Given at the Lynnville (IL) UMC on September 5, 2004, this is another in a series of ‘strong’ talks regarding the ‘church’ and our country! The main Scripture is from the Old Testament book of Jeremiah, chapter 18, verses 1 – 11.

       When my best friend Larry came back from vacationing with his family the summer between our junior and senior years of high school, 1970, he carried on and on about this amusement park they went to called Silver Dollar City, someplace down in Missouri. Now, I had never heard of it before then, and some of the things he was describing to me seemed really neat, or ‘groovy’ if you will! And when I made my first visit to Silver Dollar City during the summer of 1977, much of what he described to me was still the same. There were the hills and trees… the three-or-four simple but fun rides to go on… the walking tour through Marble Cave… the people dressed up and acting as Ozark hillbillies… funnel cakes… and crafts! Oh my, the crafts! Even back then there were glass blowers, candle makers, bakers, leather-workers, blacksmiths, woodcarvers, and potters, just to name a few.

       In the decades since, I have been down there a number of times and have seen many, many changes as the park has changed some of their focus by adding more and more rides aimed at the younger adults while at the same time trying to build on their reputation for being a sort-of ‘craft central’. Today, you will still find all of those same ones I mentioned along with all kinds of artists working in jewelry, glass, copper, tin… in fact, you name it, and you’ll probably find somebody there doing it! Indeed, I could probably talk all morning, and then some, on all of the truly amazing things I have seen and learned there over the years, but some of you probably would like to go home for lunch at some point! So for now, I just want to tell you about making pottery.

       Over the years I have had the opportunity to watch many different potters working down there, and although the locations have changed with the growth of the park, the actual process has not changed in hundreds, in not thousands, of years, and I always find it fascinating!

       The potter first tears off a big lump of clay from that in the tub or stoneware that it is stored in, wets it, and plunks it down on the work surface, generally a wheel of some sort. They then smooth it into a roughly round cylindrical shape that generally bears no resemblance whatsoever to what the final product might be. Then, with the wheel spinning, they begin to work and stretch and shape the sides with their wet fingers as they begin forcing the clay to become what they envision in it. One potter might bring up the sides of what turns out to be a simple vase or bowl… another might form a cup or pitcher, while still another stretches and works the clay into intricate art forms. Most, then, will use various tools and techniques to add individual touches… for example, a fancy lid or handle for the pitcher or carved patterns in the vase… some will look at what they have done, rewet their fingers and begin to stretch the sides still more, or add a groove or a rise here or there, or shorten it , spread it, narrow it, or lengthen it… the point is that what ever they want to make of it is up to them… they are the potter, and they are in control! And when, on occasion, a particular lump of clay is being uncooperative or they just don’t like the results, they will pummel it flat, throw it back into the pot and start over again!

       And that is exactly what God is talking about in this morning’s verses when He says, “O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter does?… Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand…”

       Matthew Henry’s Commentary makes three points pertaining to these verses…

1. That God has an incontestable sovereignty over us… He is not debtor to us… He may dispose of us as he thinks fit… He is not accountable to us… and it would be as absurd for us to dispute this as it would be for the clay to quarrel with the potter.

2. That it is a very easy thing with God to make what use he pleases of us and what changes he pleases with us… we cannot resist him. One turn of the hand, one turn of the wheel, quite alters the shape of the clay, makes it a vessel, unmakes it, new-makes it. Thus are our times in God’s hand, and not in our own, and it is in vain for us to strive with him. It is spoken here of nations; the most politic, the most potent, are what God is pleased to make them, and no other. He increases nations and He destroys them… All nations before God are as the drop of the bucket, soon wiped away, or the small dust of the balance, soon blown away, and therefore, no doubt, as easily managed as the clay by the potter.

3. That in the end, God will not be a loser by any in his glory…, if He be not glorified by them, He will be glorified upon them. What that means is that if the potter’s vessel be marred for one use, it shall serve for another; those that will not be monuments of mercy shall be monuments of justice. The Lord has made all things for himself, yea, even the wicked for the day of evil. God formed us out of the clay, and we are still as clay in his hands… has not He the same power over us that the potter has over the clay? And are not we bound to submit, as the clay to the potter’s wisdom and will?

       In Psalm 139, reading from the New Living Translation, we find David praising God by declaring …

“O LORD, you have examined my heart and know everything about me. You know when I sit down or stand up. You know my every thought when far away. You chart the path ahead of me and tell me where to stop and rest. Every moment you know where I am. You know what I am going to say even before I say it, LORD. You both precede and follow me. You place your hand of blessing on my head.

You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous — and how well I know it. You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. You saw me before I was born.”

Isn’t that beautiful? God knew us… He saw us and started shaping us… while we were yet in our mother’s womb! His plan for us is established before we are ever born! We have only ourselves to blame if we fail to acknowledge and follow that plan! Oh, yes, we can blame it on the world, we can blame it on Satan, we can blame it on any number of things… but the simple truth of the matter is that we are the ultimate one responsible for our lives! And if we fail to respond to God’s kneading and forming and shaping of us… if we ignore His leading and try to make of ourselves what WE want to be… then the Potter’s hands will either smash us flat and remake us into what He wants… or will just allow us to continue as an example of what happens to an inferior vessel… in this case, eternal damnation in the fires of hell!

Yes, we are God’s children… but we are also His creation! And that means that He has full authority to decide whether to salvage us and help shape and guide us to become the useful, meaningful instrument that He intends, or to utterly destroy us and begin again! And the same holds just as true whether talking about an individual, a congregation, or a nation!

In these verses from Jeremiah, God says, “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it.”

It seems like the last few weeks of my talks have all shared the idea of noting the deplorable state of the church in this country of ours and what that may well mean to the future. Our currency all declares, “In God We trust”… but do we? We pledge our allegiance to ‘One Nation under God’… but are we? If we, the people who claim to be the children of God, resist His shaping and molding of us into the loving, caring, and compassionate human beings He would have us be… resist His teachings and leadings that would make us into the strong and obedient Christians that His plan called for… resist His working and forming and melding of us to be the hands and feet of Christ, His Son… how can we expect the country we live in to not do likewise? Indeed, how can we expect such a country to not give itself fully over to Satan and revel in all of the so-called ‘delights’ of the world? For, as we go, so goes the country… only far, far worse!

What do I mean by that? Let me read the last verse of this scripture, but change one or two words… “Now therefore say to the people of the United States, and those living under its jurisdiction, ‘This is what the LORD says: Look! I am preparing a disaster for you and devising a plan against you. So turn from your evil ways, each one of you, and reform your ways and your actions.’

This country is in trouble! And the reason it is in trouble is because Christianity in this country is in trouble! And the reason Christianity in this country is in trouble is because the Christians in this country… that’s you and me, folks… are in trouble! And the only reason we Christians are in trouble is because we failed and are continuing to fail to allow God to shape us and mold us and guide us and use us as He sees fit!

How do we heal our country? What can we as individuals do to reestablish this nation of ours as a nation under God? We can ask and allow God to remake us into the Christians that He wants… and intended… us to be… and we do that by listening, learning and obeying all of His commands!

After all, God does not make mistakes! And if we find ourselves arguing over some point or action with Him, maybe we need to stop and consider just who it is we are arguing with… the Master Potter!