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The Work of God's Hands
The Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost
September 9, 2001
By
The Rev. Ann M. Smith
When I was a child our family often went to a summer cottage on Lake Erie. There we children spent many hours in play on the beach. We swam and made the usual sandcastles. We discovered that if we dug down deep enough we could dig up pure clay. Then we would spend hours fashioning it into pots that we dried in the sun. The wonderful thing about working with clay was that if we weren't satisfied with the results we could simply pound it down and start over again. As long as we were careful to keep it moist, the clay could be used and reused.
It is fascinating to watch a skilled potter at work. A simple lump of clay in the hands of a skillful artist becomes a thing of great beauty and durability. The clay on the potter's wheel seems almost to take on a life of its own. There is a constant interchange between the fingers of the potter and the properties of the clay. The potter's hands effortlessly mold the lump of clay into a graceful shape. Not every pot that is thrown will meet the standards of the artist. You will see the artist's hand coming down on the shape reducing it once more to a lump. And the process begins again until a thing of great beauty is achieved. There is no waste. Whatever part of the clay remains unused is kept moist and used again.
Jeremiah, one of the prophets of the Old Testament lived at a time of unrest in the history of Israel. They were a conquered people forced to live in exile. Jeremiah remained faithful to his Jewish roots and was imprisoned for his faith. One day he received a vision from God. He visited a potter and watched him at his work. He observed that whenever a vessel turned out poorly, the potter would reshape the clay and make another of whatever sort seemed best to him. He understood that not every pot that is thrown would meet the standards of the potter. He understood, too, that however misshapen the pot might be, it was still usable; it could be reworked into a thing of beauty.
Jeremiah heard it as a message of great hope. God would not give up on the people of Israel. Like a skilled potter, God would continue to reshape the people of Israel. God would continue to call them back, to offer forgiveness. What hope that gave him for his exiled people! What hope that gave him for his people who had abandoned their faith! What hope that is for us as well! Though we live a life of faith that is filled with ambiguity and unpredictability yet God does not give up on humanity. God stays with the process. God continues to call us back into relationship with one another and with God.
There are problems, of course in the pottery process – things that can go wrong. Believe it or not, clay has a memory. When it is in the kiln being fired, apparently it can literally unwind and go back to a previous shape. Air pockets can form in the clay and cause the pot to explode. The composition of the clay can be wrong. There can be too much moisture or too much sand. Sometimes the potter simply doesn't know what went wrong. But there is still another chance. The potter can begin again. Even when it seems hopeless, something beautiful can come of it.
A renowned potter was commissioned to make four identical basins to be used as fonts. When they were completed he fired them together. Three of the bowls came out perfectly. The fourth cracked into several pieces. What did he do with the cracked bowl? Not wanting to waste the lovely glazed colours, he smashed it into small pieces and used them as part of a wonderful mosaic.
There are things that can go wrong in our lives as well. Sometimes we simply make bad choices in life. We look for worldly success and deny God. Sometimes the difficulties of life simply overwhelm us. We question why we are suffering through no fault of our own. We blame God. Yet God is always there wishing to re-shape and re-make and re-new us.
What a wonderful image that is for the Christian! Even when life is at its most difficult, when we are alienated from our faith, God is with us, ready to transform our lives.
In fact, over and over again in my own life I come to realize that it is those moments of re-shaping and re-newing that are the most important markers in my life of faith. They are the moments that help me to understand the 'woundedness' of my life. They are moments of transformation that help me to become all that God intends me to be. God is there to shape and re-shape, to forgive, to bring us back into relationship when we fall away. Not only that, it is our woundedness that helps us to reach out to others to bring about a transformation in their lives. As we realize the wonders that God has worked in our lives, so we recognize God at work in the lives of others. We begin to see the face of Christ in those we meet.
I suspect that is at least part of the message at the heart of that very difficult Gospel passage. "Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple." "God's purpose for your life," Jesus is telling us, "must take precedence over everything else." Life is costly if we are going to live it in response to Jesus' call. There are demands of self-sacrifice. There are actions and decisions of costly love. We may be called on to conduct ourselves with courage. We may be called on to shoulder responsibility, to carry sorrow, or to endure physical struggle. We may be called on, not simply to talk the talk, but to walk the walk. Like Jeremiah in the potter's house, we may suddenly come to understand. As the clay is worked and reworked by the potter until something useful emerges, so if we let God work with us, we will become the disciples God intends us to be, vessels of God's love and beauty. We will be transformed.