Clay in the Hands of God

Clay in the Hands of God
A Sermon preached by the Reverend Peter De Franco at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Clifton, New Jersey on September 9, 2007

I have a bag that I brought with me today. I think that you might recognize some of these things. An old water bottle. A bottle for apple juice. A bottle for orange juice. There are some cans in here also. A can for cat food. A can for coffee. I think there are also bottles. A wine bottle. A bottle of pasta sauce. Plastic, tin and glass, these are the ways we carry things today.
In the 6th century before Christ, when Jeremiah walked the streets of Jerusalem, people carried things either in baskets or clay vessels. We call Jeremiah a prophet because of his ability to reach into his own heart and hear the meaning in the heart of God. When Jeremiah felt the broken heart of God, he expressed those words from the heart in a dramatic fashion. If you read his book, you will see him wearing a yoke around the city to warn the people that if they did not heed God’s word they would go into exile.
So in today’s story shows when he goes to the house of the potter, Jeremiah again shows his propensity for the dramatic.
For many of us, potters are people who make pots and vases that we use to decorate our house. We classify potters among artists and crafts people. But in Jeremiah’s day, potters were like people who produce plastic bottles, or glass jars, or tin cans. They engaged in mass production of utilitarian products. Now when you make a pot, you get a large heap of clay and put it on a wheel. The potter would turn the wheel with a peddle he would move with his feet. He would shape a pot from the clay. Usually the pot would come out just the way the potter wanted it to turn out. But sometimes, the potter would make a mistake and he would have to start the pot all over again. Pots are useful things.
When Jeremiah went to the potter’s house, he saw the potter make a pot. Then God told Jeremiah that God is like a potter. God is the potter. And we are the clay. God shapes us into something useful. God takes the most ordinary of things, meet dirt and clay, and shapes it into something useful.
On Friday, I saw a movie called Spider Man 2. If you have not seen the series, begin with the original movie. Not only are the special effects great, but you will enjoy the story.
Spider Man has a big problem. He leads two lives, one the life of a super hero and the other the life of Peter Parker. As glorious as is his life as a super hero, so dismal is his life as Peter Parker – though a brilliant scientific student and a daring pizza delivery man, he cannot keep up his grades or his job because he is compelled to rescue people from danger. He cannot confess his love for his girlfriend since he does not want to subject her to possible reprisals from his enemies. When he is Spider Man and he helps other people get out of trouble, he does not have time to do the things that he wants to do.
We would say that Spider Man has a problem with boundaries.
The only way that Spider Man was happy was when he was helping other people. I think that Spider Man knew that God has a special place for him in the world and Spider man has to do what God gave him the special gifts to do special things.
You are all like Spider Man. I invite you like Jeremiah, to go into the deep places of your heart and listen there to the silent word of God inviting you to take your place in God’s great design. I don’t think that any of us will be bitten by a genetically altered spider and find ourselves able to race down the streets of New York City on webs strung from skyscrapers. I don’t know about you but I am too afraid of heights to perform such stunts. But we are all given gifts both for ourselves and for our community. We are all invited to use those gifts at the service of the community in the various places where we sense that God invites us. By using those gifts in the service of others, we allow ourselves to become clay in God’s hand, we allow ourselves to be shaped into the form that God wants us to take. More and more we shall discover that form involves us in service to the community in ways we might not have imagined.
I want to tell you something more about Spider Man. In Spider Man 2, Peter Parker decides that he will give up being Spider Man. He spends a few weeks finding a new job, getting the best grades at school, even making a hit with his long beloved girlfriend. But something is missing. Something is not right. Unless he gives himself to the community as Spider Man, the villains will harass the innocent, children will lack a hero, and a man will frustrate God’s plan not only for him but for his community. When he surrenders to his place, when he allows God to mold him into the vessel God has in mind, he finds not only his own fulfillment but he also realizes all the deepest desires of his heart.
So take the clay. Surrender to God’s plan. Discover the beautiful person God wants you to become.