Proper 18/Pentecost 16/Ordinary Time 23
Preaching
Lectionary Preaching Workbook
Series VII, Cycle C
Object:
Theme For The Day
God is the master potter of our lives, molding us to obedient service.
Old Testament Lesson
Jeremiah 18:1-11
Jeremiah In The Potter's House
In a famous visual parable, the Lord sends Jeremiah to the house of a potter. As the prophet observes the potter at his wheel, he sees how, again and again, a vessel takes shape, becomes misshapen, and is returned by the potter to its original form as a lump of raw clay. "Can I not do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done?" asks the Lord (v. 6). If the nation persists in sin, the Lord can utterly destroy it -- just as the potter does to a misshapen vessel -- and rebuild it into something more pleasing (vv. 7-11).
New Testament Lesson
Philemon 1-21
A Christian Runaway Slave
Today's Epistle Lesson is nearly an entire biblical book: the brief letter of Paul to Philemon.
Here is a chronology of the events behind this letter: Philemon receives something from Paul -- probably his conversion to the faith -- which incurs a sense of debt (v. 19b). Paul is subsequently imprisoned (v. 9). Philemon's slave, Onesimus, either runs away from him or is sent by him to Paul after committing some offense such as thievery (v. 15). Onesimus makes his way to Paul in prison, and is perhaps converted there by him; Paul and Onesimus grow so close that Paul describes himself as his spiritual "father" (v. 10) and Onesimus as "my own heart" (v. 12). Paul sends Onesimus back to Philemon bearing this letter (v. 12), which guarantees that Paul is willing to pay the price of Onesimus' freedom (v. 18). Paul also reminds Philemon, however, of how much he owes to Paul -- even his very own self (v. 19). Paul also implies that he would like to have Onesimus back, "so that he might be of service to me in your place during my imprisonment for the gospel" (vv. 13-14). Did Philemon respond to this appeal, allowing his slave, Onesimus, to be set free? If so, did he do so at his own expense (mindful of his own debt to Paul), or did he send Paul a bill? It is impossible to know. Philemon has been a controversial document over the years. Both sides in the anti-slavery debate in the nineteenth century tried to use it to justify their position: the abolitionists, because Paul wanted to see Onesimus set free, and the pro-slavery forces, because he returned Onesimus to his master. Perhaps the most useful approach in preaching this letter is to present the entire story as a sort of case study, inviting the congregation to grapple with the complex, ethical issues that run through it. What effect does our relationship to Christ have on the social conventions that guide our relationships with other people?
The Gospel
Luke 14:25-33
Discipleship Priorities
This passage contains one of the most difficult sayings of Jesus: "Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple" (v. 26). There is a cost to following Jesus: that cost is the cross (v. 27). Those who aspire to be his disciples, Jesus says, should count that cost ahead of time -- after all, who would try to construct a tower, for instance, without counting the cost (v. 28), or to lead an army without first assessing the number of troops the enemy has on the field (v. 31)? Those who wish to become Jesus' followers must be prepared to give up all their possessions (v. 33). Two things must be said about Jesus' use of the word "hate" in verse 26: 1) he is using it with a certain sense of rabbinic hyperbole, in order to make his point, and 2) the use of words like "love" and "hate" in Semitic languages have less to do with emotional feelings and more to do with priorities that guide decision making. Obviously, Jesus is not contradicting God's commandment to "honor your father and your mother." His point is that our love for God must take priority over all else.
Preaching Possibilities
Jeremiah's visual parable of the potter at work can speak to us about how God molds and fashions our lives -- but only if we first understand something about pottery-making in the prophet's day.
Nowadays, pottery-making is an art form. Few people today use real pottery for anything more than ornamentation. We eat our meals, most of us, off mass-produced china (or perhaps its more durable cousins, Corning Ware or melamine). If any of us owns a piece of pottery at all, chances are it's an art object we display on a shelf, or in a curio cabinet.
Back in Jeremiah's time, though, rough clay pottery was the stuff everyone used. There weren't a lot of other choices. Even glass was rare in those days: so uncommon, it was considered a semi-precious stone.
Every town had its potter, someone who made the everyday dinnerware, as a cottage industry. Then, as now, pottery broke easily, insuring a constant demand. A big city like Jerusalem often had a whole street of storefronts dedicated solely to pottery-making.
Jeremiah is walking down that very street in Jerusalem, the street of potters, and steps into one of their shops. It's nothing fancy: a small house, really, with the front room devoted to the trade. In the center of the room is the potter's wheel: a circular turntable, with a bench attached. The potter's seated on the bench, straddling it. With one foot he pumps a pedal, that causes the turntable to spin. Except for the latter-day addition of an electric motor, the technology of the potter's wheel has changed little, for thousands of years. It's one of the earliest machines ever developed by the human race, and -- historically -- one of the most important.
The potter nods to Jeremiah, his visitor, but keeps on with his work. He stops the wheel from spinning, and removes from it the finished pot he's just created, setting it on a nearby shelf to dry, before firing. Then, the potter reaches into a barrel at his side, and pulls out a lump of moist, brown clay. He forms it into a ball, and throws it down upon the wheel. He adjusts its position -- making sure it's exactly in the center -- then begins pumping the foot-pedal again.
That ball of clay begins to spin faster and faster, till it's just a blur. Then, the potter wets his hands and places them on either side of the spinning mass. Gently, he applies pressure. The clay responds, as though it were a living thing.
Before the prophet's wondering eyes, that lump of clay takes shape. First, it grows taller and thinner. Then, it narrows at the base. Next, the potter places his fist at the top of it, and presses downward -- his hand vanishing into the whirling mass, as he hollows out the inside. Removing his hand now, the potter wets his fingers once again, and presses in on the outside wall of the spinning pot. As though responding to his very thoughts, a lip forms at the top of the vessel. That lip leans out, further and further, until the whole mass of clay begins to wobble.
Suddenly, the whole thing collapses, turning almost inside-out. The potter stops his wheel from spinning. In the center is just a mass of clay again -- although, in shape, it still displays some vague outline of the bowl it almost became, before disaster overtook it.
In some trades -- carpentry or weaving, for example -- the ruin of a project would be cause for despair. But clay is a highly forgiving medium. 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.
Jeremiah's been struggling to find an image, a symbol, to describe God's relationship to the people of Israel. Today, he's found it. It's the potter and his lump of clay. In the prophet's vision, the Lord asks, "Can I not do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done? Just like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand...."
Most of us think of our work -- past, present, or future -- as our own, as belonging to us. From an early age, our parents ask us "what we want to be when we grow up" -- and just about everyone in our culture believes the choice is ours. Work powerfully defines who we are as people. Gaining -- or losing -- a job has far more significance, for most of us, than the gain or loss of a regular paycheck. Somehow, our sense of usefulness, our self-esteem -- even our sense of personal identity -- are all wrapped up in what we do.
Keeping that in mind, then what does Jeremiah's image of the potter and his wheel have to teach us? If we are that lump of clay -- dunked in a tub of water, rolled into a ball, and thrown down on God's potter's wheel to be molded and shaped -- then there's precious little we have to say about the shape that finally emerges.
Which is precisely the prophet's point. Jeremiah is concerned about the whole nation of Israel, but we can apply his theme to individual lives as well. Paul certainly does, in Romans 9, when he highlights the absurdity of "the one who is molded saying to the one who molds it, 'Why have you made me like this?' "
How many people today are living an "uncalled life" -- who say they've never felt called by God (or even nudged the slightest bit) to do anything? Yet that's not the way Jeremiah -- or Paul -- thinks it's supposed to be. "This is not your life," the Christian faith is saying, to you and to me. "Your life belongs to God."
Through all the stresses and strains of this very human life of ours, we remain always in the potter's hands. Although life may present itself at times as a random frenzy, a whirl of confusion, on either side of us are the practiced hands of the potter: the breaker and molder, the maker and unmaker, the creator of this world and of our very selves.
Prayer For The Day
Precious Lord,
amidst all the confusing and distracting voices of this world,
give us the clarity of attention
to listen for your one, true voice:
the voice that is calling us
to the place where you would have us be,
to the work that you would have us do,
to the people whom you are calling us to serve,
for the sake of Christ. Amen.
To Illustrate
A sense of call in our time is profoundly counter-cultural ... the ideology of our time is that we can live "an uncalled life," one not referred to any purpose beyond one's self.
-- Walter Brueggemann
***
Martin Luther was one of the first to rediscover the ancient, biblical doctrine of vocation. The medieval world drew a sharp boundary between the sacred and the secular, but Luther said no, it isn't meant to be that way. It isn't just priests and monks and nuns who have a vocation, but every Christian. Curiously, Luther uses the word "vocation" more often, in his writings, to refer to things like marriage and family than he does to paid employment. Vocation, to him, has to do with all of life, with living it faithfully.
John Calvin came along a half-generation later, and took this idea even further. "No task," he wrote, "will be so sordid and base, provided you obey your calling in it, that it will not shine and be reckoned very precious in God's sight." We can have a Christian vocation to do just about anything, Calvin says, so long as we glorify God in the doing of it.
***
Do not depend on the hope of results. When you are doing the sort of work you have taken on, essentially an apostolic work, you may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect.
As you get used to this idea, you start more and more to concentrate not on the results but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself. And there too a great deal has to be gone through, as gradually you struggle less and less for an idea and more and more for specific people. The range tends to narrow down, but it gets much more real. In the end, it is the reality of personal relationships that saves everything....
The big results are not in your hands or mine, but they suddenly happen, and we can share in them; but there is no point in building our lives on this personal satisfaction, which may be denied us and which after all is not that important....
All the good that you do will come not from you but from the fact that you have allowed yourself, in the obedience of faith, to be used for God's love. Think of this more and gradually you will be free from the need to prove yourself, and you can be more open to the power that will work through you without your knowing it....
Our real hope ... is not in something we think we can do, but in God who is making something good out of it in some way we cannot see.
-- Thomas Merton, in a letter to a friend, February 21, 1966
***
God often uses the least gifted people when some great service is needed. Why? Because people who know their own weakness are fully open to the power that God offers. When the Master fed the 5,000, he did not use his disciples. They were too full of doubt and worry, wanting to send the crowds away to fend for themselves. Instead, he turned to a small boy who had barely enough to feed himself. His mother had wrapped some barley cakes and dried fish for him, but he was completely willing to give all that he had in perfect trust that the Master would supply the rest. There may even have been wealthier people there with dried fruit and cakes of wheat, but they were not ready to give them up in such simple faith. So the Master fed the multitude with the simple food of a peasant boy.
-- Sadhu Sundar Singh, from Wisdom of the Sadhu (Farmington, Pennsylvania: Plough Publishing, 2000)
***
The man who fixes on something definite in life that he must do, at the expense of everything else ... has got something that should be recognized as the Inner Fire. For him, that is the gleam, the vision and the Word! He'd better follow it. The greatest adventure he'll ever have on this side is following where it leads.
-- Edwin Arlington Robinson, poet
***
Placing ourselves squarely in the hands of God is difficult because it is so hard for us to give up control of our choices. And we know that submitting to God's will can be a hard and perilous thing! But without our willing submission to him and a ready conference with his will through prayer and meditation, all of our choices fall at last to dust.
"Thy will be done -- 'To let the inner take precedence over the outer, the soul over the world' -- wherever this may lead you."
-- Dag Hammarskjöld, Markings (London: Faber and Faber, 1964), p. 82
God is the master potter of our lives, molding us to obedient service.
Old Testament Lesson
Jeremiah 18:1-11
Jeremiah In The Potter's House
In a famous visual parable, the Lord sends Jeremiah to the house of a potter. As the prophet observes the potter at his wheel, he sees how, again and again, a vessel takes shape, becomes misshapen, and is returned by the potter to its original form as a lump of raw clay. "Can I not do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done?" asks the Lord (v. 6). If the nation persists in sin, the Lord can utterly destroy it -- just as the potter does to a misshapen vessel -- and rebuild it into something more pleasing (vv. 7-11).
New Testament Lesson
Philemon 1-21
A Christian Runaway Slave
Today's Epistle Lesson is nearly an entire biblical book: the brief letter of Paul to Philemon.
Here is a chronology of the events behind this letter: Philemon receives something from Paul -- probably his conversion to the faith -- which incurs a sense of debt (v. 19b). Paul is subsequently imprisoned (v. 9). Philemon's slave, Onesimus, either runs away from him or is sent by him to Paul after committing some offense such as thievery (v. 15). Onesimus makes his way to Paul in prison, and is perhaps converted there by him; Paul and Onesimus grow so close that Paul describes himself as his spiritual "father" (v. 10) and Onesimus as "my own heart" (v. 12). Paul sends Onesimus back to Philemon bearing this letter (v. 12), which guarantees that Paul is willing to pay the price of Onesimus' freedom (v. 18). Paul also reminds Philemon, however, of how much he owes to Paul -- even his very own self (v. 19). Paul also implies that he would like to have Onesimus back, "so that he might be of service to me in your place during my imprisonment for the gospel" (vv. 13-14). Did Philemon respond to this appeal, allowing his slave, Onesimus, to be set free? If so, did he do so at his own expense (mindful of his own debt to Paul), or did he send Paul a bill? It is impossible to know. Philemon has been a controversial document over the years. Both sides in the anti-slavery debate in the nineteenth century tried to use it to justify their position: the abolitionists, because Paul wanted to see Onesimus set free, and the pro-slavery forces, because he returned Onesimus to his master. Perhaps the most useful approach in preaching this letter is to present the entire story as a sort of case study, inviting the congregation to grapple with the complex, ethical issues that run through it. What effect does our relationship to Christ have on the social conventions that guide our relationships with other people?
The Gospel
Luke 14:25-33
Discipleship Priorities
This passage contains one of the most difficult sayings of Jesus: "Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple" (v. 26). There is a cost to following Jesus: that cost is the cross (v. 27). Those who aspire to be his disciples, Jesus says, should count that cost ahead of time -- after all, who would try to construct a tower, for instance, without counting the cost (v. 28), or to lead an army without first assessing the number of troops the enemy has on the field (v. 31)? Those who wish to become Jesus' followers must be prepared to give up all their possessions (v. 33). Two things must be said about Jesus' use of the word "hate" in verse 26: 1) he is using it with a certain sense of rabbinic hyperbole, in order to make his point, and 2) the use of words like "love" and "hate" in Semitic languages have less to do with emotional feelings and more to do with priorities that guide decision making. Obviously, Jesus is not contradicting God's commandment to "honor your father and your mother." His point is that our love for God must take priority over all else.
Preaching Possibilities
Jeremiah's visual parable of the potter at work can speak to us about how God molds and fashions our lives -- but only if we first understand something about pottery-making in the prophet's day.
Nowadays, pottery-making is an art form. Few people today use real pottery for anything more than ornamentation. We eat our meals, most of us, off mass-produced china (or perhaps its more durable cousins, Corning Ware or melamine). If any of us owns a piece of pottery at all, chances are it's an art object we display on a shelf, or in a curio cabinet.
Back in Jeremiah's time, though, rough clay pottery was the stuff everyone used. There weren't a lot of other choices. Even glass was rare in those days: so uncommon, it was considered a semi-precious stone.
Every town had its potter, someone who made the everyday dinnerware, as a cottage industry. Then, as now, pottery broke easily, insuring a constant demand. A big city like Jerusalem often had a whole street of storefronts dedicated solely to pottery-making.
Jeremiah is walking down that very street in Jerusalem, the street of potters, and steps into one of their shops. It's nothing fancy: a small house, really, with the front room devoted to the trade. In the center of the room is the potter's wheel: a circular turntable, with a bench attached. The potter's seated on the bench, straddling it. With one foot he pumps a pedal, that causes the turntable to spin. Except for the latter-day addition of an electric motor, the technology of the potter's wheel has changed little, for thousands of years. It's one of the earliest machines ever developed by the human race, and -- historically -- one of the most important.
The potter nods to Jeremiah, his visitor, but keeps on with his work. He stops the wheel from spinning, and removes from it the finished pot he's just created, setting it on a nearby shelf to dry, before firing. Then, the potter reaches into a barrel at his side, and pulls out a lump of moist, brown clay. He forms it into a ball, and throws it down upon the wheel. He adjusts its position -- making sure it's exactly in the center -- then begins pumping the foot-pedal again.
That ball of clay begins to spin faster and faster, till it's just a blur. Then, the potter wets his hands and places them on either side of the spinning mass. Gently, he applies pressure. The clay responds, as though it were a living thing.
Before the prophet's wondering eyes, that lump of clay takes shape. First, it grows taller and thinner. Then, it narrows at the base. Next, the potter places his fist at the top of it, and presses downward -- his hand vanishing into the whirling mass, as he hollows out the inside. Removing his hand now, the potter wets his fingers once again, and presses in on the outside wall of the spinning pot. As though responding to his very thoughts, a lip forms at the top of the vessel. That lip leans out, further and further, until the whole mass of clay begins to wobble.
Suddenly, the whole thing collapses, turning almost inside-out. The potter stops his wheel from spinning. In the center is just a mass of clay again -- although, in shape, it still displays some vague outline of the bowl it almost became, before disaster overtook it.
In some trades -- carpentry or weaving, for example -- the ruin of a project would be cause for despair. But clay is a highly forgiving medium. 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.
Jeremiah's been struggling to find an image, a symbol, to describe God's relationship to the people of Israel. Today, he's found it. It's the potter and his lump of clay. In the prophet's vision, the Lord asks, "Can I not do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done? Just like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand...."
Most of us think of our work -- past, present, or future -- as our own, as belonging to us. From an early age, our parents ask us "what we want to be when we grow up" -- and just about everyone in our culture believes the choice is ours. Work powerfully defines who we are as people. Gaining -- or losing -- a job has far more significance, for most of us, than the gain or loss of a regular paycheck. Somehow, our sense of usefulness, our self-esteem -- even our sense of personal identity -- are all wrapped up in what we do.
Keeping that in mind, then what does Jeremiah's image of the potter and his wheel have to teach us? If we are that lump of clay -- dunked in a tub of water, rolled into a ball, and thrown down on God's potter's wheel to be molded and shaped -- then there's precious little we have to say about the shape that finally emerges.
Which is precisely the prophet's point. Jeremiah is concerned about the whole nation of Israel, but we can apply his theme to individual lives as well. Paul certainly does, in Romans 9, when he highlights the absurdity of "the one who is molded saying to the one who molds it, 'Why have you made me like this?' "
How many people today are living an "uncalled life" -- who say they've never felt called by God (or even nudged the slightest bit) to do anything? Yet that's not the way Jeremiah -- or Paul -- thinks it's supposed to be. "This is not your life," the Christian faith is saying, to you and to me. "Your life belongs to God."
Through all the stresses and strains of this very human life of ours, we remain always in the potter's hands. Although life may present itself at times as a random frenzy, a whirl of confusion, on either side of us are the practiced hands of the potter: the breaker and molder, the maker and unmaker, the creator of this world and of our very selves.
Prayer For The Day
Precious Lord,
amidst all the confusing and distracting voices of this world,
give us the clarity of attention
to listen for your one, true voice:
the voice that is calling us
to the place where you would have us be,
to the work that you would have us do,
to the people whom you are calling us to serve,
for the sake of Christ. Amen.
To Illustrate
A sense of call in our time is profoundly counter-cultural ... the ideology of our time is that we can live "an uncalled life," one not referred to any purpose beyond one's self.
-- Walter Brueggemann
***
Martin Luther was one of the first to rediscover the ancient, biblical doctrine of vocation. The medieval world drew a sharp boundary between the sacred and the secular, but Luther said no, it isn't meant to be that way. It isn't just priests and monks and nuns who have a vocation, but every Christian. Curiously, Luther uses the word "vocation" more often, in his writings, to refer to things like marriage and family than he does to paid employment. Vocation, to him, has to do with all of life, with living it faithfully.
John Calvin came along a half-generation later, and took this idea even further. "No task," he wrote, "will be so sordid and base, provided you obey your calling in it, that it will not shine and be reckoned very precious in God's sight." We can have a Christian vocation to do just about anything, Calvin says, so long as we glorify God in the doing of it.
***
Do not depend on the hope of results. When you are doing the sort of work you have taken on, essentially an apostolic work, you may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect.
As you get used to this idea, you start more and more to concentrate not on the results but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself. And there too a great deal has to be gone through, as gradually you struggle less and less for an idea and more and more for specific people. The range tends to narrow down, but it gets much more real. In the end, it is the reality of personal relationships that saves everything....
The big results are not in your hands or mine, but they suddenly happen, and we can share in them; but there is no point in building our lives on this personal satisfaction, which may be denied us and which after all is not that important....
All the good that you do will come not from you but from the fact that you have allowed yourself, in the obedience of faith, to be used for God's love. Think of this more and gradually you will be free from the need to prove yourself, and you can be more open to the power that will work through you without your knowing it....
Our real hope ... is not in something we think we can do, but in God who is making something good out of it in some way we cannot see.
-- Thomas Merton, in a letter to a friend, February 21, 1966
***
God often uses the least gifted people when some great service is needed. Why? Because people who know their own weakness are fully open to the power that God offers. When the Master fed the 5,000, he did not use his disciples. They were too full of doubt and worry, wanting to send the crowds away to fend for themselves. Instead, he turned to a small boy who had barely enough to feed himself. His mother had wrapped some barley cakes and dried fish for him, but he was completely willing to give all that he had in perfect trust that the Master would supply the rest. There may even have been wealthier people there with dried fruit and cakes of wheat, but they were not ready to give them up in such simple faith. So the Master fed the multitude with the simple food of a peasant boy.
-- Sadhu Sundar Singh, from Wisdom of the Sadhu (Farmington, Pennsylvania: Plough Publishing, 2000)
***
The man who fixes on something definite in life that he must do, at the expense of everything else ... has got something that should be recognized as the Inner Fire. For him, that is the gleam, the vision and the Word! He'd better follow it. The greatest adventure he'll ever have on this side is following where it leads.
-- Edwin Arlington Robinson, poet
***
Placing ourselves squarely in the hands of God is difficult because it is so hard for us to give up control of our choices. And we know that submitting to God's will can be a hard and perilous thing! But without our willing submission to him and a ready conference with his will through prayer and meditation, all of our choices fall at last to dust.
"Thy will be done -- 'To let the inner take precedence over the outer, the soul over the world' -- wherever this may lead you."
-- Dag Hammarskjöld, Markings (London: Faber and Faber, 1964), p. 82
