Jeremiah: “Putty In God’s Hands”

A Sermon Based Upon Jeremiah 18: 1-11

By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, DMin

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership,   Sunday,   July 6, 2014

“So he made it over reworking it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to make it."  (Jeremiah 18.4).

In a classic episode of "I Love Lucy," Lucy had taken a job at a candy factory and was being trained on the first day of her new job.  It was Lucy's duty to stand at a conveyor belt with pieces of candy continuously passing in front of her. She was to add the finishing touches to the process. Her boss had walked out of the room, but not before she emphasized strongly that her job was vital. She would lose her job if she let even a single piece of candy slip by her station untouched.

At first Lucy was doing fine, but the conveyor belt gradually picked up speed and before long she was frantic, grabbing candy and stuffing it everywhere she could her mouth, her coat, her pockets, her dress so that no unfinished piece would make it through her station. It was a classic. 

Steve Bailey is a real Candy Man in Lebanon, PA.  Steve doesn't put the finishing touches on all of the 33 million Hershey's Kisses that are manufactured in a single day.   No, he only has about 20,000 Hershey's Kisses pass his inspection station every 60 seconds!   This "maestro of the Kiss" has a job of searching for anything less than sheer chocolate perfection. The job sounds overwhelming, but it’s not as difficult as the numbers suggest.  A large majority of the 1,200,000 Kisses that pass him every hour are already perfect by the time they reach him.  But of course, some of the pieces don't quite pass the required specifications of perfections. The public's expectations of what a Hershey's Kiss is supposed to look like when it is unwrapped are so high that only perfection will do! Steve will not allow a defective piece of chocolate to pass his station only to disappoint whoever unwraps it at home.  Steve sees that it has exactly the proper size and smooth appearance, is not leaning to the side, and above all, it must be perfect! 

But machinery and life is not perfect, even with high tech equipment.  What happens to the Kisses that fall short of these lofty requirements?   According the Life Magazine article, Steve says he picks out the imperfect specimens of chocolate and brushes them aside to a catchoff pan where they go into a process that is called, the rework.  Here, the defective pieces are melted down mixed with new chocolate and the process starts all over again, until chocolate perfection is reached. 

The idea of defective Kisses ending up in rework, immediately points us to  this memorable parable of the Potter in Jeremiah 18:16: "Behold, the potter was working at the wheel And the vessel that he was making of clay was spoiled in the hand of the potter. So he made it over, reworking it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to make it." 

HUMAN LIFE HAS GREAT POTENTIAL AND POSSIBLITIES

The image of a potter working at his wheel is simple, but unforgettable.  Jeremiah chose this image to point to God’s great purposes for his people.   We are the creation of the great potter who has placed us like clay on the wheel of life.  If we are willing to be ‘putty’ in God’s hands, our lives have tremendous possibilities and potential.  

Both true religion and good science affirms that human life is the highest and greatest form of life.   In the Judeo-Christian faith, the psalmist once answered his own question:  “What are human beings that you are (God) mindful of them, or mortals that (God) cares for them?   His answer:  “Yet you have made them a little lower than the angels (or God) and crowned them with glory and honor” (Psalm 8.4-5).   The Psalmist adds how important humans are also for creation itself, not just in themselves alone: “You have given them dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet….” (Psalm 8.6).

When we go back to the creation narratives in Genesis, we read how humans are the ‘crown’ of creation because they created on the final, climactic day of God’s ‘good’ creative work as they are created ‘in the image of God’.   This is a gift that no other creature is given.   Whatever this ‘imago deo’ means, it points to the capacity the human creature has to know and relate to their creator in relational and responsible ways.  The whole idea behind the word ‘responsibility’ means that humans have the potential to respond to the goodness and love around them, so that they can be an extension of God’s creative power and work and are able to make this world an even better place, because we are in it.  Now, that’s responsibility!

Interestingly, Science does not disagree with core of this great religious insight.  Science also affirms that humans are the highest, most developed species on the face of the earth.  Even if you don’t believe in evolutionary science, you can still be amazed at this one fact: according to Science, the universe is 13.82 Billion years old, with the earth being about 4.5 Billion. The point is that it took all those billions of years of evolving just so humans could develop in the last 200,000 years.  And only in these last 200,000 years have humans achieved the potential and all the possibility you and I have today.  In other words, life is created so that you can be you.  And we can be amazing creatures, can’t we?  

When I think of the ‘amazing’ fact of the human race, I think of a simple person doing good like a Mother Teresa, or a person with undeniable strength and courage like Abraham Lincoln, or I would think of the amazing musical minds of a Mozart, Bach or Beethoven, or the incredible sense of duty of a Fireman, a policemen, or a teacher.   Or I might also think of the incredible sacrifices made by missionaries, humanitarian workers, or soldiers who go into harm’s way for the sake of freedom.    All these are examples of the great potential and possibility of the human person and the human spirit to do good in the world.  We need to include on that list, also those simple, but tireless people who accomplish small things that have very big outcomes, like parents who raise their children, or families that make strong communities, or faithful people who keep the faith, do good, and make sure the most basic things in life are done.  

I’ll never forget a National Geographic article some years ago, that was written about North Carolina.  It made special note of the tall Oaks located around Chapel Hill and then commented about the kind of the people who make up the Tar Heel State.  As I recall, the article concluded something like, “The people in North Carolina aren’t known for famous people, but they very much like the tall, strong and sturdy oaks that cover the hills near Chapel Hill, they aren’t worth much for anything, except for holding the world together.”  

That’s not bad theology.  One of the greatest beliefs of the Christian faith is that God put humans on this earth to work, both the ‘caretakers’ of God’s earthly garden and as part of the body of Christ, so we might also partner with Christ in holding all things together (Col. 1.17).  I can’t think of anything description of humanity than understanding that our greatest vocation is to work with God in preserving and advancing this amazing world.

BEST INTENTIONS CAN GO WRONG

Louis Armstrong, known for his trumpet playing, also recorded a song that has remained popular, entitled:  “It’s a wonderful world”.  Perhaps you’ve heard it.  It begins:  “I see trees of green, red roses too.  I see them bloom for me and you.  And I think to myself, what a wonderful world.”   The song continues with all kinds of marvelous, simple images of creation, including “skies of blue,” and “clouds of white”, “The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night,” “colors of rainbows,” the ‘faces of people passing by’ and ‘friends shaking hands’ saying “How do you do?” meaning “I love you.”   He concludes with the image of babies crying and growing learning ‘much more’ than he’ll ever know” so that he says to himself again, “What a wonderful world”. 

Of course, in many ways it is a ‘wonderful world’, but it’s not a perfect world.  This is precisely why Jeremiah has gone down to the potter’s house, because Jeremiah’s world wasn’t perfect either.  In fact, as is typical of most Old Testament prophets, Jeremiah is a reluctant prophet.  When God calls him to speak, Jeremiah answers,  “Ah, Lord God!  Truly I don’t know how to speak, for I am only a boy”  (Jer. 1.6).   But Jeremiah must speak. The Lord put the words in his mouth to speak a message of both ‘destruction’ and ‘reconstruction’, saying, “See today, I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant” (1.10)…Out of the north disaster shall break out on all the inhabitants of the land….” (1.14).  It’s not a pretty message, nor a pretty picture Jeremiah paints.   This is part of the reason Jeremiah is known as the ‘weeping prophet’. 

Jeremiah is weeping is because of what he sees at the potter’s house.  The clay is in the hands of a skilled potter but “the clay was spoiled in the potter’s hands”.  The clay was good clay, the potter has skilled hands, but even the best of intentions can go wrong.  This is how Jeremiah sees Israel’s social, spiritual and political situation just before the fall of Jerusalem, which occurred at the hands of the Babylonians in 587 BC.   His people, and his nation, had great potential.  God had good intentions with them, and the people once had serious intention to follow and serve God, but now, everything has changed.   How things were unraveling in Jeremiah’s day can be expressed by the words of Irish poet, W.B. Yeats in his famous poem, “The Second Coming”, who wrote:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.

What went wrong in Jeremiah’s day is that Judah has failed to keep it’s covenant and promise with the creator.  What happens to people when they fail to make and keep their promises to God?   In one of the most powerful biblical insights, one which Jesus built his own prophetic ministry upon, God’s best intentions were said to be unraveling could because of what is the human heart.   Jeremiah writes:   The heart is devious above all else; it is perverse-- who can understand it?   I the LORD test the mind and search the heart, to give to all according to their ways, according to the fruit of their doings. (Jer 17:9-10 NRS).   When humans hearts have become corrupt, perverse, obstinate, immoral and debased, the worst things imaginable can happen.  We can become worse than even the wildest animal. As someone has said, “Animals kill only to survive, but a human being will kill simply for sport.”  This kind of senseless, mindless, heartless evil is what the apostle Paul also wrote about, when he wrote to the Romans,

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness …for though they knew God, they did not honor him as God …., but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened…Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the degrading of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator. (Rom 1:18-25 NRS)

My German tutor’s father was an SS officer during Nazi Germany. One day, I asked my tutor, how much he knew about what was going on.  He said he remembered them marching Jews by his home.  There was a shoe factory nearby and they would try out new shoes on Jews and march them until they wore out the soles.  When he went to the window to watch them march by, his parents would close the curtain so that he could not see the cruelty.  Interestingly, his father took part in the cruelty but did not what his son to experience it first-hand. He wanted his son to grow up only thinking how good Germans were and how bad or worthless Jews were.

Just how low humans can go is not only seen in Nazi Germany, nor Stalin’s Russia, or in extreme radical Islam, but it can unfortunately be seen in our own country, even in our own families, in our own churches and, if we are not careful, even in our own hearts.  Remember what God told Cain all the way back in Genesis, just before he killed his brother, Abel?  The LORD said to Cain: “If you do well, will you not be accepted?  And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it." (Gen 4:7 NRS)  Cain was unable to ‘master it’ and he killed his on and only brother. 

Yes, this can be a wonderful world, except when human allow their hearts to be overtaken by sin and evil.  When this happens, this “wonderful world” turns tragic, deadly and disastrous.  It can happen anytime, anywhere to anyone, because, as Alexander Solzhenitsyn has said, “the line between good and evil runs through every human heart.”  We are all capable of the greatest good and the worst evil imaginable.

HOWEVER, GOD’S BEST WORK IS A REWORK 

What can happen to the clay, even when it is being molded by the hands of the potter and creator, should chill us all to the bone.  “Sin lurks at the door” of every human heart, and if we do not believe this, it probably has already ‘mastered’ us in the worst kind of way because we are already blinded to just how dark, futile, and deceiving our own hearts can become.  Things were so bad in Jeremiah’s day, that God promised to bring a new covenant (Jer. 31:31) because the old one simply wasn’t working.  

What is most amazing, however, in this story of what happen at the potter’s house, may be the most important message of all from the prophet Jeremiah.  By the time Israel hears Jeremiah’s message, and rejects it, Jerusalem has fallen.  It appears that the land and the people have brought an end to themselves.  But it is right in the midst of the moment, when ‘the clay is spoiled in the Potter’s hands’ (18:4a), that the Potter has already begun to ‘rework it into another vessel, as seemed good to him (18:4b).’  “Can I do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done?  Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand?” (18: 6). 

Any honest, thinking, Christian, ought to wonder why evil can so easily get the upper-hand, in our world and in our own lives?   Why is it so much easier to slide and fall into doing evil, than to do good?  And why are the good things we should do often the hardest things to make ourselves do?  As one person said, “Why does the good food taste so bad, or the bad food taste so good?”  Or as a someone told my mother-in-law she was about to undergo heart surgery, “If you want to know what you shouldn’t eat, if it tastes good, just spit it out!”   Again, why is life this way, as if it is created upside down so that it is so easy to fail and so hard to succeed?  Why couldn’t life be different?  Maybe it can.

Barbara Brown Taylor tells about Jacques Lusseyran, a blind Friench resistance fighter from WWII, who wrote a memoir called, And There Was Light.  Lusseyran was not born blind, but during a scuffle he fell hard against the corner of his teacher’s desk and he damaged both eyes.  When he woke up in the hospital, he could no longer see.  At the age of seven, he was permanently blind.

During those days, blind people were pushed to the margins of society, where those who could not learn to cane chairs, or play and instrument for religious services, became beggars on the streets.  The doctors wanted to send Jacques to a school for the blind in Paris, but his parents wanted him to stay in school and learn to function in a seeing world.  His mother learned Braille with him.  He learned to use a Braille typewriter.  The principal of the school ordered him a special desk to hold his equipment.  But the best thing his parents did was never to pity him or describe him as ‘unfortunate’.  His Father made blindness like an adventure, telling Jacques, “Always tell us when you discover something!”

Barely ten days after Jacques lost his sight, he made a great discovery that entranced him the rest of his life.  He wrote, “I had completely lost sight in my eyes; I could not see the light of the world anymore.  Yet the light was still there”, he wrote.  “It’s source was not obliterated.  I felt it gushing forth every moment and brimming over… It was all there…movements, shades, and colors.  But this light contradicted everything those who have sight could understand.  The source of light is not in the outer world.   But the light dwells where life also dwells; within ourselves.” 

Because Jacques found the light, even in his blindness, he was able to experience the light, even without the use of his eyes.  With practice, he learned to attend so carefully to the world around him, that he could even describe what kind of tree the wind was blowing through by the sound it made.  He could also tell how tall or wide a wall was by the pressure it exerted on his body.  But in January 1944, the Nazis captured Jacques and other countrymen and shipped them to Buchenwald.   There he learned that the true darkness is not blindness, but hate.  Hate worked against his mind so much that he started running into things and tripping over furniture.  However, when Jacques got a hold of himself, he learned that no one could turn out the light within without his consent.  He turned to the light within his heart, so that no matter how dark it was, he was always able to find the light.  (From “Seeing In the Dark”, by Barbara Brown Taylor, as told in The Christian Century, April 2, 2014, p. 22-24).

What I find so fascinating about Jacques’ story, is that God is able to do more through him in his blindness than had he remained a seeing person.   The same is true of us.  Why does God allow us to fail, to sin, or to lose our way?   I need only tell you this: the prodigal son became a much better fellow than his elder brother who never left home.  This is true because God allows the clay to be spoiled, so it can be ‘reworked’ and become even better.   The troubles, problems, and tragedies of life, do not have to break us, but, with God’s help, they can make us into people we would never have become, unless we had submitted ourselves to the reshaping and reworking by the gracious and patience Potter, who is our saving and redeeming LORD.

A final, amazing story from the life of Jeremiah is that as Jerusalem is being invaded by foreign armies and is being burned to the ground, God instructs Jeremiah to take what money he has and to by some land.  Though the city had fallen into the hands of the Chaldeans because the people had forsaken God, the purchased of land was a promise that God would rework his plan and bring his people back so that it could be even better than it was before (Jer. 32. 25-44).  When you allow yourself to be ‘putty’ or ‘clay’ in God’s hands, there is always the chance to be reworked into more than you could ever imagine.  Amen.