Last time we encountered this passage, we emphasized the God as artisan image. (I don;t know if it alarms me that I recall that).Today, we look at the image of the pottery.We do well to be reminded that the artisan is not the same as the work; the pottery is not the same as the potter. We do well to remember that the artisan is not the same size and shape of the vessel. Jeremiah's image sees us as malleable. God is always at work with us. We are capable of changed throughout our lives. Are we as inert as the image suggests? No, even in the passage, god is reworking the pottery since it does not live up to the vision for it. It has an opening for change, for repentance for the people of Israel and each individual element of it. Indeed individual change will affect the entire piece.

 

What is the quality of the clay that God the potter uses? We are made in the image and likeness of God. Our talents and strengths seem to come from finer stuff, but no one is made from perfect material; we are human beings, creatures of God, not the Creator. Some flaws always appear.How often can we be reworked?

 

What sort of vessel are you: cracked, useful, being thrown out? Are you non-stick, cast iron, or enamel? Perhaps we need to explore another question. What are you a vessel of : virtue, vice? We are containers of grace. Paul said that we have treasures in earthen vessels, these fragile, frail, fallible  containers that possess the gift of life. We are all vessels of love. We are all vessels of memory. In Philemon Paul is trying to convince a slaveholder that a runaway slave is useful and valuable as a baptized Christian, far beyond the economic value to its Christian owner. Paul; will not take the position of being able to order someone to do what it right, but he is willing to marshall wedges of persuasion  that respects the owner as a person of moral worth also. If you will, Philemon may well own the pot, but so does God. Both Philemon and the slave Onesimus are pottery being molded in the hands of God who has both of them in the divine hands.

 

Notice v. 9 picks up the build and plant imagery, an organic one in the midst of an artistic image, from 1:10. It is not limited to the destructive side. Jeremiah is well aware that life has its polarities.Are we masterworks, or cheap vessels? Sometimes, life damages us so much that we cannot imagine ourselves as masterworks, masterpieces. Sometimes our vision is so distorted that we do not see ourselves as priceless work of the hand of God. As is said in some African-American churches, God does not make junk. I look toward an afterlife as I don;t think that God can bear to lose anything that God has labored over and loved. It has been said that we all have a God-sized hole in our very being. A more positive way of phrasing it would be that we are meant ob e containers of the very presence of God in the world.

 

These frail containers are worthy to be baptized and given the gift of Communion. Our containers are always overflowing, bursting with all they contain. Instead we see ourselves as running on empty most of the time. Instead, we are considered worthwhile enough for the divine, labor, time, and infinite respect. Please take some time this week to consider hwo you are filling the container of your life.