Isaiah 64:1-8 Jeremiah 18:1-11
Both of our passages today mention the centering force of a potter’s hands-on clay, so I want to invite you once again into a time of centering prayer. I invite you to become aware of your breath. Don’t overthink it. Just breathe. If it helps to breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth, you can. If you want to close your eyes, you can. In the beginning, the breath of God hovered over the waters of chaos and breathed life into all things. It is that same breath that you breathe right now. Know that God is as close as your breath and your beating heart, as close as the breath and beating hearts of those around you. If your eyes are closed, please open them, and I invite you all to remain in your awareness of God’s presence as we explore God’s word together.
This is the second of four sermons on passages from the Prophet Jeremiah, and as I have studied these passages over the last few weeks, I’ve realized that they seem to connect with what Psychologists might call our core emotions. If you’ve seen the movie Inside Out, then you know that part of growing up is integrating these emotions, but sometimes it’s a good idea to see what’s at the base of what we think and feel.
Is it love, anger, joy, sadness, or fear? Some people define those emotions differently, but that’s pretty much the base code behind the way we interpret information and react to it from an emotional standpoint.
Last week was about righteous anger, although what we dealt with was the hope that we have in becoming involved in God’s work of redemption and restoration. That was how we were able to see past the anger we feel when things aren’t right, and it’s also how we know that God doesn’t want to be angry with us. God wants to involve us in the solutions that God is working out.
Today’s reading is not a whole lot different, except it deals more with the fear and sadness, and perhaps grief, that comes with loss. The hope we are offered is that God is actively building us up, even when we think that we are being torn down.
Before we get ahead of ourselves, though, let’s talk about these readings a bit. Many scholars believe that the section of Isaiah that our reading comes from was written after the Babylonian exile, and the issues people were facing were that the community they returned to was not the one they left. Infrastructure was busted, and people grabbed for power and put others down just like before. Some even went after old gods.
The prophet is clearly frustrated but calls out with a sense that maybe they brought it on themselves a bit. Verse 6 says, “We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth.” Ew. What a horrible self-image, huh?
Apart from that, there are two things I want you to notice here: the Prophet is frustrated because the people have sinned, but hope is still present because God is God.
When it comes to Jeremiah it’s important to remember that last week, we established the priority of God that we must care for those who have less agency, less ability, less opportunity to make choices on their own. In chapter 18 that becomes shortened to “evil.” Well, more specifically, evil is used as a way to describe what it looks like when we are at odds with God and working in cross purposes. In verse 11, God even says, “I’m shaping evil against you.”
Hold up. God is doing what? It’s important to note here that this was written before our dualistic understanding of bad and good. Everything was attributed to God. Good and evil were not two spiritual forces in competition. Good was simply the reality of God’s blessing (like rain for crops) or the result of our intentional responses to the blessings of God. Likewise, evil was the result of neglecting God’s blessings and living in denial of God’s care. Evil was seen as the way God encouraged greater faith or punished the unjust.
Again, both of these readings were about making sense of tragedy, but they were also written with the expectation of a collective, even theocratic, national response. In fact, when Jeremiah says, “Hear of House of Israel” he is talking to people who know that around a generation or less prior, the northern Kingdom of Israel fell to Assyria and never came back. As the “People of Judah,” they are not just part of the “House of Israel,” they are all that’s left.
Of course, we know as followers of Jesus that there is more to our faith and our history and our shared lineage with our Jewish siblings than a call to nationalism. We know that there is space for patriotism without the expectation that our nation is the only nation in which God has been active and present in human history.
I only bring that up because sometimes it seems like we think that’s not true when we wrap crosses with flags and interpose the stars and stripes in places that the mercy of God is a better fit. I only say that because the scripture proclaims a God that says, “I can use that nation over there as easy as I can use this one.”
That’s not to say that God is capricious. God doesn’t suddenly decide to break down and tear up. God is simply telling us the consequences when we live in opposition to God. It’s not a threat. It’s a promise.
That said, there’s only so far that we can go with the idea of a theocracy or a nationalist identity, and I’m not so sure that’s really what God wants anyway. God definitely wants us to demonstrate love and mercy and to live as citizens of the Kingdom and household of God, and God clearly wants us to do it together. The Bible is not a self-help book with basic instructions for a personal ethic so much as it is an example of what life together as God’s people can and should be like.
It certainly has instructions for personal ethics, but if that’s all it is then what’s the point of the church? I’ll tell you. The point of the church is to demonstrate the uncommon types of relationships that God calls us into. Sometimes when we celebrate communion you may hear me say that we have been joined in a common union. I like thinking of the church that way – a common union – but lately, I’ve come to realize how uncommon it is to be united by grace and mercy.
Every aspect of our society seems bent on dividing us into factions or fueling an ideology of individualism that has no space for the level of interdependence that societies and relationships require. As God’s people, we are called to something else, and that can be frustrating. I said at the beginning that these passages deal with fear and sadness, and grief and loss, and I think that connects to the frustrations that we often feel – particularly in a small congregation.
Sometimes we look at the big church down the street and wonder what they are doing that we aren’t. All of the time we feel the ripples of hurt relationships and other losses more acutely than we might in a congregation of thousands. That doesn’t mean that one is more faithful than the other. It also doesn’t mean that God is going to tear down this congregation and build up another, but it could.
The hope that we can hold onto in all of this is that God is the one shaping and forming us. Yes, we have some work to do. Yes, it means that we as individuals have agency and responsibility to demonstrate love and mercy, and acceptance, but it also means that when we do (not if) we will be built into something we may not have imagined possible.
The hope for that is in the Potter’s hands. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to throw a pot on a wheel, but it’s not as easy as it looks. It requires a synthesis between the centrifugal force of the wheel, the pliability of the clay, and the physical exertion of the potter. I haven’t done it in years, but it’s really a special feeling of unity between your body and your mind and forces beyond control. There are times when it feels like the clay fights with you a bit, and there are times when it feels the clay is a part of you.
When it all comes together and the clay is centered, first you pull it up gently and firmly. Then you shape it. At any point, a careless move can ruin it. The weirdest thing is that it feels almost unnatural or supernatural when it’s really the most basic of actions and elements.
So it is with the uncommon unity that is the church. So, it is when we share one another burdens and celebrate one another’s victories! So, it is when we find that we are working in concert with God, and our fear and sadness are transformed into purpose and hope as we care for and with those in need.
Next week we’ll talk a little more about what that looks like as Jeremiah reaches out to those in exile in chapter 29. Until then, know that God is at work in your life, but even more so in the uncommon unity of those who demonstrate love and mercy as the people of God. Amen.
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