“Art or Destruction”
Sermon Presented September 5, 2010
Jeremiah 18:1-12
One of my favorite art museums in Paris is the Auguste Rodin Museum – housing the greatest collection of Rodin’s sculpture in the world. As Christopher and I meandered through the museum and gardens, we saw small sculptures of marble, granite, bronze and clay inside the museum, as well as larger than life sculptures of marble and bronze in the gardens. We were amazed at the variety of mediums – from clay, plaster and ceramics to bronze, granite and marble. Rodin’s famous Gates of Hell, inspired by Dante’s Inferno, is a masterpiece in itself, but individual sections are smaller versions of larger masterpieces. For example, the massive sculpture titled The Thinker is in the garden, but a smaller version appears in bronze in The Gates of Hell as well as in smaller marble sculptures inside the museum.
Rodin was a master artist. He usually began his sculpting process with a drawing, and then produced a clay model. Next he created a small sculpture of marble before beginning a larger than life work in that medium. There is little room for correcting mistakes in a marble statue, thus the drawings, clay and small marble sculptures were used by Rodin to good advantage.
In our text this morning, God approaches the prophet Jeremiah with a message for the people of Judah, and God wants the message to be visual so that it isn’t lost. Thus, God sends Jeremiah to the shop of the potter – an artist of that day who created functional art. I’m reading Jeremiah 18:1-12.
Yesterday I co-officiated at the wedding of a member of my Rotary club, and I was reminded again of commitment. We make life commitments to a spouse in a marriage ceremony; commitments to our children as they mature; and commitments to God. And we all know from experience that keeping commitments isn’t easy. There is always someone out there who is more attractive, more intelligent, more fun, or more successful that the spouse we committed to. There are always business obligations or opportunities for pleasure that cause us to break commitments to our children. And we are constantly bombarded with temptations to break our commitments to God in favor of things or pleasure. Someone else or something else seems to offer greater promise. True commitment over the long haul is difficult, to say the least!
The people of Judah have abandoned their commitment to God. Because they have forgotten God, God grieves for them. However, God wants to give them another chance to get back on the right track, so the prophet Jeremiah is called into service. The job of prophets isn’t easy or popular, because the message they are called to speak requires change – change that is difficult to follow through with. God wants to enhance the prophet’s understanding by giving him a visual image of the complaint God has against the people – that there is a causal relationship between our actions and God’s actions. However, God also wants to give the people a glimpse of hope.
I tend to remember what I see and experience much more than what I hear. Any elementary school teacher will attest that I am not alone. God understands human nature and what it takes to remember a lesson. So when the people of Israel break their commitment to God, God gives the prophet a poignant lesson that takes place at the potter’s wheel.
Anyone who has observed a potter at work knows that working the clay is messy and demanding. The artist is spattered from head to toe with clay, as she or he works the clay, pressing and shaping it to bring forth something useful and/or beautiful. The vessel the potter envisions frequently grows misshapen as too much or too little pressure is exerted, or one side of the vessel becomes too thin, or the shape doesn’t develop as intended. When this happens, the potter wads up the clay, and begins again. (Bruce C. Birch, Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol. 4, p. 29)
Jeremiah observes this process, and the word of the Lord comes to him, making the work of the potter into a metaphor for the way God works with communities and nations. In this teaching, God’s people become the clay, and God is the divine potter. The lesson is that God has the power to shape, destroy, and shape again. (ibid)
God declares that if Judah turns from its evil ways, God will change God’s mind. I was an adult before I ever heard anything about the possibility that God’s mind isn’t set on a pre-determined path. Many people declare that God determines the course of the future and stays fixed on that course. However, this text states God responds to repentance. To repent means to make a 180 degree turn.
The word of a prophet isn’t a popular word, but a hard word. A prophet is lonely in his community, and his word was invariably greeted with skepticism and regarded as foolishness. Prophets understood that their word from God was for service to and for the community, but the community didn’t always want to hear the word. (Thomas Steagald, Feasting…, p. 28)
Picasso once suggested that “art is a lie that helps us see the truth.” (ibid) God offers a variation on this thought. What Jeremiah sees at the potter’s house is the truth to help Israel see the lie. Yes, God is the same “yesterday, today, and forever” as the writer of Hebrews states, but God’s plans change according to the actions of God’s people. (ibid, p. 30)
Nations and communities face choices! Churches face choices! People face choices! And sometimes the word of God through the contemporary prophet can shape a community if the community is willing to listen. I have just finished Greg Mortenson’s most recent book – Stones into Schools. If you haven’t read it, you may have read his first book Three Cups of Tea. Mortenson was plopped into a small Pakistani mountain community after he was unable to complete his climb to the summit of the mountain K2. While people of that community nursed Mortenson back to health, he was moved by their deep desire to educate their daughters and granddaughters.
What began in 1999 as a promise to build a school for girls in the community of Korphe, Pakistan, has now mushroomed into helping shape two nations, Pakistan and Afghanistan, through education – primarily for girls. Since that time, more than 130 schools have been completed and teachers and supplies provided. This work began with the individual commitment of one American who saw a need and helped to meet that need. God’s message may be for the nation, but God usually calls individuals or prophets to speak the word of vision and provide the initial labor.
The discarded clay can be remixed and reshaped. God can raise out of the ruins of a community’s self-indulgence or indifference, a new faithfulness and a new usefulness. But we need to hear the word from God and then act on that word.
Just as working with clay is messy, the creative work of God in the world is also messy. Working for justice – showing mercy – can put us in conflict with the world.
We mustn’t forget that this text ends with a note of judgment. The people refused to listen to God. No more re-shaping this clay because they don’t want to fix the problem. When people and nations choose to disregard God’s word over and over again, the potter is left with no choice but to scrape the clay off the wheel. God is determined out of love for the world to shape communities that bear witness to the redemptive purposes of God. But communities must respond positively to God’s message. (Sally A. Brown, Feasting…, Year C, Vol. 4, p. 31)
At the end of the day, a potter steps away from the wheel covered with the stuff of her art. Jeremiah invites us to envision God up to the elbows in our making and remaking. (ibid)
Mistakes are inevitable in making pottery and in shaping lives. But mistakes don’t call for disposing of the clay or the person but the necessity of reworking it. God sticks with the process of formation so that the failed process can begin again and become transformational. However, when we harden our hearts and refuse to allow God to shape us, then it’s impossible to rework our lives. People, churches, and nations can become so rigid that God can’t do anything with us.
The message of our text is that it’s not too late to avoid destruction. Trust the potter to remake us. Recognize our folly, repent, and turn back to God.
Life is filled with choices. We can allow God to help us become the person God wants us to be, or we can move farther away from God, allowing our commitments to die. We wonder: “How could the people of Israel ignore the message from God when the stakes were so high?” But we also know that we are they, and we ignore dangers by continuing on the path we have chosen. It takes commitment and courage to change. God wants to shape us – individually and as a body. Will we allow it? Are we open to becoming art or destruction?
09/05/2010
