St. Paul’s United Church Sunday, August 29, 2010
Cracked, Shattered and Wonky – Rev. David Mundy
Jeremiah 18:1-11 Psalm 139 Luke 14:25-33
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Last Sunday I shared a story with you from my continuing education event
in New Mexico late in June. Well, I have another from that week, although this
one is not about my course, but from another that was happening at the same
time. Ghost Ranch in New Mexico is a Presbyterian conference centre which often
has half a dozen or more programs running concurrently, with hundreds of people
involved.
The only time participants gather together is for meals and there can be
long lines for the eating hall. One day I found myself doing the lunchtime
shuffle next to a native guy whose name I gathered was Michael from his
instructor’s tag. I chatted him up and discovered he
was the teacher for a program on Pueblo pottery, and because we love pottery I
plied him with a bunch of questions. I think that in an act of self defence he
invited me to look in on the firing of the pots and other objects made by the
students later in the week, and I did.
Pueblo and Navajo pottery is created differently from what we imagine
happens. Instead of a potter’s wheel which shapes the clay, the potter creates
clay coils which are used to form the object, and then smoothed. I discovered
that the firing or the baking of the pots is different as well. Instead of
being placed in a kiln, which is essentially a big oven, the objects are
settled into the coals of the fire which is augmented by cow manure to add a
lovely traditional aroma.
I took a few photos of the process, which show the various creations
before and during and after the firing. A number of variables in this firing
process can lead to an uncertain outcome. It is hard to regulate the heat in a
fire built in a hole in the ground, so sometimes the perfectly formed pots
emerge cracked, wonky or –worst scenario – shattered. In the mystery of pottery making two objects
which are glazed in exactly the same way come out in different colours.
Needless to say, participants who may have flown from other parts of the
country for the course are disappointed when their work, patiently created, is
either destroyed or doesn’t meet expectations. I spoke with one woman who was
consoled by instructor Michael’s philosophical and spiritual approach. He
offered that this is what happens on the journey with the Creator – big C.
There are times when we are misshapen or broken, but that doesn’t mean that the
time has been wasted, nor that we can’t start again.
So don’t spend too much time or energy lamenting. I could tell that she was
reassured by this despite her disappointment. The message was that the Creator
and the creator can begin again.
During the summer we have been listening to gospel passages from Luke,
moving methodically through a portion of this New Testament book. Today we also
heard from two Old Testament passages as well, both of them rich with imagery.
One, the psalm, portrays God as the Divine Knitter, who lovingly forms
us before we are even born. Actually, it’s unlikely that the intent was for us
to imagine God with knitting needles in hand, but why not be imaginative!
The other, the passage from Jeremiah, suggests that God is the Divine
Potter, who shapes and reshapes us as individuals and as a community. The
prophet Jeremiah reluctantly accepted his role as the one who would call Israel
back to faithfulness, and his reservations were justified. No one really wanted
to listen to what he had to say, because it was so blunt and at times abrasive
and the reaction was often hostile.
This passage is autobiographical. Jeremiah says that he is sent by God
to the potter’s shop to watch the craftsman at his wheel. In ancient times
potters had an important and practical role in the community because they made
everything from eating bowls to small oil lamps to large water jars. We need to
pay attention to this context because in our day, we tend to see potters as
craftspeople who make pieces that are beautiful and
decorative rather than functional. The
potter Jeremiah visited was practical and designs that were too fanciful
wouldn’t survive.
Jeremiah watches the potter shape and reshape his work, and then God
says to him, do you get it? Remember that according to the early chapters of
Genesis God formed the first human, Adam –literally Earth Person – from the
dust and then animates him with his breath. So here God reminds Jeremiah that
God is still forming and shaping us, often taking us through a painful process
of spiritual redesign and reordering of values. This passage is not meant to be
just gentle or poetic, as we could see at the conclusion. It is both cautionary
and encouraging.
How are you doing on the potter’s wheel these days? Are you feeling that
you are being shaped into something functional, perhaps even beautiful? Or are
you feeling cracked, shaken, and wonky?
I suppose that there are times when we aren’t really sure which of these
descriptions fits best. One thing for certain, all of us as individuals go
through those painful times when life is not what we had hoped for or intended,
or worked toward. A few days ago I was describing to my wife Ruth two very sad
situations which people in our congregation are living through right now, one
of which is a life and death illness. She shook her head and wisely observed
that we could practically go through the congregation on a Sunday morning, pew
by pew, and name the difficulties which folk have dealt with or are currently
facing. It’s true.
And until we go through the intense heat of life’s pain we aren’t really
sure how we will respond. From my
perspective it is nothing short of a miracle that some people experience
tremendous hardships but choose, through the grace of God and with the support
of others, to carry on with hope and purpose.
But if we use the image of the potter’s wheel, there are the people who
experience that pain of loss or disappointment and then seem to spin and spin
in place, stuck in that dizzying cycle without ever fully moving back into the
activities of daily living.
Some individuals become very brittle and perhaps angry at God, feeling
that God has let them down or even shaped evil against them, to use that rather
unsettling phrase from the passage. We know this is not what we desire for the
lives of those for whom we care, or for ourselves, yet it can be difficult to
open ourselves to new possibilities.
We can also use this image of the potter shaping the clay for the body
of Christ, the church as well. In our United Church we have come to realize
that we are in a time of serious reshaping of who we are and what we will look
like into the future, even though we may be reluctant to change.
Last year the General Council of the United Church gathered for its
triennial meeting. You may not know much about General Council, but it is a
meeting which happens in a different place in the country every few years to
discuss important issues affecting our entire denomination with representatives
from across the country. The theme, which is actually the United Church’s theme
for three years is Down to the Potter’s House,
and the theme passage is the first few verses of today’s reading.
Being reshaped as the body of Christ can be a daunting experience.
Again, we can spin in circles or become bitter or brittle. The temptation in
the church is to become nostalgic, harking back to an earlier day where, of
course, everything was perfect.
I have talked with a number of colleagues in ministry in recent months
who are feeling cracked, and wonky, and even shattered under the weight of
expectations from their congregations. In some situations bickering and
finger-pointing has become the reality of their communities,
One hard-working minister, who I know is respected by her folk, told me that she tried to get the two
congregations she serves to do some visioning and goal-setting. The smaller
church told her that a goal should be to double the size of the congregation in
three years, and it was clear that this was her job. Her comment to me was that
while she believes in the work of the Holy Spirit, she wants this congregation
to ask how the Spirit will enliven them to be the church for today, not their
image of yesteryear.
So what will it be for as individuals and as the Body of Christ? How
will we frame the circumstances of our lives?
Will we choose to merely exist, cracked, shattered, wonky, or will we
accept that God isn’t done with us yet, and open ourselves to the reshaping of
our existence in creative ways?
The Good News is that we are people of a “hands on” God, the God who has
come to us in the person of Jesus the Christ. The message of our Christian
faith is one of salvation, of transformation, of renewal when we turn in a new
direction -repentance to use traditional language – and begin again.
Perhaps we need to go down to the potter’s house mentally, spiritually
every day to ask for a renewal of our personal and communal vision. Jeremiah was told to go and pay attention to
what he saw and to appreciate the practical craft of the potter. We can
approach the Divine Potter to learn and change and grow as Christ’s people.
I know that there are people here this morning who feel at the end of
their resources for a variety of reasons that are very real. Christ is with you
and we will journey with you as you make your way forward. The psalmist tells
us that we are “fearfully and wonderfully made,” not garbage to be tossed aside
and this is a wonderful affirmation of God’s love and our worth.
At General Council last year worship at the end of one day concluded
with a prayer adapted from a second century Christian theologian named Iraneus:
It is not we who shape God:
it is God who shapes us.
If then we are the work of God,
let us await the hand of the Artist
who does all things in due season.
We offer the Potter our hearts,
soft and tractable,
and keep the form in which
the Artist fashioned us.
May our clay remain moist,
lest we grow hard and lose
the imprint of the Potter’s fingers.
Amen!