“Clay”
Jeremiah 18: 1-11
September 8, 9, 2007

I was 17. And it was time for our high school drama club’s annual trip to the regional one act competition—a qualifier for the state one-act competition. This was my fourth such competition, and we’d done very, very well in previous years. This year, we hoped to win.

I’m not sure how many of you are familiar with one-act competitions, but essentially, you have 55 minutes—exactly—to set the stage, perform your play, and strike the stage. 55 minutes. If one person falls rushing a prop to the stage, or pauses for too long to deliver a line, all chances of a win are lost because for every 10 seconds over 55 minutes, points are deducted from the final score.

My father had agreed to drive the car pulling the prop trailer to the competition. He’d arranged with my drama coach, Mrs. Hasty, to leave about 2 hours before we were set to take the stage, giving him plenty of time for the 45-minute drive. Mrs. Hasty took the cast of the play early, so we could check out our competition. As we left our final rehearsal the night before the play, Mrs. Hasty uttered words that changed the course of the next 24 hours in ways no would have expected. “Julie,” she said, “could you take the van keys home to your dad?”

And so I got in my car, keys in my pocket, and set out for home—only a quarter of a mile away. I had my 15 year-old sister with me. Halfway home, she said, “Julie, let me drive the rest of the way.” We were three blocks from home. She’d been taking unofficial driving lessons from my parents for months. And she’s very good at getting her way. And so I said yes. We got home just fine, but, the next morning, as I walked out the door on my way to school to leave for the competition, I discovered that the night before, somewhere between the hasty switching of seats with my sister and the anxiety over breaking state law…those van keys got lost.

The day was a very long nightmare, in which more time and money than I care to recount were spent trying to get that locked van and prop trailer to the competition on time. It arrived—I kid you not—five minutes before we were set to take the stage. For hours, I endured my own guilt coupled with the angry stares of my cast mates. For the first time, I knew what it was to really, really let other people down, to have completely betrayed a greater cause because of my own shortsightedness. Needless to say, we did not win. In fact, we barely placed. Our dreams of being state champs were dashed.

I’d have given anything that day to have made a different decision the night before. I’d have given anything for the entire experience to have been a soft clay pot that could have been flattened to the potter’s wheel and then begun again.

Our text today is difficult. I confess to you that I have struggled with it—even argued with it. Jeremiah’s words are harsh, convicting, and I don’t particularly like the judgment that they imply. It helps me, though, to think a about the context of Jeremiah’s words.

First of all—Jeremiah was a prophet. And the job of a prophet was to challenge God’s people where we need it most. The job of a prophet was to speak words of challenge and judgment, words of love and hope. Prophets were dramatic and fiery, poetic and preachy—they called attention to themselves and their message. They were recognized as men who interpreted God’s love and anger, pleasure and disappointment, with God’s people. Jeremiah was called to prophesy when he was a boy—just a kid. The youth minister in me suspects that God knew only a young person would have the headlong, fiery passion required for Jeremiah’s job!

Second of all—Jeremiah was a prophet during some of the Israelite’s darkest days. Following the reign of King Solomon, things kind of went down hill for Israel. Two kingdoms formed, and Judah, the southern kingdom, held the crown jewel of the House of David—King Solomon’s temple in what is now Jerusalem. For years Judah had been struggling to survive against the bigger and better Assyria and the even bigger and better Babylonia. Judah’s people tried most everything—military alliances, money, dirty politics, you name it—to stay strong and mighty. And in the meantime, their poor got poorer, their people stopped caring for one another, and, in general, they became a house divided against itself. And so they fell. As did their glorious temple. And Judah’s people found themselves in exile, having lost everything.

Have you ever watched a potter work? Down in Watkinsville, GA, out in the country, there’s a potter’s house—you can go there any day of the week and buy their pottery. If you’re lucky, the day you visit will be a day that the potter is throwing pots. The clay just sort of leaps up into his hands, taking on a life of its own, a life fueled by what the potter is trying to do with it—the potter’s hands just barely skim the surface of the clay, applying pressure just where it’s needed, pulling and forming, shaping it into a mug or a bowl or a pitcher. It’s beautiful.

Sometimes, though, the clay doesn’t do what the potter wants the clay to do, or what the potter thought the clay would do. Sometimes, the clay folds in, gives out, doesn’t form into what it was meant to be—and have you seen what happens then? The potter will flatten it, destroy what once was, so that something new can be made.

And Jeremiah tells us that he went down to the potter’s house, and the vessel the potter was making was spoiled, and so the potter reworked it into something good.

To be honest, Jeremiah warned Judah. For decades he told them that their refusal to pay attention to what matters most—their relationship with each other and with God—would lead to their downfall, that God would judge them for their unfaithfulness. They didn’t listen. And the consequences were painful.
There’s a danger possible when interpreting this text…a temptation to universalize it, to make it apply to all sorts of tragedies and catastrophes. I heard a well-known preacher after September 11th, and after Hurricane Katrina, proclaim that in both instances, God was punishing us for a long list of supposed evils—perhaps you heard him, too. His words were harsh, they were filled with judgment. And I suppose that parts of Jeremiah’s words in our text today could sound like this preacher’s words. They are, after all, words of judgment. But I couldn’t stand on that field in Pennsylvania this coming Tuesday and say to the ones gathered to remember those they lost that it was all the result of a punishment from God. No more than I could stand in the middle of New Orleans 9th Ward and say that God’s wrath spawned the wind and rain had caused that neighborhood’s terror. And I don’t believe Jeremiah would, either. That preacher I talked about—he was all judgment. And judgment alone cannot heal this world’s brokenness.

Can you hear the difference between what that preacher said and what Jeremiah is saying? Can you hear the love in these words? Do you hear the passionate pleas of God to turn from our thirst for power, our failure to care for the least among us and find a way back to the heart of God? Do you hear the willingness of God to change God’s mind? To try again and again to call Israel back to faithfulness? Do you hear the words of a God whose heart weeps when we turn away, and whose heart breaks when we fall? Do you hear the words of a God who would take the time and patience to let us spring to life from the potter’s wheel not once, but twice, three times, as many times as it takes, to make us the mugs and bowls and pitchers we are meant to be? Can you hear the words of a God whose judgment is born out of tremendous love and hope?

“And the vessel the potter was making was spoiled, and so the potter reworked it into something good.”

The symbol of the city of Atlanta is the phoenix—a mythical bird that rises again and again from having been burned to ashes. The phoenix became Atlanta’s symbol after General Sherman’s Civil War march to the sea came straight down Peachtree Road. Down in flames went a city whose way of life was predicated on the abuse and enslavement of black men, women and children. Out of the ashes rose a city who gave birth to some of our greatest leaders in the Civil Rights movement. Reworked into something good. Not something perfect—Atlanta still struggles, as we all do, with racism and prejudice—but something good, something able to move forward. That’s really what its about—moving forward—letting what is evil in us and among us die that something good might be born.

The thing is—our God has called us into relationship—with God and with each other. And because of that, our hope rests in each other. As many kinds of clay vessels as there are, there are even more kinds of us, each of us constantly in creation with this God who have given us life. As clay is in the hands of a potter, so are we in the hands of God. Thanks be to God.