It is interesting that different words that mean almost the same thing can have very different meanings in the way we use them. For example, if we see the word “re-create,” which means literally “to create again,” we think of “recreation,” with the meaning of spending time away from work and daily cares—as many people do on vacation this time of year.
If we think of the word “re-form,” which means “to form again,” we might think of “reformatory,”—a place youth who have gotten themselves in trouble are sent to, a kind of jail, where imposed discipline can perhaps change their lives toward a new direction.
If we think of the word “renovate,” which means to “re-pair” and “re-design,” we think of sprucing up our house or other property.
What God Said to Jeremiah
All these words can go back to where God sent Jeremiah in today’s first reading. God sent Jeremiah to the potter’s shed. Jeremiah saw the potter working there on his potter’s wheel, making pottery out of clay by shaping it with his hands while it spun around on the wheel. If the clay was mis-formed, the potter simply let it fold over itself on the wheel. Then he reshaped it into a better formed object. It was recreated, reformed, renovated.
God then said to Jeremiah, “Can I not do to you, house of Israel, as this potter has done? Indeed, like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, house of Israel.”
Jeremiah was a prophet with a terrible job. He was a prophet before and during the fall of Jerusalem. In his early years, he supported the reforms of King Josiah. It was during this time that God sent Jeremiah to the potter’s shed in today’s reading. Jeremiah and King Josiah worked hard to form again the people of Israel into God’s design for them. But, when Josiah died on the battlefield in 609 BCE, the reforms ended. Old practices in opposition to God returned. Then Jerusalem fell to Nebuchadnezzar just twenty years later–in 587 BCE.
The Potter’s Work
A potter can re-form clay easily when it is soft on the wheel. But that is not the only way the potter can work. A clay object may be broken or mis-formed when it comes out of the kiln. It can be used for years and then broken. Even these hardened objects can be re-formed by the potter. He must simply break them and grind them into clay powder again, mix them with water, and put them back on the potter’s wheel.
That is a longer, harder process for both potter and clay, but it can re-shape, re-form, re-create, renovate the clay nonetheless.
We know, of course, that Jesus was part of God’s reforming the clay of the nation Israel by the longer, harder way.
Jesus, the Master Potter, with His Disciples
In today’s Gospel Jesus is finishing a discussion with his disciples. They have been trying to understand how and why Jesus is teaching the way he does. He is re-forming, re-creating, re-novating them. They have been out healing and teaching. They have seen Jesus feed the 5000. They have had some down time with him afterwards. Now they are back listening to him teach through parables and metaphors. If I were there, I would now be thinking, “You’ve taught me to heal and cast out demons. You’ve taught me to teach and call people to repentance. I have learned that I can do that. But you want me tell these stories? How do I do that?”
The Gospel today is perhaps a way that Jesus is opening the disciples up to be re-formed, re-created, re-novated. He is teaching them to pull from life, from experience, from the old and the new. Several of them are fishermen. They know how fishermen sort what they catch in their nets—keeping what is good to eat and throwing away what is not. Some are educated, like scribes, and can understand that learning is always integrating new information and awareness with old. Probably all of them have experienced living in houses and bringing out what is needed from storehouses.
So Jesus continues to teach them “straight doctrine” by mixing it with parables, images, and experiences which his disciples know. He is preparing them for their next step in their discipleship. With Peter’s confession of faith (“You are the Christ”) and the Transfiguration, Jesus’ focus changes. Instead of simply healing and teaching, he begins to focus on the coming cross. He begins to predict his passion.
This change occurs in our readings within the next week. The Church is preparing us, too.
Applications for Us
This is a time of year when we can be re-created with vacations, when we can think of how we can be re-formed with more discipline as autumn and a new school year begins. For me, it is a time for re-novation of my home. My grandson and I are painting and fixing it up.
The question for me this morning is, “How is God working with me on the potter’s wheel?”
Am I soft clay today that only needs to be re-shaped in more perfect form? Or am I a mess and need God to grind me down and start over? Am I broken already and need God to put me back together in a new way?
As I face the day, it seems I am soft clay today–though it is clear that I am being re-created, re-formed, and re-novated. God is preparing me to enter fully into new work with the Carebound and new writing this fall. I am mostly soft and open to this–though there are a few places where God shows me I need a softer heart.
Even as I look forward to experience God’s molding, I recall how, on other days I have been broken, so God had to sweep me up and grind me down.
I am a piece of work for God. I’m glad he is both Master Potter and patient with his work, willing to start over when he needs to.
Our world is a mess. It needs re-forming, re-creating, re-novation. Our Church tells us laity, that is our work. We are to be the potters as we live our lives as Christians.
Time to quit writing and move on over to the potter’s wheel. What can I do today as an “apostled disciple”—meaning one who is a learner who is also sent?
Prayer:
Lord, lead me and guide me today. Form me on your potter’s wheel. Round me out. Build me up. Make me smooth. Form me to be useful to you. Then send me out with the little potter’s wheel of my work and relationships today. Let me take from old and new. Help me let go of what needs to be let go of. Stay with me and guide my hands, as, like Jeremiah, I do what I can where I am. Amen.
