September 8, 2013
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
When we were married over 40 years ago, the most popular dishware was melamine plastic that came in different colors and almost unbreakable. It’s now a fashionable collectible! Isn’t this the same stuff that they found in baby formula in China?
But then when we got more established and thought that we can actually not break any dishes, we graduated to stoneware. They were heavy just like it’s name and when you drop one of these pieces; they wouldn’t always shatter but they usually damaged everything else it might have hit.
Now we have a set of dishes that are more Japanese in style with different earth-tone colors and after so many years of everyday use, I’m sad to say that we don’t have 12 pieces of each anymore. I know I am responsible for at least 2-3 broken pieces!
But isn’t it interesting that when we visit a nice home furnishing gift store when we are on vacation that we would always be attracted to hand-made clay dishes and pots. There’s something about these pieces being one of a kind. Each piece has the potter’s name inscribed on the bottom and the price tag confirms its uniqueness. There are no 12 pieces of the same clay creation that are identical.
Jeremiah
In the Scripture that we read today from Jeremiah, the prophet wondered if the people of Israel knew how to get to the Potter’s House. Around 600 BC during the last years of the southern kingdom of Judah and the first years of its exile, the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah: “Come, go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear my words” (vv. 1-2).
Jeremiah might have wondered why he had to go there, because God could have given him his word where he was sitting. The prophet followed a well-known dirt road across a dry-riverbed and found the potter working at his wheel. When Jeremiah obediently went as the Lord instructed, he came to a much more profound understanding of what God would say.
Jeremiah realized that the work of the potter was an illustration of how God was shaping the people of Israel. The clay in the potter’s hand was exactly like Israel in God’s hand. The prophet realized that God controls the fate of entire groups of people as easily as a potter manipulates a lump of clay. Jeremiah said, “The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand and he reworked it into another vessel, as seemed good to him” (v. 4).
Sometimes the clay starts off looking bad, but then improves. “At one moment,” says the Lord, “I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, but if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will change my mind about the disaster that I intended to bring it” (vv. 7-8).
At other times, the clay begins by looking good but then goes bad. “At that moment,” says God, “I will declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, but if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will change my mind about the good that I had intended to do to it” (vv. 9-10).
Jeremiah is reminding us that God is in control, constantly working and reworking us into vessels that seem good to him. If we turn from evil, says Jeremiah, we’ll be shaped into something wonderful. If we persist in ignoring God and living selfish and sinful lives, we’ll be radically refashioned.
In the hymn, “Have Thine Own Way, Lord,” we sing,
Thou art the potter, I am the clay.
Mold me and make me after thy will,
While I am waiting, yielded and still.
The question before us is do we know the way to the Potter’s House? We might be drawn to the nice gift shop in a vacation town where they sell one of a kind pottery but do we know how to get to God’s house?
And with today’s modern living, we’re not so good at waiting anymore—let alone remaining “yielded and still.” We want to make and mold our own lives, instead of allowing ourselves to be made and molded. We’ll buy a new set of dishware while the old set is still useable just because we want an upgrade. We want to have our own way, not the way of the divine potter.
Potter’s House
To get to the Potter’s House, we begin with learning the right address. God commanded Jeremiah to first rise up and then go down to the lower elevation of the potter’s house. Here at FCBC, we can say that our church is a room in the Potter’s House.
At this particular location, God is not expecting us to show up in some kind of perfect final form, nor is God waiting to jump on us and smash us for our sins. In the Potter’s House, God shapes us into the people he wants us to be. We are permitted to be works in progress.
At the Potter’s House, we are invited to make a right turn. The word that is repeated in this passage is “turn.” God speaks of a nation that “turns from its evil” (v. 8) and calls for Israel to “Turn now, all of you from your evil way” (v. 11). God also says that “I will change my mind” about a nation that turns from its evil (v. 8), and “I will change my mind” about a nation that turns toward evil (v. 10). The language of turning and changing is the language of molding and making. Nothing is fixed; everything is changing and can become better.
And when we arrived at the Potter’s House, allow the potter to work with your clay as he chooses. Allow God to shape you and reshape you. Don’t worry about what shape you are in now; the potter can reshape you. Don’t fixate on the flaws of the past; the potter can purify you. Don’t stress about wrong turns you’ve made in the past; the potter can help you move in a new direction.
In the Potter’s House, you are ever-changing clay in the divine potter’s hand.
Being Reshaped
In Georgia, there’s a social service center called The Potter’s House. In this agency, discarded people such as drug addicts and alcoholics learn to re-enter society by fixing people’s discarded appliances. There are two simultaneous processes of recycling going on: drug addicts and alcoholics are rehabilitated as they rehabilitate cast-off appliances. There is no waste in the Potter’s House as individuals collect old appliances, repair them and sell them, only to discover that they themselves are repaired in the process.
There’s no waste in the Potter’s House. The potential of all humanity rests in the idea that God does not create waste, God recycles! There are people who have tough times in life and they may feel that they cannot make it any longer. But God does not create waste. Fortunately, God is ready and eager to take what is broken and fix it; what is wounded and heal it; what is defiled and cleanse it; what is bitter and sweeten it; what is impure and purify it; what is incomplete and make it whole; what is ugly and turn it into something that is beautiful.
Are you ready for God to recycle you? Don’t wait until your pot has become hardened and irretrievably brittle. But come and visit the Potter’s House to see how he will shape you and reshape you and when you turn right, he will give you a complete do-over and reform you after the image of God in Jesus Christ.
Today we started our Fall Sunday school classes at 10:00. Have you considered making it a priority to attend a class so that God would reshape you into his image? In a couple of weeks, I’ll be starting my next Inquirers Class for those who have pondered the meaning of becoming a Christian and accepting Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior and the meaning of church membership at this church. Have you considered taking this step on the way to the Potter’s House to permit God to reform and transform you to be his loving disciple?
God the Potter is not limited to reshaping our personal lives but sometimes, we acknowledge that this is never an easy task. According to Jeremiah, God, the Potter can recast the divine destiny of nations. If the nation turns from its evil, God will change his mind about the disaster that he intended to bring on it. And if God has declared that he will build up a nation, but then it does evil, God will change his mind about the good he had intended for it.
We are called to not only be concerned for our individual outcomes. We are called to participate fully in the righteousness and justice of nations and countries on earth. A couple of weeks ago, we commemorated the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Seeing the situation with Black men we have in Oakland today, this dream has not yet been fulfilled. There is still evil in our nation.
We can’t turn away from the violence and daily dying of innocent people in so many countries around the earth—Egypt, Iraq, and Afghanistan. And as we worship this morning, the United States is preparing for military strikes against Syria for using sarin gas that poisoned and killed thousands of citizens. For us to enjoy our relatively peaceful existence and not recognize that there is still evil in the world makes us accomplices to the crime. God, the Potter desires to reshape us and reform us to be in his own image. God’s heart is to reshape and reform all the nations in the world.
The Lord said, “Turn now, all of you from your evil way, and amend your ways and your doings” (v. 11b).
Amend Your Ways
Amend your ways. Amend your doings. Allow the divine Potter to make you and mold you, according to his will. Open yourself to being filled with the Holy Spirit, until—as the old hymn says—all shall see “Christ only, always, living in me.”
Such transformation is painful, because we like our own ways. We prefer our own doings. Waiting for God and yielding to God run counter to our daily routines.
But unless we find the Potter’s address, we will never be shaped into the people, God wants us to be. We’ll end up being less loving, less graceful, less hopeful, less connected and content than we could be. We’ll never experience the truly abundant and everlasting life that we could enjoy.
So take a turn toward the place where God will remold you. The next time you visit one of those nice gift shops that have one of a kind pottery, pick up a piece and examine how unique it is just like how unique and special you are because God in Jesus Christ is waiting to reshape and reform you into the person who is right with God and right with neighbors—one who shows Jesus to the world.
When you might work on a project like carpentry and you made a mistake in cutting a piece of wood, it’s a cause for despair. But clay is a highly forgiving medium. When the potter’s clay suddenly collapses, turning inside out, the potter simply moistens his hands and picks up that mass of clay once again, forming it into a ball. He slaps the ball down upon the wheel, centers it, and sets it to spinning again.
God invites you to come to the Potter’s House where he wants to reshape and reform you into someone who is beautiful again.
Let us pray.
You are the potter and we are the clay. You are the author, and we are a part of the story that is told. You are the creator, and we are the created. Yet we confess that we have elevated ourselves to the center of our universe. You, God, are the source and ground of good. In our pride we have not consulted your word. Jesus puts others first, he challenged the powerful, and he lifted up the meek and suffering, but we have made it our priority to preserve the status quo, especially when it has meant preserving our possessions and our wealth for our own use. Like clay, remold and remake us, so that when others see us they will praise you, Holy Artist, who designs the best in our lives. As we take hold of the life that is real life, we pray you will take hold of us and shape us into true servants and disciples. This we pray in your name. Amen.