Jeremiah was struggling one day. His prayer life wasn't yielding many answers. There were a lot of bad things happening in the community he lived in. So what did God do? God said. "Jeremiah, you aren't hearing what I'm trying to tell you. Go down to the potter's house. I've got something to show you." Jeremiah went down to the potter's house where the potter was working. He pulled up a chair and sat there and waited for God to speak to him again. And there with Jeremiah watching the potter in his craft, kneading the clay, spinning the wheel, molding the wet clay, God spoke. Not in a booming or still small voice, not through a burning bush or a burning cloud but through a potter's hands on a pile of wet clay God spoke.

One of my favorite poems is The Creation by James Weldon Johnson. It can be found in his anthology of Poem's called God's Trombones. In it Johnson brings to life the image of God as a potter:

Up from the bed of the river
God scooped the clay;
And by the bank of the river
He kneeled Him down;
And there the great God Almighty 80
Who lit the sun and fixed it in the sky,
Who flung the stars to the most far corner of the night,
Who rounded the earth in the middle of His hand;
This Great God,
Like a mammy bending over her baby, 85
Kneeled down in the dust
Toiling over a lump of clay
Till He shaped it in His own image;

Then into it He blew the breath of life,
And man became a living soul.

As Jeremiah watched, something went wrong with the vessel in the potter's hands and the potter not satisfied with the results, or perhaps the vessel collapsed of its own accord, the potter began again to rework the clay into another vessel. Jeremiah got the message. God said, I can do with people what the potter does with clay. I can put my divine hands of love on anyone and everyone and shape every one of you into people of love, hope and peace. I can rework you as many times as it takes to get it right."

There in the potter's house Jeremiah learned for us all one of the things that it means to live in God's presence as a disciple, as a follower: to live in God's presence is to live on the potter's wheel and continually take shape as God people. It is an ongoing process of thinking, reflecting, doing and becoming.

Life at the wheel is life spent deepening our understanding of what God wants for us and from us. Life at the wheel can be a metaphor for our prayer lives, those moments in our lives when in silence we listen for God's direction. But it is also a metaphor for all our lives. Every moment, every interaction with someone else, every situation that demands of us a decision, every opportunity to rise or shrink before some challenge, indeed all our living can be so God centered and God- directed that we never leave the wheel.

The process of creating pottery involves an interaction between the potter and the clay. The process of creating human beings involves and interaction between the creator and the created. This is true of any use of materials to create works of art, or functional items of everyday life. To some extent the materials determine what will be made from them. But neither the materials or the artist entirely determine the result. The creating becomes a dance between the artist and the materials.

Jeremiah watches the potter work and through the inspiration of God sees the work of a potter in new way. Everyday events around us are available to us to reveal the working of God when we remain open to "Hearing" from God in and through our ordinary lives and our common experience. This is not a gift that is given to only the few who prophesy. It is a gift to all who recognize the presence of God available to us and permeating our lives. Everyday events hold the potential to reveal deep meaning of our faith.

Deep within this passage we see that the people of the house of Israel have had many opportunities to respond to the potter's hand, but have chosen to "go their own way." The people persist in defying God's law and God's love.

I can remember from my own brief experience of "throwing pots" that the clay does resist. The appearance that the potter easily works the clay in the shape she/he desires is misleading. It's hard work. As the potter shapes the vessel the defects are found and removed. If they are too great the vessel is destroyed and the process begins again. Thanks to the divine persistence we will one day be molded into the perfect shape of the body of Christ.
The phrase I see on bumper stickers "God is not finished with me yet!" Is true. We tend to see ourselves as completed works- a final product.

Remembering this is especially difficult for those of us with teen aged children. When teens struggle with negative influences in their lives, we parents could be encouraged to remember that their youth are not quite finished with their lives. Right now is not the final word. And the same could be said of Adults as well. We can grow and change. We can be shaped and remolded. There is always hope. We will continue to be shaped by God through experiences in family, church, school, community and yes even the world. The truth about God as God works with us is that there is always the opportunity or being reworked and most importantly redeemed by the potter who originally shaped us and gave us the gift of life and the gift of free will.

My friend Pauline's husband died of a heart attack two days after his retirement party, all the wonderful plans that were some forty years in the making were lost before her eyes. The temptation for most of us would have been to give up and live out the remaining years of her life remembering, not expecting to much and simply taking any small pleasures that came her way. Not Pauline. Instead, she started a career of her own. She immersed herself in the needs of her community and demanded that God make good on his promises of abundant life. Fifteen years after the clay on Pauline's wheel of life was spoiled she stands as one who knows of, believes in and depends on the reworking power of the One whose spirit breathes new life and new shape into all that goes wrong or unfulfilled.

Life on the wheel is tough. We love the fairy tale endings, but being reworked can be awful because in the midst of things spoiling we cannot imagine that there is much good ahead. And that not only applies to crisis situations, but to every situation when individuals and communities find themselves at the crossroads of challenges and opportunities.

It's tough when a person or a community is forced into going back to the wheel out of some tragedy, but in those times we have little choice. At other times we may be rather comfortable and choose not to go to wheel event though we need to. Sometimes we want to try things, sometimes we know there are things we can do to bring us satisfaction, but it's tough to take the first step.

It's the same with Churches. Churches can go along and pay the bills, have worship services, eat fellowship meals together and it's a nice life. It's when there is something, some opportunity that comes up that we know we should try but can't muster the energy. It would be easier for churches not to build new buildings, start new programs, begin new ministries, seek a new pastor. It takes a lot for a group of people to be molded together in one purpose and one spirit. It's hard on us. The more the potter shapes us the more we have to let go of our divisions and animosities, self-centeredness and our narrow-mindedness.

The safest thing for us is to stay away from the wheel. If we don't want to risk change, if we don't want to move into some new challenge, if we don't want to find ourselves co-operating with someone we previously detested, we better stay away from the wheel. We better not let God get those hands on us because God is not going to let us go until love and hope live at the center of our lives.

It's the safe thing to stay away from the potter's wheel. But the further we get from the wheel, the further we get from the reworking, reshaping, renewing power of God, the quicker we begin to die. When we move away from the wheel, or when we resist going on the wheel, or when we resist the potter's hands gently shaping and molding us, we stop thinking, stop dreaming, and stop being open to being more than we are now.

If we get to far from the wheel we get tired and skeptical and frustrated. If we get to far from the wheel we fall into the trap of thinking that things are only as we see them. Emerson once said: 'People want to be settled, but only to the extent that they are unsettled is there any hope.

Only to the extent that we are open to being shaped like clay in a potter's hand is there hope for us. Only to the extent that we as individuals and communities are willing to be unsettled is there hope for us. When we begin to congeal, when we begin to harden like a slab of concrete, we are finished because we have effectively cut ourselves off from the One who creates life and possibilities.

So where is the wheel? Where do we go to be shaped by the Potter?

We go to that place where we hear the story of God's love for humankind proclaimed. We go the place where we are called by name and claimed as a child of God. We go to the place where we are fed and nourished. It means gather around the table with our brothers and sisters to find from each other the pieces of truth we have not been able to find for ourselves. It is here Sunday after Sunday that we are shaped and re-shaped.

The invitation to Jeremiah to go to the potter's house is an invitation to us. We are invited, called to a life that takes is shape and purpose in the hands of a Potter who wills for us wholeness, service and abundance. Come now to the table, where we will be molded and shaped into the body of Christ. Amen.

Rev. William Westmoreland
September 9, 2007