Throwing Pots
Jeremiah 18:1-11
The Potter and the Clay
The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: ‘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 the Lord came to me: 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. 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 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.
The image of the Potter is a beautiful one. We see God as divine Potter for the first time in Genesis 2, and that image is repeated many times in scripture, including in Isaiah, Jeremiah, Paul, and also with Jesus, as He heals a blind man with a poultice of clay. The name Adam, means “clay” or “dirt” animated by God’s breath. Genesis 2:7, “then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.” In the Jewish tradition, a mass formed of clay is a golem. Fans of Harry Potter will recall the character by such a name. Golem is a human looking lump of clay with no breath of God or humanity in it. Once God breaths into it, it becomes something more.
The best way to understand the metaphor of the potter is to examine clay. When clay is moist, it is moldable. And no matter how dry it gets, if you add water to it, it will be malleable yet again. All moist clay can be brought to new life, a new shape, a new mission, as long as it remains moist enough for the potter to spin it into a new, revitalized shape. When a pot gets out of balance or too moist or too dry, it may become wonky. If it’s wonky, the potter has to redeem it, meaning return it to a round and start shaping it again.
So what does a potter do?
On the Wheel
1. Round the Clay.
To start, the potter rounds the clay. When I have watched kids playing in a mud puddle they instinctively round mud into a ball before patting it flat. It’s the same action with the potter. She rounds the clay before setting it on the wheel.
2. Center the Clay.
An important step in throwing a pot is getting the clay centered. Before anything is created of the round of clay, the potter properly centers it on the wheel or it is doomed. If we are all clay and want to avoid the painful crush of going wonky, perhaps we should take some time to learn to get centered first. Center on what matters to Christ.
3. Open the Clay.
The potter presses into the center of the round of clay to open the clay to begin shaping it. When God does something new in your heart, God presses into you.
4. Shape the Clay.
You can’t force the clay. You let the wheel do its work. Hands are required to shape, reshape, begin again, refine. The outside conforms to the inside as hands shape the open round of clay into a new form.
The potter that Jeremiah studied saved the clay that was not yet suited for his intended purpose and set it aside. Later, after adjusting the wheel and the water and the speed of his spinning, the potter made the clay into a different vessel. Although different it was again a creation that “seemed good to him” (v.4).
Pottery may be frustrating. Jeremiah pinpoints that moment the potter (God) wants to start over and make the clay into something new and different, so resistant is Israel to God’s way. Israel is wonky, needing redemption.
Once the pot is in its final shape, its ready to be removed from the wheel.
Firing
5. Prepare the Clay. (Trim and Dry)
The pot is trimmed and removed from the wheel. The potter takes care because this is a delicate process. The newly formed pot is fragile. Once trimmed and removed from the wheel, it is set aside to dry.
6. Transform the Clay (Fire)
Once satisfactorily dried, the potter places the pot in a kiln and raises the temperature to fire the clay. It transforms dry clay into a hardened vessel that may be kept and used for years. Whatever shape the pot is in, becomes permenant.
Unfortunately, there are lots of folks who are “hard-fired.” Once your life, your ideas, your hopes, your dreams, your offerings, are “hard-fired,” change is hard.
Once “hard-fired,” the potter cannot remold your clay. The kiln that bakes in beauty and goodness and love forever into a creative work of art can also burn hatred and despair and ugliness into a life unwilling to change.
7. Finish the Pot. (Second Fire - glaze)
If the new creation survives the first firing, if it does not crack or break in the transformation of the kiln, the potter may paint glaze onto the pot to give it is final finish and beauty. Once painted with glaze, the pot is fired for a second time.
Ending Reflection
Augustine’s famous thought: “O Lord, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find rest in you.” God made us for God’s own self. This story of Jeremiah is a story of the willful disobedience of people of faith. Israel knows its identity in God yet they choose to disobey. Think of this Christian community of faith as the people of Israel. In pottery terms, we chose to be wonky.
God’s hope is that the people of faith will turn. God intends good for people, but as a response to our disobedience, he devises a new plan. God hopes that this plan will not be implemented. The parable of the potter at the wheel shows that God is hoping things can be fixed.
“The process of judgment may itself be the remolding of the spoiled clay. The pot will not work in its present shape, so the potter molds it back into a lump of clay and begins to work afresh with it… God is reshaping the blemished clay vessel so that it is right in God’s eye.” (Patrick Miller, New Interpreter’s Bible, v. VI, p. 716).
Remember the action that God wants for Israel: “If you truly amend your ways and your doings, if you truly act justly with one another, if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own hurt, then I will dwell with you in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your ancestors forever and ever.” (Jeremiah 7:5-7)
Through the image of the potter, God calls us to allow our lives and our hearts to be reformed for God’s pleasure and purpose. Like David, let us pray, “Create in me a clean heart, O God.” Let us turn to Lord and let our “hard-fired” attitudes and prejudices be reworked into a new creation.
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