The Potter's Wheel
A Reflection for Rally Sunday
Jeremiah 18:1-11
The potter’s wheel is a piece of technology that literally dates back thousands of years. Sure, with modern technology, pottery wheels run smoother with electrical motors, are more comfortable to sit at, and are likely made from sturdier materials. Yet at its base, a pottery wheel has been a technological innovation that has been part of human society for thousands of years. The basic principles have not really changed. A potter uses a wheel that spins horizontally, most older mechanisms had it powered by gears and a foot pedal. With a jar of water handy, the potter then would take a lump of clay, throw it onto the center of the wheel, and then begin to work with it and shape it into some form. The same process can be used to make a plate, a cup, a jug, a bowl, a vase… just about anything is possible. The primary thing that they seem to have in common is that anything made on a pottery wheel is intended to be a vessel to hold something… most often, it’s food or liquid.
From what I have learned from the handful of potters I have known, quite often they have only a vague idea of what they are seeking to make. Often as they are working the clay does the form to seem to emerge out of it, to become what it is. Yet there are often times that when working it into a form, the clay becomes too thin, or something happens and the intended form disintegrates on the wheel. Yet this setback is never devastating for a potter… in fact, it’s almost expected that in the midst of making and shaping a new pot, it make take several attempts to form it. The potter simply continues the wheel spinning, brings the shape down and starts again… but does so using the same clay as they started with! None of the clay is lost… all of it is used to reshape and reform into something new.
Jeremiah taps into the power of this image, describing the scene of the Potter’s House. The clay is spoiled while being shaped… and yet the clay is simply reformed and sculpted into something new. God says to Jeremiah that Israel is like the clay in the potter’s hands, that even though the vessel has become spoiled, it can be reworked into a shape that suits its creator.
Other prophets were not so optimistic. They may have compared Israel to spoiled grapes, or bad wine… that simply needed to be thrown out. Yet with Jeremiah, the image he describes of God’s relationship with Israel is like a potter… and the power of Jeremiah’s story really takes shape. No matter what the circumstance, God is ready to re-work a spoiled shape into something new. Ultimately, nothing is lost, and the potential is still there… and God continues to work with us and shape us into something with both meaning and purpose.
This story is a powerful one, for all ages. Amongst youth, the potter and the clay has become a very meaningful story, because it is an story that can help anyone who has ever faced a setback in school. For our children, as we have this morning, it’s one that we can literally get our hands on! If this sounds familiar, my friend and colleague Colleen Wood made reference to this when she covered the pulpit earlier this year.
Yet the power of the metaphor doesn’t need to stop there. Jeremiah used this description to talk about Israel… or rather specifically the southern Kingdom of Judah when it was on the brink of political destruction. Jeremiah saw it coming, and yet like Amos or Hosea, he also held out some hope, that even if Jerusalem itself were destroyed, something new would take shape beyond it. Why? Because God could not be limited by any expectation that we might have, and no matter what happened in the future, God would still be there.
For Jeremiah, the power of the potter and the clay was more for the nation, and less about our own individual journeys. Yet this is such an incredibly powerful image, that we can think about it both in our personal lives, and as our lives together as a church.
Today is Rally Sunday… a time where people have started to “come back” from their summer breaks and get back into the routine of the fall. This is very much a part of Canadian culture, and has no official place in the Christian year. For us, though, this really is the first day of the church year, because over time we have become so closely linked to the school year. In many ways it is an opportunity to think of ourselves as a clay vessel that is still in process of being formed. As a congregation, we’re coming up on our 50th Anniversary. In retrospect, there have been a lot of changes in the community since this congregation was founded, and since this building was put up. We’re one of the few congregations in the area that still has a living memory of those origins, which is why Gordon Coyne has been tapping into for the “I Remember” stories that have been appearing in the bulletin over the last year.
For those of us who have been with this congregation for a long time, there have been times of both setbacks… but there have been times of celebration and joy. Over the past few years, there have been a number of high profile funerals of dearly loved members in our midst. I would be naïve to think that these have not had an impact on us and how we feel. Yet at the same time, I also celebrate that in the time that I have been at Clarkson Road, I have been privileged to celebrate the sacrament of Baptism more often than I have conducted a funeral. We’ll be celebrating it again next week! Our nursery is growing… which bodes well for our Church School… it’s virtually all girls at the moment… but it’s a sign of new life that maybe we’ve overlooked. The potter works on the clay, and being constantly reshaped and re-formed as God calls us to be.
Jeremiah’s image of God as the potter that works and develops the clay is an enduring image. Like the ancient technology that still seems new today, it has a timeless quality about it, and a great depth of meaning. It can help us individually to think of our own lives, and how even we can be shaped into something new if plans don’t go as we hoped. It can help us as a church to remind us that God is constantly working on us and shaping us to be what we need to be in this time and this place. We are a work in progress, like the clay on the Potter’s wheel.
Amen.
Jeremiah 18:1-11
The potter’s wheel is a piece of technology that literally dates back thousands of years. Sure, with modern technology, pottery wheels run smoother with electrical motors, are more comfortable to sit at, and are likely made from sturdier materials. Yet at its base, a pottery wheel has been a technological innovation that has been part of human society for thousands of years. The basic principles have not really changed. A potter uses a wheel that spins horizontally, most older mechanisms had it powered by gears and a foot pedal. With a jar of water handy, the potter then would take a lump of clay, throw it onto the center of the wheel, and then begin to work with it and shape it into some form. The same process can be used to make a plate, a cup, a jug, a bowl, a vase… just about anything is possible. The primary thing that they seem to have in common is that anything made on a pottery wheel is intended to be a vessel to hold something… most often, it’s food or liquid.
From what I have learned from the handful of potters I have known, quite often they have only a vague idea of what they are seeking to make. Often as they are working the clay does the form to seem to emerge out of it, to become what it is. Yet there are often times that when working it into a form, the clay becomes too thin, or something happens and the intended form disintegrates on the wheel. Yet this setback is never devastating for a potter… in fact, it’s almost expected that in the midst of making and shaping a new pot, it make take several attempts to form it. The potter simply continues the wheel spinning, brings the shape down and starts again… but does so using the same clay as they started with! None of the clay is lost… all of it is used to reshape and reform into something new.
Jeremiah taps into the power of this image, describing the scene of the Potter’s House. The clay is spoiled while being shaped… and yet the clay is simply reformed and sculpted into something new. God says to Jeremiah that Israel is like the clay in the potter’s hands, that even though the vessel has become spoiled, it can be reworked into a shape that suits its creator.
Other prophets were not so optimistic. They may have compared Israel to spoiled grapes, or bad wine… that simply needed to be thrown out. Yet with Jeremiah, the image he describes of God’s relationship with Israel is like a potter… and the power of Jeremiah’s story really takes shape. No matter what the circumstance, God is ready to re-work a spoiled shape into something new. Ultimately, nothing is lost, and the potential is still there… and God continues to work with us and shape us into something with both meaning and purpose.
This story is a powerful one, for all ages. Amongst youth, the potter and the clay has become a very meaningful story, because it is an story that can help anyone who has ever faced a setback in school. For our children, as we have this morning, it’s one that we can literally get our hands on! If this sounds familiar, my friend and colleague Colleen Wood made reference to this when she covered the pulpit earlier this year.
Yet the power of the metaphor doesn’t need to stop there. Jeremiah used this description to talk about Israel… or rather specifically the southern Kingdom of Judah when it was on the brink of political destruction. Jeremiah saw it coming, and yet like Amos or Hosea, he also held out some hope, that even if Jerusalem itself were destroyed, something new would take shape beyond it. Why? Because God could not be limited by any expectation that we might have, and no matter what happened in the future, God would still be there.
For Jeremiah, the power of the potter and the clay was more for the nation, and less about our own individual journeys. Yet this is such an incredibly powerful image, that we can think about it both in our personal lives, and as our lives together as a church.
Today is Rally Sunday… a time where people have started to “come back” from their summer breaks and get back into the routine of the fall. This is very much a part of Canadian culture, and has no official place in the Christian year. For us, though, this really is the first day of the church year, because over time we have become so closely linked to the school year. In many ways it is an opportunity to think of ourselves as a clay vessel that is still in process of being formed. As a congregation, we’re coming up on our 50th Anniversary. In retrospect, there have been a lot of changes in the community since this congregation was founded, and since this building was put up. We’re one of the few congregations in the area that still has a living memory of those origins, which is why Gordon Coyne has been tapping into for the “I Remember” stories that have been appearing in the bulletin over the last year.
For those of us who have been with this congregation for a long time, there have been times of both setbacks… but there have been times of celebration and joy. Over the past few years, there have been a number of high profile funerals of dearly loved members in our midst. I would be naïve to think that these have not had an impact on us and how we feel. Yet at the same time, I also celebrate that in the time that I have been at Clarkson Road, I have been privileged to celebrate the sacrament of Baptism more often than I have conducted a funeral. We’ll be celebrating it again next week! Our nursery is growing… which bodes well for our Church School… it’s virtually all girls at the moment… but it’s a sign of new life that maybe we’ve overlooked. The potter works on the clay, and being constantly reshaped and re-formed as God calls us to be.
Jeremiah’s image of God as the potter that works and develops the clay is an enduring image. Like the ancient technology that still seems new today, it has a timeless quality about it, and a great depth of meaning. It can help us individually to think of our own lives, and how even we can be shaped into something new if plans don’t go as we hoped. It can help us as a church to remind us that God is constantly working on us and shaping us to be what we need to be in this time and this place. We are a work in progress, like the clay on the Potter’s wheel.
Amen.
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