Proper 18C + Clay in the Potter's Hands + 9.8.13
Melissa Campbell-Langdell
All Santos, Oxnard
(Jer. 18:1–11; Ps. 139:1–5, 12–17; Philemon 1–21; Luke 14:25–33)
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| Image from Facebook page for Diana Glyer's Clay in the Potter's Hands |
When I first began to read this letter of Paul to Philemon, I
thought, what a crafty fox! I mean, he
talks as if he isn’t imposing anything on Philemon and yet he suggests the
letter be read out loud in public and points out that he says “nothing about
owing” him his whole self. How arrogant,
I thought. If I received such a letter,
I should think I might tear it up if it came from anyone but God.
But ah, there’s the catch! We don’t know why this letter was written, but what if, smart rhetorical thinker that Paul was, we can see Paul’s relationship to Philemon as a bit like our relationship to God?
Look at it again. “I preferred to do nothing without your consent, in order than your good deed might be voluntary and not something forced (vs. 14).” And later, “I say nothing about your owing me even your own self (vs. 19b).” None of us owes our lives to another person, indeed this was a huge breakthrough in our understanding of why human slavery cannot be Christian. But we all owe every aspect of our selves to God. And in Jeremiah, we have this marvelous passage about his visit to the potter’s house, and we are reminded, that just like the clay in the potter’s hands, we are totally at God’s mercy. We are that clay, molded, we are vulnerable in God’s hands.
But ah, there’s the catch! We don’t know why this letter was written, but what if, smart rhetorical thinker that Paul was, we can see Paul’s relationship to Philemon as a bit like our relationship to God?
Look at it again. “I preferred to do nothing without your consent, in order than your good deed might be voluntary and not something forced (vs. 14).” And later, “I say nothing about your owing me even your own self (vs. 19b).” None of us owes our lives to another person, indeed this was a huge breakthrough in our understanding of why human slavery cannot be Christian. But we all owe every aspect of our selves to God. And in Jeremiah, we have this marvelous passage about his visit to the potter’s house, and we are reminded, that just like the clay in the potter’s hands, we are totally at God’s mercy. We are that clay, molded, we are vulnerable in God’s hands.
And yet, amazingly, God never compels us. Never uses the fact that he knit us in our
mother’s wombs to force us into following God’s way and will.
The “Vaso Nuevo” or
“New Vessel” song that we will sing in the Spanish service today talks about
asking God to make us a new vessel, since we are like clay in the potter’s
hands. But I wonder, would we be so
eager to have God remake us when we think about this image in Jeremiah?
Yet there is truth to the image—we are all being molded by
God into who we are truly meant to be.
And even so, God cannot work with half the clay. In her book, Clay in the Potter’s Hands, Diana Glyer mentions that the clay must
completely attach to the potter’s wheel in order for the potter to create a
vessel. She calls this process
“committing” and suggests that we, too, need to be fully committed to God’s
work in order for God to be able to use us.[1] God can’t work with only half the clay.
Psalm 139 reminds us that God has that whole claim on our
lives that Paul discussed in his letter to Philemon, that we owe God our whole
being. “It was you who formed my inward
parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb (vs. 13).” God is closer to us than our breath, having
created every aspect of us, even the breath in our lungs. As Glyer describes it, “clay gets all over
the potter as the potter works with the clay:” “When I’ve been sitting at the
wheel for a while, the water saturates my hands and the wet, slippery clay
works itself into the folds of the skin at my knuckles…. Eventually… tiny, tiny
bits of clay work themselves into the very pores of my skin. And stay there. I can’t avoid it.”[2] That’s kind of like us and God. God’s hands are embedded with us, and we are
covered with God’s fingerprints. There
is no separating us.
Yet, and here’s the truly amazing thing. This God who has this claim on us, this
intimate connection that goes beyond any claim we can have on each other, this
God gives us a choice. We are given the
choice to respond to God or not! Perhaps
because he preferred to do nothing without our consent, in order than our
decision might be voluntary. Because we
have a classy God. It’s just
Amazing. It’s just Grace.
Taste and See… the goodness of a God that doesn’t
impose. All this being said, free will
or no, the choice remains. Jesus
challenges us in today’s gospel message.
God can’t work with half the clay, or with half our lives. We need to be totally committed. In the English reading for today, it says “he
who … does not hate father and mother, etc.” (Luke 14:26) but
in the Spanish, it reads: “si alguno … no
me ama mas que su padre, su madre, etc. (Dios Habla Hoy),” or “if anyone … does not love me
more than his father, mother, etc.” and I think the Spanish Bible translators
were onto something here. Because
looking at the word translated “hate” here, misei
in the Greek, it isn’t describing just an active hate, but it can also mean to
disregard in a situation of preferring one person or thing over another. Now, to understand this, you have to look at
the historical Jewish family. We were
talking an extended family, to which loyalty was unconditional. And Jesus is challenging that loyalty.
He is saying you need to prefer me, so that when the time
comes you will be able to do all you can to spread the gospel message, not just
what is convenient within your family situation. And when you think about it, this total
commitment is what was required of the early Christians. It didn’t always mean they neglected their
families, sometimes their families got right to following Jesus with them, but
they certainly put God first. We are
also called to that commitment. This
means we take seriously the choices we make in our lives, whether in the
personal or the political. Perhaps we
may think about our choices with a God-orientation first. How, for example, might the choice facing
Congress regarding intervention in Syria look?
If we eschew the primary importance of family, or national loyalties
like our ties to Israel, but only try to see the situation the way God might
see it, what guidance do we receive?
This means we take our worship seriously (although we can
certainly also have fun!) We must pray daily so that the Potter will be able to
mold us, so that we will be open to the Spirit.
Glyer notes that she once heard that an individual lump of clay is “full
of itself” and that it needs to be opened in order to be worked on by the
potter, made into a vessel that will serve a purpose.[3]
So, we have to leave space in our lives too, not fill them up
in every moment with activity. We must
take time and make space to pray. And
this is a way of living out our commitment to God.
A wonderful image that Glyer shares when she talks about the
clay fully adhering to the wheel, making that full commitment of itself to the
work of the potter’s hands, is that it then gets centered on the wheel, and
that part is also God’s work: “that wobbly, bumpy, misshapen lump of clay rests under the skill of the potter’s
hands, and as a result it becomes smooth, solid, and centered. And so it is with my soul.”[4]
And herein lies the good news—the last words that we heard
from Psalm 139 today said “I am still with you (vs. 18b).” And how true!
In all of this, whether we are slow to commit, or whether we are quickly
centered on the Word and work of God, God abides with each and every one of us,
his beloved creation. God encourages us,
molds us, so that we can each be a new creation, un vaso nuevo, a new vessel, in God!
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