I was thirteen years old the first time a clay object fashioned by my hands was glazed and fired. Throughout elementary school, we’d worked with clay, but with no kiln we couldn’t make much more than sculptures; but now, in high school we got to make something beautiful, functional and durable. I was very excited at this possibility.
Knowing that my big brother
liked his tea, but had only a small three-cup teapot, I decided to make him a
larger one. I wish I had a photo to share with you, to compare the beautiful object
I had planned with the gargantuan monstrosity I made. Roughly the size and weight of a medicine ball, holding a gallon of
tea if not for all the leaks, it was so obviously not going to function as a
teapot that our art teacher just glazed the lid to the pot, and to add insult
to injury chose an ugly brown glaze with green accents. My brother graciously
received my gift, and for decades it made a dandy doorstop in his home, strong
enough to hold even the heaviest doors in place.
What I should have known at
the time, is that one of the great advantages of clay, is its ability to be
broken down and made into something else if plan A isn’t working out. Although my brother was quite happy with his doorstop,
it didn’t have to be that way, for as long as you keep it moist and supple as
you’re working with clay, you can break it down, and start again. Clay allows multiple
attempts at the same object, or to rethink the project and fashion something
completely different, and nobody will see the difference.
In going to a potter’s house,
and observing clay being worked in the skilled hands of an artisan, Jeremiah dips
into something that was already ancient and universal, even in his day, to
engage God’s desires for the world. The oldest known pottery, found in China, is
20,000 years old, and by 6,000 or perhaps even 8,000 years ago, there is
evidence of potters’ wheels in the middle east.
Jeremiah used this powerful metaphor – ancient, yet still relatable even
now - to illustrate
to the people of Judah that their present way of being would lead to ruin, and
to plead with the people and their leaders to let God work with them to make
things right. God was willing to start
over if they were willing to let things be broken down and re-formed. Things were not good but they were not beyond
redemption, and the metaphor of a potter working at a wheel, breaking down the
clay and making something new and needed, was both a call to change and a ray
of hope.
There’s a funny issue with the Hebrew in this text; it’s hard to tell if
Jeremiah is talking about things simply not working out with the clay at the
potter’s wheel, or if he was suggesting that the clay had a mind of its own and
was being difficult or obstinate, resisting the potter’s efforts. Thinking back to my ugly teapot, I would happily
blame the clay, though I think that one was on me. But however the Hebrew works
out, Jeremiah’s potter takes action, just as Jeremiah says God was ready to
start over with the nation of Judah. Seeing this plight, the prophet urges the
nation to let go of their faithless ways and yield once more to the God who
made them in the first place. Carrying
through with the metaphor, the broken-down clay, if still supple enough to
change, will not get condemned and tossed away; for God, the loving creator of
all, is all-in with any person or people who seek a new start.
I say “person or people” here, because while Jeremiah’s main target is the
entirety of his kinfolk, the people of Judah, he also calls each person to be a
faithful follower of God. There is a back-and-forth in the reading we heard
this morning, as the prophet cannot quite make up his mind between God’s invitation
to change, and God’s saying, “enough is enough.” He also suggests, rather powerfully, that God
can change God’s mind, and move off what had initially been a good plan but is
no longer serving those with greatest needs. Entering into Jeremiah’s
wonderings can help us clarify what WE think about God, and how we think God interacts
with us when things are troubled, or at a low ebb.
For far too many people, life’s hardest circumstances get interpreted as
the actions of a wrathful and punitive God; and if that is their image of God, the
image of the potter at the wheel might be scary or arbitrary, as an
interventionist God angrily starts over. But the God who has been made known to us in
the power of creation and in the sufferings of Christ Jesus, is not detached or
angry; re-formation is out of necessity and a desire for life anew. God is present to us in our times of loss,
challenge, and suffering; God is there, in our hardest times, to work with us
to clean things up, restore and rebuild, help us move on. I know this from my own experience
twenty-five years ago, of recovering from a year lost to depression, and I know
it from the experiences of countless friends, colleagues and parishioners who
have hit rock bottom due to addictions, in order for a new path to emerge. There is new life to be found when one
becomes vulnerable enough to invite the God of forgiveness, grace and
resurrection to help them start again.
Admittedly, there are times when things go wrong for a person or a group
or a nation, and the responsibility rests firmly in their lap and no-one else’s,
and the only way out is to fold it down and start over. But – and this runs somewhat contrary to
Jeremiah’s message – there are also so many times when there is no blame to be
assigned, and life’s hardest moments – accidents, disasters, illnesses – just
happen. Sometimes clay just kind of
flops and needs a helping hand – not because it is being disobedient, not
because the potter messed up, but because that just happens sometimes with clay. And when things do flop in our lives, or threaten
to sling us off the edge of the fast-spinning wheel, the key thing to know is
that the potter is there to catch us, and shape us, and guide us into
wholeness.
That presence, power and loving intent of our creator God is good news
for us, in a week when horrific things have happened in the world, and happened
with intent. As I wrote the first draft
of this sermon this past Wednesday (Aug 27), there had just been a shooting in
Minneapolis, with two children dying while attending opening worship for their
school year. The mayor of Minneapolis,
Jacob Frey, spoke powerfully in the moment, encouraging his citizens to let
this impact them personally, to let it draw them together in loving support, and
spoke directly to people of faith, calling them away from the usual platitude
of “thoughts and prayers.” There is such
brokenness in a society, when the leading cause of death of children, is being
shot.
On that same day (Aug 27) details of truly evil and indefensible attacks
in Gaza came to light, killing over twenty people including five journalists. Described as a “double tap” strike, the first
hit caused some fatalities, but it was the second strike, after medical
personnel rushed to provide aid, that was most deadly. And again, this sustained, inhumane, targeted
horror is brokenness at its worst.
In the presence of such terrible happenings, in all the ways that planet
earth itself is challenged, we are invited not to recoil or feel helpless, but
to restate our faith in the God of transformative love. I invite you to join me in this moment, to bring
to our mind’s eye Jeremiah’s vision, of God, acting as a potter would act,
embracing the brokenness and sorrow of life, and reshaping it all. Bring to mind, a God impacted by this, who
takes the cries of sorrow and outrage of the world, against such violence, and uses
that energy to urge change in the hearts and tactics and goals of those who are
used to winning by force. Bring to mind the
words we heard last Sunday as God called Jeremiah, a call which included both
tearing down and building up; bring to mind also the life, death and
resurrection of Jesus Christ, whose promised realm is free from the powers that
crucify.
The potter’s wheel, while rhythmic, soothing, even mesmerizing, is also
incredibly powerful, especially as we envision God as the potter. We
acknowledge our need for God, the one who restores and makes new, a God of whose
presence with us as co-creator of the new realm can get the world past its
brokenness. And, acknowledging how
deeply invested God is in your well-being, I invite you to go deep in your
story with God, and our shared story as a community of faith, as well as understanding
God’s deep engagement with the totality of life on this planet.
If there are places in your life where you can need God to accompany you
at the potter’s wheel of your life, I
encourage you to embrace that metaphor and find its healthiest application for
you. If you have experienced infirmity
of any sort, I encourage you to trust in God’s support as you find health, and
I hope that this congregation can be a resource to that as well. If you see big
changes that need to happen in your life, I encourage you to take the steps
needed, with the necessary supports, knowing that God wants you to live a new
life in abundance. If you sense that the
hardships of your life are a form of holy punishment, I encourage you to find a
new narrative, one that understands God as a divine companion, rather than a
punitive scorekeeper. And if you have been judged by others, or if you live
with an inner critic selling you the lie that you’re not good enough, don’t you
believe it – that isn’t how the passionate, skilled, loving shaper of our lives
sees you, not at all. God, who loves all
people and all of creation completely and without reserve, wants you to embrace
your life as a thing of beauty. Because
it is.
I love the way that this lived parable, of Jeremiah going down to a
potter’s house, is not just conceptual or theoretical. It’s tangible, real, hands-on, we can see it
and feel it. We, with Jeremiah, can easily imagine moist clay in skilled hands
being drawn up into something beautiful, or collapsed down so the potter can
try again. It’s an image that combines
artistry and power in a way we need right now.
We are called, with God, to be
people of new ways, people who resist hopelessness, people who choose to live entirely
by love, even when hatred or tries to have the upper hand. With eyes wide open to the hard realities, we
invite the presence and purpose and power of God, within us and between us and
beyond us, to bring transformation and new life, a fresh beginning in the hands
of the potter. With thanksgiving we
pray that this be so: Amen.
Resources consulted:
Bright, John. Anchor Bible: Jeremiah. NYC: Doubleday, 1965. and
Clements, Ronald. Interpretation
Commentary: Jeremiah. Atlanta: John
Knox, 1992.
https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2012/0628/World-s-oldest-known-pottery-discovered-in-China
https://deneenpottery.com/pottery/
https://www.esv.org/resources/esv-global-study-bible/introduction-to-jeremiah/
Frey, Jacob (Mayor of
Minneapolis). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpdpA8DlZBY
https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2024/guns-remain-leading-cause-of-death-for-children-and-teens
Salman, Abeer, et al. https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/27/middleeast/gaza-nasser-hospital-israel-attack-three-strikes-intl
© 2025 Rev Greg Wooley, Osoyoos-Oliver
United Church Pastoral Charge.
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