“Potter and the Clay”

Jeremiah 18:1-11

¹The Lord gave another message to Jeremiah. He said, ² “Go down to the potter’s shop, and I will speak to you there.” ³ So I did as he told me and found the potter working at his wheel. ⁴ But the jar he was making did not turn out as he had hoped, so he crushed it into a lump of clay again and started over.

⁵ Then the Lord gave me this message: ⁶ “O Israel, can I not do to you as this potter has done to his clay? As the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand. ⁷ If I announce that a certain nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down, and destroyed, ⁸ but then that nation renounces its evil ways, I will not destroy it as I had planned. ⁹ And if I announce that I will plant and build up a certain nation or kingdom, ¹⁰ but then that nation turns to evil and refuses to obey me, I will not bless it as I said I would.

¹¹ “Therefore, Jeremiah, go and warn all Judah and Jerusalem. Say to them, ‘This is what the Lord says: I am planning disaster for you instead of good. So turn from your evil ways, each of you, and do what is right.’”

This morning’s reading reminds me of the one about an angry man who made pots for a living. He worked all day on his pottery making pots. When he left his shop, he slammed the door and grumbled all the way home. At home he demanded his dinner and then read his paper quietly. Every night his loving wife nagged him and said that his temper would eventually get him in trouble. Sure enough, one day on his way home he bumped into a witch and they both fell down. Since he was already angry, he boiled over and chewed her out. Naturally, the witch reacted to this by turning the poor man into a frog. He hopped home where his wife, shocked by his appearance, ordered him to go find the witch and apologize in the hopes that she’d change him back. Reluctantly the potter, who hated apologizing, left his house to look for the witch. Unfortunately for him, it was witch season and there were quite a few about. He ran into a different witch who turned him into an ogre, then another who turned him into a troll. When he ran into a third witch, the man, now quite worked up over the whole situation, snapped at her and said, “What the heck are you gonna turn me into?!” Much to his surprise, the witch turned him into a handsome prince! Thinking his luck had finally changed, the man thanked the witch and began to head home. However, the witch who had just turned him into a troll had seen all this and came running up, furious. “WHEN I TURN ‘EM INTO TROLLS THEY STAY TROLLS!” she screamed as she turned the man back into a troll! “Oh yeah?!” replied the third witch, “Well, I say he’s a prince!” and with that she turned him back into a prince. This went back and forth a few times-prince, troll, prince, troll-until finally the man decided the next time he was a prince, he was gonna make a break for it. Which he did! Now running home as fast as he could, the potter relaxed a bit as he got close. He rounded a corner and suddenly ran into the same witch that had turned him into a frog in the first place. Before he could stop himself, he started to yell. By the time he caught himself, it was too late and the witch had turned him into a frog again. Feeling defeated, he hopped home where he resigned himself to live out the rest of his life as a frog. Thankfully, just as there were witches, there were also good fairies, and one such good fairy appeared for the man and his wife then. She looks upon the potter and told him that it was his temper that got him into all this trouble, but she thought he had learned his lesson and turned him back to normal. Then she turned to his wife and told her that it was her responsibility to watch her husband and make sure he kept his temper under control. So his wife did just that. She watched him every day while he worked. She watched him while he ate. She even watched him while he slept. For the rest of their days, she watched him and he never got angry again. After all, a watched Potter never boils.

Believe it or not, there aren’t a whole lotta jokes about Potters and pottery out there. That’s the best I could come up with! But hey, it includes an angry potter and some age-old wisdom, albeit a little tweaked for the sake of humor. Here I thought the wisdom had to do with cooking and how a pot of water always seems to take forever to come to a boil if you stare at it. Pot…Potter…same thing! I suppose I could have mined the depths for something about Harry Potter but I’m not much a fan of his. Besides, an angry Potter and some age-old wisdom is perfectly related to our reading for today.

I love how God came to Jeremiah and told him to go to a nearby Potter’s shop for a visual illustration of the lesson He wanted to teach him. The Potter, in his anger and frustration, destroyed the piece he was working on in the hopes that his next creation would be better. If the Potter can start afresh so easily, then certainly God can too. After all, we are nothing more than matter miraculously combined and formed to be in this world by him. He is the Potter, we are the clay, as the illustration so elegantly conveys. Of course, we’re more than simply clay. God gifted us with free will and consciousness. We delude ourselves into believing that we have sole ownership over our minds and bodies, that we are masters of our own destinies. We delude ourselves into believing that we can create as God creates—out of nothing. Friends, we are utterly deluded! We don’t have sole ownership of our minds and bodies, and we can’t create as God creates! The best we can create uses what He so graciously gives us. We can’t create out of nothing. We have to work with something. This is his world and everything in it is his. At best, we are great explorers and discoverers. And cleverly resourceful! But there is so much in our world, in our universe, that we know nothing about. There are forces at work that only God understands. We’re getting better at understanding them, but we certainly didn’t create them the way God did. That old hymn certainly has it right…this IS our Father’s world!

Now then, we so often delude ourselves into believing we can behave contrary to how God wants us to behave…an unfortunate side effect of free will. And when we delude ourselves as such, well, then we need people like Jeremiah to help get us back to behaving the way God wants us to behave. We need people brave enough to tell us we’re wrong; brave enough and persistent enough to keep telling us. We need people brave enough to listen to an angry Potter. Our God can become an angry God…He’s allowed to! Anger reflects a passion and love for his creation. God loves us so much and wants only the best for us that when He sees us hurt ourselves or others or the world around us, He gets so angry with us. But He never gives up on us. He simply destroys us and reforms us like an eager Potter. Now wouldn’t it be fun to be a part of that reforming process? Or better yet, to behave in God-pleasing ways so that He simply tweaks us and makes minor adjustments to us? He wants us to continue being great explorers and discovers and helps us along the way with minor adjustments.

So how do we behave as God wants us to? By heeding the wisdom of Scripture of course! Paul writes in his letter to the Romans, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” (12:2) And in his letter to the Colossians, “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.” (3:12) And what is the benefit? John tells us in his first letter, “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.” (1:7) Let us heed such wisdom and give thanks for prophets like Jeremiah. Thanks be to God!

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.