Jeremiah 18:1-12                                                 Ordinary Time

 I have gone to Montreat, the Presbyterian Conference Center in North Carolina nearly every summer of my life. Family vacations, youth conferences, Bible and theology conferences, worship and music conferences, church retreats. We hike the mountains, rock-hop through the streams, paddleboat on Lake Susan, talk to Presbyterians and others interested in faith issues, browse the book store and the gift shop filled with international fair-trade items, watch people, stay up late laughing, worship with a thousand or more people in Anderson auditorium, eat an ice cream cone on the porch overlooking the water, connect with old friends and make new ones. But one thing that many people enjoy in Montreat that I had, for some strange reason, never done, was spend time in the pottery workshop.

 At first I did it for Rebecca, because she loves three dimensional art, but then I got hooked. A pastor named Ann, whose mother founded the pottery some thirty or more years ago, invited me to the wheel. I sat down awkwardly and began throwing my first piece of pottery, as we talked about life’s ups and downs, rough places and smooth and the lessons God is teaching us.

 Here’s my first pot. This bowl has a lot of Ann’ handiwork in it, and a little of mine. Emily added the nice blue glaze. You can see the rest of the Deibert pottery on the offering table today. As I spent a little time each day in the pottery workshop, these words from Jeremiah began to resonate in me. “Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand.” Hear the beauty of these words. Hear the frustration of the prophet. Hear how God the potter struggles with us to shape us into the people we are supposed to be.
 

  ^NRS Jeremiah 18:1 The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: ² "Come, go down to the potter's house, and there I will let you hear my words." ³ So I went down to the potter's house, and there he was working at his wheel. ⁴ The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter's hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as seemed good to him. ⁵ Then the word of the LORD came to me: ⁶ Can I not do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done? says the LORD. Just like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. ⁷ At one moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, ⁸ but if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will change my mind about the disaster that I intended to bring on it. ⁹ And at another moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it,
¹⁰ but if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will change my mind about the good that I had intended to do to it. ¹¹ Now, therefore, say to the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: Thus says the LORD: Look, I am a potter shaping evil against you and devising a plan against you. Turn now, all of you from your evil way, and amend your ways and your doings. ¹² But they say, "It is no use! We will follow our own plans, and each of us will act according to the stubbornness of our evil will."

The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

  (Keep the Word of the Lord slide up while I mention the Rembrandt.)

 I could have cut the reading off half way through and ignored these words of judgment, but it seemed dishonest to do that. This passage holds together in the fierce determination of God to shape us as we are meant to be. Jeremiah is trying to get a message across about the stubbornness of God’s people. Jeremiah is frustrated with his people. You can see the disappointment in the man called the weeping prophet in this Rembrandt.

 Jeremiah’s people are well-acquainted with the art of pottery-making. So he uses that image to convey his difficult message. I could have cut off the harsh part, but I thought perhaps at the pottery wheel, we might come to a better understanding of the anger and frustration of God – how God intends to turn us into beautiful works of art, but sometimes we are off-center or filled with impurities or we have some roughness in us that needs to be worked out. We do not cooperate with the work of God’s hand, and it is messy. God has to start over many times with us, but God cares enough to get frustrated. God cares enough to want the best out of us. The worst parent is not an angry parent but a parent who doesn’t care. We have a Creator, a loving Parent who does care, who is sovereignly strong and doggedly loving. This God is busy making us into the people we need to be and we’d do well to remember that.

 (kneading the clay)

 The first thing a potter must do is knead the clay. It’s called wedging, to remove all air bubbles. Some might say this serves the purpose of informing the clay who’s in charge, to say to the molecules it is time to cooperate and stick together. The first step with us and God is to acknowledge that God is in charge of our lives, and not we ourselves. God is the potter, and we are the clay.

 (cone-shaped clay on wheel)

 The next step is centering. (Centering – two images) Centering the clay requires a lot of strength because the clay resists being centered. A potter has to put elbows on knees to access leg strength as well as upper body. So it is with us. We resist the discipline of being centered in God. We are like the wild, wobbling piece of clay that does not seem to want to settle in the center. Sabbath. Worship. Personal and Family Devotions. Service. Those things get us centered. We need balance. We need to be centered by God and it takes a lot of force to get us there. (Clay centered and flattened with penny in center)

 Once centered, the potter can work with the pot. (Two images of opening the center of the pot.) And the first job after centering is to open the pot. Think about that in your life. After you acknowledge the Lordship of Jesus Christ in your life, after you relinquish yourself into the hands of Great Potter and are centered, then you need to be made open, open to all that God wants to do with you. If the Lord is going to use you, you must be an open vessel, able to be filled with good things.

 Next the pot must be drawn up. (Image of pulling up) We too must be stretched beyond our boundaries, lifted up. We must expand, in order to become the vessel God wants us to be. We cannot get spread too thin or our walls get wobbly and might crack when fired. We need just the right amount of pressure to be drawn up into a lovely vessel that is useful to God and humanity.

 (Two images of shaping) After being pulled up and out, then we can be shaped in a variety of ways to perform many different functions. Shaped and smoothed. Sometimes rough places form in our lives. Sometimes even at this point, the clay can become uncooperative or can be filled with impurities or with holes. In those cases, the Great Potter of Heaven who longs to make us into wonderfully attractive and useful pots, sometimes must start over and knead us once again, making sure we are centered and that all impurities are being worked out.

 You can imagine how frustrating it would be to be this far along in the process and then have the clay start going the wrong way. It gets lumpy and then wobbly and then the potter grabs it and balls it up to start over. People in Jeremiah’s day were well acquainted with the pottery making. They would have known the strength and care of the potter, the determination and the patience of the potter. (Image of thatched village potter) Pottery connects us with people all over the world.

 After shaping the pot, then it must dry a while before the potter returns to trim it. (Two images of trimming) If the base is too thick, then it is trimmed away, so the pot does not implode in the firing. If we have more than we need, or if we are too full of ourselves, we too sometime implode. The USA seems to be in a trimming stage of life right now. Perhaps we got a little too thick – maybe we have been using too much of the world’s clay for our own pots. Rebecca made a marvelous turtle, but there was too much thickness of clay in the middle and it exploded in the kiln. (Image of kiln) If you want to understand kilns, speak to Ralph Ruark, who is a consultant traveling the world to offer advice to large ceremic companies about their firing processes.

 When a piece of pottery has been fired once, then it can be glazed, (Image of dipping in glaze) and then fired again. And after the second firing, the open kiln reveals these beauties. (Glazed pottery in kiln) Glorious pottery of all shapes and sizes, all colors and hues, all purposes under the sun. No piece is the same. The colors vary according to the pieces itself and how much glaze it takes on. (Four images of pottery displays) We are God’s handiwork, created for good works, made to reflect the glory of our Creator, who loves us enough to keep molding us until we become the earthen vessels we are meant to be. (Final sermon image)

 Paul says, in words we will say later in this service, “We have this treasure in earthen vessels -- malleable, breakable jars of clay, that it may be clear that this extraordinary power comes from God, not us. Submit yourselves to the loving and firm hands of God, who knows what to do with you, who has a purpose for your life, who can turn you and me into beautiful works of art. God is not finished with us yet.