13th Sunday after Pentecost
Jeremiah 18:1-11
The word that came to Jeremiah from God: “Come, go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear my words.” So, I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was, working at his wheel. 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. Then the word of God came to me: Can I not do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done? says God. Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. At one moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, 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. And at another moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, 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.
Now, therefore, say to the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: Thus says God: 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.
Throwing Clay
When it was time for me to go to college, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. I wasn’t ready to declare any kind of major or decide on any kind of career. I mean, I knew what God wanted me to do, go into ministry, but I didn’t want to do that, so I was trying to figure out something else. And, no disrespect to Junior College, but it’s a really great place to stall. I remember making the very intentional decision to keep taking classes at the local Junior College, just so I could avoid any awkward questions form my parents about what I was doing with my life. As long as I was talking classes, the question should actually never even come up.
So, I stayed in a holding pattern for a few years, just so I could say that I was still going to school. My first semester of Junior College, while I was still filled with wide-eyed wonder, and the idea that I would eventually figure things out, I took 12 units, a full load of classes. And, I was working at the time, but it was only a part-time job, so it was okay. But, by the time my second semester rolled around, I wanted to take things a little easier, so I only took 9 units, just 3 classes. The semester after that, I took 6 units. And, my fourth semester, I only signed up for 3 units, just one class, so that I could work full-time and still have some free time to do other things. And, for the next 2 years, I took just 1 class a semester, just 3 units, all to keep up the pretense that I was still in school. Because I still hadn’t figured out what I was doing with my life, and I wasn’t ready to stop going to school, because I was not ready to have that conversation with my parents.
For those last 2 years, the class that I took every semester was ceramics, and as I read our Jeremiah text today, all of those memories came rushing back to me. The ceramics class was a night class, and I loved the whole process of making something, letting it dry, glazing it, firing it, and finally seeing the finished piece. The processes of creating clay objects on a potter’s wheel is called “throwing”. I had known about throwing clay from a pretty young age; Ghost was the first movie I had ever seen in theaters, and there’s that famous scene where Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze are throwing clay together on the same wheel, their hands all slick and sliding together on the clay. I’ve always been interested in art in all in of its various forms, and I had always wanted to try throwing clay. So, I thought if I had to be in school, I might as well take a class doing something that I’ve always wanted to try. It was like getting college credit for playing and having fun. But, throwing clay is definitely a skill.
Like any skill, it takes time to learn, and mastering ceramics takes a lifetime. The ceramics professor always emphasized how there were no mistakes in pottery, only opportunities. He demonstrated this one day by throwing a huge bowl; it was probably a foot and a half tall, and just as wide. He then proceeded to press a finger inside of it while the wheel was slowly turning, creating a spiral in the wall of the bowl. He pinched part of it, and tore another part, and just kept messing with it until eventually the whole thing fell apart. And then, he just smiled and shrugged, formed the clay back into a ball, centered it on the wheel, and started over, again.
It was kind of hard to watch, because I didn’t have the skill to throw a bowl of that size, and I still don’t, but we all understood his point. Some of the most interesting shapes are created by accident. Mistakes can force you to look at your piece in a different way and help you to create something that you never could otherwise. And, if it all falls apart, clay can always be reworked, and every second on the wheel is a moment to learn and grow and perfect your craft.
Now, I never became a master potter, but I certainly had a lot of fun taking those classes, and I ended up making a lot of interesting things. I even sold some of them, and I still use some of the pieces that I made to this day.
But, you have to remember, I was only taking these classes to fill time, just so I could honestly say that I was still in school. Though, I don’t know how honest it was if the whole thing was just a pretense. Just as the Israelite people in our Jeremiah text today, one could argue that I was on a path of destruction, running away from the path that God had set before me. I thought I knew better. I thought I knew what I wanted. But, who can know us better than God? The God who created us, who has known us since the moment of our birth, who knows our temperament, and our likes and our dislikes. I sometimes wonder what my life would have been like if I trusted God’s plan for me earlier in life. But, there is an argument to be made that I was on the path the whole time. That I needed this season of reflection and formation and growth to become what God needed me to become. Perhaps I never would have become a pastor if not for all of the running that I did to avoid it.
Just as I was constantly working the clay in my hands, so was I a piece of clay in God’s hands, being reworked and reshaped into someone who would eventually be ready to answer the call to ministry. I can’t tell you how many times I started to raise the walls of a clay vessel, only to have the whole thing collapse down on itself. Throwing clay isn’t as easy as it looks on TV. It takes time and patience and care. And you make a lot of mistakes when you’re first learning how to do it. Sometimes there’ll be a little air bubble in the clay that weakens the wall. Sometimes the clay won’t be centered correctly on the wheel, and no matter what you do, you’ll never get the sides to be symmetrical. Sometimes your hands are just unsteady, or you’ll have a bad day, and you won’t have the patience or the focus to properly work the clay. But, clay is malleable, just like we are. And, God has more patience and focus than we ever could. So, if you ever feel like your life is going in the wrong direction, if it feels like there’s too much, and you can’t hold up underneath the weight of it all, if it just seems like there’s always something going wrong, remember that you are the clay, and that God is the potter, and God will always pull you back up to where you need to be. Amen.
~ Rev. Charles Wei
