The Potter - Words of Hope & Warning from Our (Re)Creator

God never throws away the clay,
but re-forms us along the way,
creating a faithful new day.


In Jeremiah 18, God sends Jeremiah to the potter's house.  God has a lesson there for Jeremiah, a lesson for all of God's people.  This lesson turns out to be a significant one for understanding the whole book of Jeremiah's prophecy.  What a potter does with a lump of clay is what God is doing as the creator and shaper of His people.  The geopolitical and religious drama of divine judgment and exile unfolding in Jeremiah is happening by God's hand, just as the potter's hand forms the lump of clay on the spinning wheel.  If we look at what a potter does with the lump of clay in order to form it, we start to get a picture of what God is doing in response to His people's disobedience.

Eugene Peterson reminds us of a significant fact: in 7th Century Israel, the potter's house was a fixture in every community.  Sending Jeremiah to the potter's house was like sending Jeremiah to the corner gas station today.  Pottery was used in almost every area of life, and the pottery industry was one of the most close-to-home.  Take a look around your home or office and notice any container - regardless of the size or what it contains.  Chances are, in Jeremiah's time what you see was served by pottery, from drinking containers to storage systems.  Peterson notes that the invention of pottery signaled a revolution that we call "civilization" - the Neolithic Age.  It's difficult to imagine life without containers to hold things in and store things - life would be reduced to what we could manage in a single day with what we could hold in our hands.  But in addition to the practical impact of the invention of pottery, it also became an art form, an outlet of human creative expression.  Like a human being in God's hand, clay pots have a utilitarian usefulness, but they are so much more than that.  They are an artistic creation of the potter's hand, each unique and valuable. (Run with the Horses, ch.6)

Jeremiah 18:3-6

• So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.  Then the word of the Lord came to me.  He said, “Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?” declares the Lord. “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel.

The particular aspect of the making of pottery that Jeremiah notices?  When the clay got messed up: "but the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands."   What does the potter do when the pot he's working on is turning out badly?  He starts over, destroying what he's done so far by squeezing the clay back into a lump.  Then Jeremiah gets it.  The word of the Lord comes to him - God is in the midst of squeezing his beloved-yet-messed-up people back into a lump to start over and reshape as it seems best to Him.

Hope - God Loves Us Just As We Are...

Eugene Peterson points out a significant truth throughout this particular pottery episode in Jeremiah's ministry: God never throws away the clay.  No matter how misshapen the soft pot on the wheel becomes, the potter continues to value the raw material he's working with.  Applying this to our lives, we see a God who values us so highly that he is willing to reshape us into something good when we've become something bad.  God the creator/shaper of our lives continues to stay with us and work on us and in us no matter what.  The "no-matter-what" of Jeremiah's day was downright evil; it can be like that, can't it?

A Painful Process - ...But Loves Us Too Much to Let Us Stay That Way

If God will always be accepting of how we live, no matter how malformed in relation to the eye of his creative intent, then our relationship with God will never involve pain.  But it will never involve true love, either.  It would reveal a God who - when all is said and done - simply doesn't care enough to meddle in our lives.  His contentedness with our misshapen form would amount to the clay being ignored and rejected by the potter.  But God does indeed care about us enough to form and reform us according to God's creative intent.  God has a goal for us, and partners with us to get us there.  

We can't overlook the fact that being squeezed back into a lump of clay on the potter's wheel hurts.  For Jeremiah's community, it would mean exile...for those who survived.  But we are a part of God's family today because God rebuilt & reformed His people according to His creative intent.  And yes, this not only involved a return from exile, but also the incarnation of God in the form of His Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ.  The Advent anticipation of His birth begins in a little more than a week!

Key Quote:

"Being a Christian ... means being thrown on the potter's wheel and shaped, our entire selves, into something useful and beautiful.  And when we are not useful or beautiful we are reshaped. Painful, but worth it." (Eugene Peterson, Run with the Horses, p. 80)

Reflection Questions:

• What are some of the ways that we resist being shaped or molded by God?
• Here's one view of how it looked for the people of Israel: "Yet my people have forgotten me; they burn incense to worthless idols, which made them stumble in their ways, in the ancient paths." (Jeremiah 18:15)
• When has God shown patient love to you, sticking with you and starting over to form you after messing up?
• What can we do to partner with God's formative touch in our lives?
• What pain, frustration, or hardship might we experience by allowing God to form our lives?

Connections

The potter image has been set to music for worship.  Jeremiah's visit to the potter's house deepens our appreciation of these lyrics.

In 1907 a woman in God’s process of calling her to be a missionary in Africa penned this hymn:

Have Thine Own Way

Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!

Thou art the Potter, I am the clay.

Mold me and make me after Thy will,

While I am waiting, yielded and still.

In the early 1980's, this song emerged from Vineyard Community:

Change My Heart, Oh God
Change my heart oh God
Make it ever true
Change my heart oh God
May I be like You
You are the potter
I am the clay
Mold me and make me
This is what I pray

A few years ago, the acoustic rock group Caedmon's Call sang this song:

The Hands of the Potter by Caedmon's Call