By David Wise
One day the prophet Jeremiah felt God tell him to visit the local potter’s house. Obedient, but puzzled, off Jeremiah went.
He drew near the house, which would have served as a shop too. Jeremiah saw the potter take a piece of clay and, having kneaded it to rid it of its bubbles, place it on the wheel rapidly spinning as her foot drove the treadle.
It was nearly complete, nearly ready for the kiln, when through a flaw in the material, the pot fell into a shapeless ruin. Broken pieces scattered across the wheel and the floor.
Jeremiah expected the potter to take some new clay and make something. Instead the potter used the broken material to create something new and beautiful.
The potter’s careful use of the material is impressive, as is her power of repairing loss and making something out of failure and disappointment.
This can be hard for us to understand; we live in a culture that tells us to dispose of that which is flawed. Our disposable society tells us to discard the broken television set and buy a new one. Our landfills are teeming with items no longer needed by the consumer. Computers are obsolete soon after purchased.
People who cannot conform to society norms or are disabled are sent to the fringes and need not be bothered with. Those folks who are poor and uneducated must be sent somewhere they do not have to be seen. How much easier would it be if we only had to deal with folks like us?
To use the analogy of the potter, God forms us back into the shapeless lump of clay and asks us to allow him to shape us into a beautiful and useful vessel. This process may not always feel good to us, the clay.
This process can include challenges we face in life, things that deflate or overwhelm us, criticism we receive from those who love us, or guilt we feel in our hearts because of things we know God doesn’t like.
But when we surrender ourselves amid this battering, this pounding, in the way God wants us to, we learn from it. In the way that the Spirit is leading us, something very wonderful can arise.
The potter and clay tell us we always have another chance — even when we have failed, even when we have lost the beauty we once had, even when we have gone off on a path that is not helpful. Even then God can rework us, salvage us, and make us beautiful, and it is God’s purpose to do so.
What was God thinking when he created you and me? I have often wondered.
I think back to a childhood of indulgence and self-centeredness. I wonder about all the times I have let the heavenly father down with my actions and my inactions. I wonder how many times he has had to rework my clay.
I praise God for never giving up on me, for being able to take the broken remnants of my life and make something hopefully worthwhile to all I meet and touch. I hope God will continue to take what is flawed in me and rework it into a tapestry of love and compassion.
I pray that God — through Jesus Christ — will continue to guide me, direct me and use me to show others his love.
Next time you admire fine pottery, think of the process the clay has gone through. Give praise to God for his love for you and for me; give praise to the Potter for his work over the clay.
Think of all the ways you have been touched, shaped and loved by the creator — the greatest potter of them all.
The Rev. David Wise is pastor of Otterbein United Methodist Church in Greenfield. This weekly column is written by local clergy members.
