creates a new one, but it’s all the same clay, is it still the same object, the same substance, the same being the second time around? Or one could try to diagram the potter’s artistic process from a theological perspective, trying to illustrate the providence of God and humanity’s free will and predestination and good and evil. If the potter determines to destroy a particular piece so as another one can be crafted that is better, or good, does that mean that the first vessel chose to be bad? How can the metaphor make room at all for clay pots who decide to follow their own plan, spin their own wheel, and be shaped by their own stubbornness? Clay pots that are so utterly human?

Anyone can pound a metaphor into submission. Anyone can wring an old example dry. The invitation here is to step into the Potter’s House; to listen for a Word from the Lord; to yearn for the very presence of God amid the most ordinary places of life; to seek to hear of the promise of God while bringing with you everything you have to bear. You and me, those of us called to be hearers of the Word. You. Me. The potter, The clay. The potter is working at the wheel. With hands around the clay, the potter transforms one vessel into another, another that seems good. We watch both sign and action, we listen, even as we bring it all with us, all of life, all of the world. God. You. The past. The present. The future. The potter. The clay.

One afternoon this summer I was flipping channels and came upon the induction ceremony for the Football Hall of Fame. I sat and listened to the speeches for a while. While all of the former players thanked family members, one player in particular thanked his mother not just for her support for football but for what she taught him about faith. She was a struggling single mother raising a family of kids with very little resources. From a very early age he could remember hearing his mother say to no one in particular and to everyone including herself: “God has promised that my latter days will be better than my former days.”  He described it as a faith statement. A sincere word of motivation that went far beyond material want or need. A reference both to heaven and what would be left of her days on earth. “God has promised that my latter days will be better than my former days.” It sounds to me like that matriarch has been to the Potter’s House. At some point in her life, in her faith, watching and listening, bringing it all with her, all that she had to bear, and becoming utterly convinced that her life was forever in the hand of God.  

“Just like clay in the potter’s hand, so you are in my hand.” Jeremiah went down to the Potter’s House and there amid sign and action he heard a word of judgment and call to repentance. I don’t know about you, but as for me, I myself sitting there, watching and listening, pondering the Potter and the wheel, the artist’s hands, the clay pots. And what I hear is a promise, that my life, that all the days of life, that everything I have to bring, that all of life and my view of the world, that it is all and forever shaped by the hand of God. Held in the hand of God. The wheel still spins and the Potter still works. I can’t explain it anymore than that. I don’t choose to figure it all out or to run it into the ground. Just like you wouldn’t explain away your experience of a work of art, or a piece of music, this sign, this act. You just watch and listen. And when I come down to the Potter’s House, I find myself feasting on the promise of God.
Hearers of the Word. Bringing all of life with us. Watching and listening. This sign. This action. God. You. The past. The present. The future. The potter. The clay.  
From the most ordinary place of life, Jesus took bread and wine. He invites us to a table, a table like so many others we have known. Here at the table. Sign and action. “This is body broken for you.” “This is my blood shed for you.”  Another sign. Another action, and you and I listening for a word. You’ve heard it, haven’t you? You’ve heard the promise from the one who asks you to come. “I will be you always, even until the end of the age.”  The Word of the Lord to you as you sit and watch and listen and taste and see.

Step into the promise of God. The Potter. The Clay. The Bread. The Cup. And a table. Feasting on Christ’s presence and God’s future. This day and forever more.

 

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