The Potter’s Hands
Scripture References
Jeremiah 20:7-13
Jeremiah Persecuted by Pashhur
7 O LORD, you have deceived me, and I was deceived; you are stronger than I, and you have prevailed. I have become a laughingstock all the day; everyone mocks me. 8 For whenever I speak, I cry out, I shout, “Violence and destruction!” For the word of the LORD has become for me a reproach and derision all day long. 9 If I say, “I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,” there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot. 10 For I hear many whispering. Terror is on every side! “Denounce him! Let us denounce him!” say all my close friends, watching for my fall. “Perhaps he will be deceived; then we can overcome him and take our revenge on him.” 11 But the LORD is with me as a dread warrior; therefore my persecutors will stumble; they will not overcome me. They will be greatly shamed, for they will not succeed. Their eternal dishonor will never be forgotten. 12 O LORD of hosts, who tests the righteous, who sees the heart and the mind, let me see your vengeance upon them, for to you have I committed my cause. 13 Sing to the LORD; praise the LORD! For he has delivered the life of the needy from the hand of evildoers.
Romans 6:12-23
Slaves to Righteousness
12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. 13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. 14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. 15 What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, 18 and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. 19 I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification. 20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. 22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Matthew 10:5a – 21-23
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The Potter’s Wheel
Last summer we had the opportunity to attend the Great Passion Play in Eurika Springs Arkansas… Worthy of putting on your bucket list, by the way. The reason I bring this to your attention, is because during the day one of many attractions was a presentation called Parables From The Potter. As I was studying the scripture readings provided for today, this presentation come to mind. A message of how God, who is our Master Potter, molds and shapes us as the clay, masterfully demonstrated on this potter’s wheel.
For me this potter’s task was quite mesmerizing as he spun the large stone with his foot and worked the clay into a beautiful vessel. However, it was quite a process. You see, like the potter pointed out, the lump of clay on the wheel cannot shape itself. When the clay is placed on the wheel, it wobbles as it turns… emphasizing the importance of keeping the clay centered, moist and pliable, at the same time applying steady pressure until it no longer fights the hands that hold it…
It was interesting how this potter skillfully shaped that lump of clay while he talked about how we must place our trust in what God might be molding us to be and His desire to keep us centered in a world that is not.
Our Master Potter
Today, on this fourth Sunday after Pentecost, I would like for you to take a spin with me on the potter’s wheel. To consider the trust we must invest in our Father’s hands as we ask this difficult question… Is God shaping me… or is God hurting me? Our readings we heard a moment ago give us opportunity to ask this question out loud… Is God keeping me centered or are His hands a little rough?
A brief overview of our readings today reveals that Jeremiah in the Old Testament lesson did not seem to trust the potters’ hands. He seems to be stressed out with not being centered, so to speak, and thinks God’s hands are a little rigid.
In the Gospel lesson of Matthew 10, we hear Jesus speak hard words about the cost of discipleship and the call to trust when the wheel spins a bit fast with fear and persecution.
Then in the Epistle Lesson in Romans 6, Paul points us towards balancing that trust. For in Christ, we have been set free for a new life that does not end in death, but eternal life.
The Master Potter has His hands in all these readings. On this Father’s Day we will look at our Heavenly Fathers hands…the outside pressures we are faced with… How He shapes us… How to place our trust in His provision… And how we must secure that trust in our Potter’s hands.
Shaping or Hurting?
But then again, that is a lot to ask out of a lump of clay. I might be one of the first to admit that placing trust in something or someone is easier said than done.
In our world today, trust is continually being put to the test. Remember when a handshake would seal a deal and you could leave your doors unlocked? How far do you trust what you read on social media or the news you see on Television…? Do I dare admit there are times I don’t trust that God’s way is better than my way…
This is where Jeremiah was at. He says in verse 7, “Oh Lord, you have deceived me and I was deceived… you have overpowered me.” He has trouble with trusting the pressure of God’s hands. All he did was declare the truth to the church leaders about being exiled into Babylon and their eventual fate. Because of his message, they beat him and threw him in the stocks for this… so to speak, “fake news.” Now he is publicly shamed for it, he says “I have become a laughingstock all day long, everyone mocks me.” Nobody listened to him; nobody seemed to care. For Jeremiah, the wheel just sped up, and the clay was starting to wobble.
We see the same vulnerability on the wheel of the Gospel lesson. Jesus sends out the disciples in Matthew 10 with a hard message. He tells them straight up, “Brother will deliver brother over to death… and you will be hated by all because of my name.” The disciples are also wondering about the Potter’s hand as He sends them out with a warning. Family’s will be violently divided. There will be persecution, not everyone will receive them with hospitality or listen to their message. Being told that they will be hated for the sake of Jesus’ name is quite concerning.
Life Happens They Say
In each of these situations, do you suppose they would have questioned the shaping or the hurting…? With Jeremiah’s lament from rejection in proclaiming the truth, and Jesus’ hard facts about discipleship, it might have made them think twice about placing their trust in the Potters hands.
Does this at all sound familiar? Like the disciples and Jeremiah, we too are faced with situations that make it hard to trust. “Life” they say… happens. We have all been there. It is when things are not going so well that our faith is challenged. Before you know it, the wobbling starts… giving reason to think God’s hands might be a bit rough. Like Jeremiah we cry out “why me?”
But in all reality, that is what He is waiting for. For us to cry out to Him. He will then help us through those struggles and fears, ultimately giving us endurance as Paul would tell us. Giving us strength to trust in God’s plan during those difficult times when you think your faith is a bit off center.
That is why He waits for us to quit fighting the hands that hold us. As part of this shaping, our Fathers hands are waiting for us to surrender our fears, our anger, our struggles, because… like a father does… He cares. He comforts. He shows us unconditional love. For no reason other than we are His children.
Trust In His Hands
When we come to Him with these things, whether it feels like it or not, the one who comes to God with their despair, does so with a trust in Him. We saw this with Job, we saw this with Jonah and Elijah… Jesus even cried out in His humanity one of David’s quotes from Psalm 22, “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” His cry of pain and suffering was still a cry of faith from the One who trusted God. That’s why He wants to be a part of our fears and weaknesses…
It seems though, as Christians, we get a mindset that we are supposed to be stronger than that… supposed to always be cheerful and bubbly. Since we believe in an all-powerful God, we are not supposed to ask, “why do bad things happen?” We are not expected to have fears, or find ourselves struggling in our faith…
But as you know, we are not exempt from hardships just because we are Christians. That is why, as a lump of clay, we are spinning around on that potter’s wheel. That’s why He is shaping us to accept the fact that following Him will not be a walk in the park.
Sure, we are going to wobble and get out of balance. Because… we are called to live a Christian life. Called to live in a way that shows our faith, affecting how we treat others, how we serve, how or where we spend our time…
The Shaping
The Prophet Jeremiah then goes on to say, “If I say I will not mention him, or speak in his name,” then within me there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones… I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.”
Jeremiah shows a transition of trust from the clay to the Master Potter. Jesus is there to help us through this transition as well. He’s right there in every situation we get ourselves into… giving us assurance that His hand will keep us centered.
No matter how much the potter’s hands feel heavy and seem to hurt, trust is knowing the clay is still being shaped. Giving us an assurance that we can bring those hurts to God in prayer, refuse to let our daily troubles define reality, and cling to what is true. The Lord is watching us, the Lord is “with us like a dread warrior,” Jeremiah goes on to say, that God will “deliver the life of the needy from the hands of the evildoers.”
Jesus says three times in the Gospel lesson, the words we desperately need to hear, “Do not be afraid.” He doesn’t say it because our feelings are not real, He says it because our Father in Heaven is more real… “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your father… even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are more value than many sparrows.”
Then Jesus speaks a promise, giving us courage to trust His hands. Jesus assures us, “Everyone who acknowledges me before my Father in heaven, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven.” Trust is not only a feeling, but it also becomes a confession. It is saying, sometimes with a trembling voice, “I belong to Jesus.”
That confession is part of the shaping. The potter has not been making a disposable cup; He is forming a vessel that bears His name.
New Life
Now as you go out, consider how this imagery of the clay on the potter’s wheel will give you life… pointing us to what Paul offers for us in the Epistle lesson.
To trust that those hands on the wheel are keeping you pliable with living water to form you for a unique purpose. He says in verse 13, “Present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life.”
In other words, the Christian life is not just about surviving hard things… it’s about continually being shaped from the day you were given a new life at your baptism… It’s about being given the strength to live that new life so you can rejoice in your sufferings. Yes, we are on the wheel each day and the tempter wants to shape you into death… but hold fast to your shield of faith and let God’s hands shape you into life.
That is why Paul warns us about letting the forces of evil place his hands on us. Paul says in verse 23, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” You see, wages are earned… gifts are given. Sin pays out exactly what it promised all along… emptiness and decay. But God gives us what we could never earn… eternal life.
Held In God’s Hands
That gift given to us when Jesus came to serve us by giving His life on the cross and rising again. For us…FOR US… That is what we must proclaim on the housetops. Forgiven and freed from slavery we can now serve God. When we are “slaves” to God we will have freedom to be the people He created us to be.
Those Hands… are where we must place our trust.
Brothers and sisters in Christ. On this day we are asked to look at this trust. It does not mean we will always understand the pressure. Jeremiah didn’t. The disciples didn’t. We often don’t.
But the consistent witness of Scripture today is this… God has not forgotten you on the wheel. He has numbered the hairs of your head. He stands with His servants when they are rejected. He recognizes those who serve Him, frees them from sin, offers true freedom, and grants the lasting gift of eternal life with Jesus Christ.
So, if you find yourself today feeling wobbly, unfinished, or a little off centered, take heart… the potter’s hands are there, His hands are steady and His hands will continue shaping you and I until our final breath… and the good news is, the wheel we are on will not spin forever.
The day is coming when the shaping will be complete, and the vessel will be whole, and the work God has begun in each one of us is brought to its perfect end. Until then, we trust… not because life is easy, but because the Father sees… we are held by the Son… and the Spirit is forming us for glory. Coming together as our Master Potter, to make us perfect, glazed, and true…
Amen