Why Bother? (Jer 32:1-3a, 6-15)

A Sandcastle That Outlasted the Waves

They arrived early in the morning as the sun was just beginning to peek over the waves. The man secured the umbrella deep in the sand, the woman unfolded a few faded chairs, and the three children ran down from the dunes to the shore, where the cool water kissed their toes. They splashed deeper into the ocean and danced with the waves. Soon their lips were shivering—yet still upturned in irrepressible smiles. Finally they stumbled out of the water. After retrieving some tools from underneath the umbrella, they returned close to the waves and began work on a sandcastle.

They worked painstakingly for hours. The oldest of the three carefully plotted out the towers and the ramparts, using several sizes of buckets and a shovel. The middle child dug a moat around the castle and then used her fingers to transform some of the higher towers into turrets. The youngest scoured the shore for small seashells to stick into the castle as decoration.

When their father wandered down to admire their work, he pointed out that the tide had turned and soon their creation would be lost to the waves. Would they like help recreating their kingdom somewhere safer? Engrossed in their work, they shook their heads and carried on. Even as the waves came closer, they persisted, patiently putting the finishing touches on their masterpiece. Just when they finished, the first wave filled the moat. Soon after, another wave crashed into a rampart. The children stood back and watched with awe. Within minutes, their sandcastle was gone. There was no crying, however, for they were hungry, and lunch was ready. As the children devoured their sandwiches, they reminisced. Had anyone ever seen such a castle? It was magnificent, wasn’t it? And indeed, it must have been, for it lasted a long time in their memory and inspired a tradition that they would maintain for years and eventually pass on to their own children.

A Pointless Purchase

This tale was inspired by a recent picture book written by JonArno Lawson, who was himself inspired after a day at a beach in Virginia with his three children. He puzzled over why his kids built their sandcastle so close to the waves. Why bother building something that was sure to be destroyed?[1]

Today’s scripture presents us with a similar question. It is the tenth year of King Zedekiah, which is the very year that Babylon conquers Judah and destroys the temple and sends many of the people into exile. It is the end of the world for Judah. But right before the end, Jeremiah’s cousin, Hanamel, who has fallen upon hard times, comes to Jeremiah and asks him to purchase his field in order to keep it in the family. This request actually originates in an important Hebrew law. When God delivered the Hebrew people from slavery in Egypt and gave them the promised land, God also gave them a set of laws designed to ensure that no Hebrew person would ever again live as a landless slave. These laws permanently assigned plots of land to Hebrew families. In the worst-case scenario, if land was sold outside the family, then after fifty years it would revert to the family to which it had originally belonged. When Jeremiah’s cousin asks him to purchase his land, he’s following a stipulation of this ancient law that is designed to preserve the people’s freedom on their own land.

But here’s the thing. Babylon is besieging Jerusalem, and it’s only a matter of days before all of the land is lost. In view of this certain outcome, any transaction of property seems pointless. It would be like buying a seafront cottage on a beach that is fast eroding. Why bother? Yet God tells Jeremiah to fulfill his duty and to purchase his cousin’s land. Today’s scripture recounts Jeremiah’s scrupulous fulfillment of his responsibility. To get a sense of the absurdity, try to imagine the sounds of war just outside Jerusalem’s gate—steel clashing on steel, the spinetingling cries of the wounded, the desperate shouts of commanders. But on the other side of the gate, there is Jeremiah along with a small group of witnesses; he is delicately weighing out silver for the purchase, piece by piece, patiently reviewing the terms and conditions, line after line, and carefully signing the deed to complete the transaction of a piece of land that will soon be trampled and destroyed by the Babylonian army. When Jeremiah is finished, he gives the deeds of purchase to his associate, Baruch, and then relays God’s instructions: put these deeds of purchase into an earthenware jar, so that they may last for a long time, because, according to God, “houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in the land” (32:14-15). Although this is certainly a word of promise and hope, we should remember that it is not a promise that Jeremiah will live to see. It will only happen after his lifetime.

The Difficulties of Faith:

When Love Seems Powerless

Which leads me to ask the same question that JonArno asked about his children building the sandcastle close to the waves: “Why bother?” It’s a question worth asking. Faith in God will inevitably bump up against the question, “Why bother?” because faith in God will inevitably bump up against difficult realities that we cannot change. These circumstances are where the rubber really hits the road—or where the waves hit the ramparts. Why bother with love when love seems powerless?

For example, why bother with listening when your conversation partner does not listen to you? Why bother with a troubled teen when he flagrantly throws away all you have given him and stubbornly sets a course for destruction? Why bother with recycling your plastic when nations and corporations maintain practices and policies that are exponentially worse for the environment than your little bit of waste? There is a saying in our culture that has come to express a spirit of cynicism: “I don’t give a…”—I’ll let you fill in the blank! The idea is clear. “I’m not going to bother.” I’m not going to care. If whatever I do will just come undone, then what’s the point? It’s a waste of my time and effort.

The Bird in the Cage Sings

I never saw the movie Titanic, but I’m very familiar with one of its famous scenes, which is based on historical fact. As the ship was sinking, the band leader Wallace Hartley and his string quartet played beautiful music, including the hymn “Nearer My God to Thee.” Why bother? There was nothing in it for them. They wouldn’t get a raise for their fidelity to the job. I doubt they were expecting a rousing applause. They had no guarantee of fame. Why bother? There would be no reason—unless their music was their utmost expression of life, even more expressive of life than breathing. Perhaps they were saying, to steal a phrase from Timothy in our lectionary scripture, “This music is ‘the life that is really life.’ We believe in it, even in the face of death.”

For people of faith, the question “Why bother?” is met with an insistent, “Because. Because this is the life that is really life. We believe in it, even in the face of death.” When I consider the string quartet on the Titanic, or the children on the beach, or Jesus on the cross, the common thread that I see is this: their faith insists on a reality that is more than meets the eye. Their faith insists on a deeper reality, a longer reality, a reality that resists the weathering of time. When Jeremiah gave the deeds of purchase to Baruch, he told him to put them in a jar “in order that they may last for a long time” (32:14). These acts of faith, whether they are remembered in family lore or celebrated on movie screens or preserved in clay jars, or not, are defiant declarations of what is really life. The result of the deed has no bearing on the declaration itself. The children on the beach declared, even as the waves came in, “This sandcastle, this fun is worth it. This is life!” Jeremiah signing the deeds declared, “This heritage of freedom that God gives us, it’s the truth!” Jesus on the cross declared, “This love is life, and I believe in it, even in the face of death.”

Jesuit priest Gregory Boyle, who helps ex-gang members to reenter society, likes to say that if he’s getting burned out from his ministry, he knows he’s doing something wrong. If he finds himself asking, “Why bother?” he’s thinking too selfishly. Faith is not about us changing the world. Faith is about celebrating the life that is really life, even (or especially) in circumstances that threaten to take it away. To steal an image from the poet Maya Angelou, the bird in the cage does not ask, “Why bother?” The bird in the cage sings.

Prayer

Faithful God,
Whose love is patient
And bears all things—
Empty us of the belief
That we need to be in control.
Fill us instead with the faith
Of the caged bird, and Jeremiah, and Wallace Hartley and his string quartet.
Attune our hearts to the life that is really life
That we may sing its goodness,
Regardless of the result.
…
In Christ, who sings your love: Amen.

 

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[1] Samantha Balaban, “A Kids’ Story Unfolds Without Words in ‘A Day for Sandcastles,’” https://www.npr.org/2022/05/22/1093588533/a-day-for-sandcastles-book, accessed September 19, 2022.

From Exile to Our Eternal Homes (Jer 8:18-9:1; Luke 16:1-13)

A Weeping Middle Schooler

These last few weeks in Jeremiah have not been easy reading, and today’s text offers little respite. So, before we dive in, allow me to begin with a more lighthearted tale.

I remember an incident when I was a middle schooler at a summer youth camp. It was “quiet time,” and everyone had spread out in the room to read their devotionals. For once, all was silent. A rare thing among a group of middle schoolers. Suddenly I felt a cough deep in my throat. Not just a solitary cough, but the kind that signals the onslaught of a violent coughing fit. I knew that suppressing the first cough was crucial; otherwise, I would be coughing up a storm. So, I kept my mouth shut and tried to swallow the cough. The last thing I wanted was to disturb the peace of the room and draw attention to myself. But the cough did not go easy. As I fidgeted in silence, tears began to creep out of the corner of my eye. Soon they were flowing freely down my face. I tried, as casually as possible, to wipe them away before anyone would notice.

I have to laugh as I remember the experience, because even though I avoided coughing, I’m pretty sure I ended up drawing just as much attention to myself through my fidgeting and my tears. I have to wonder if others had any clue about what was going on. Maybe they just thought I was an especially spiritual middle schooler who had been deeply moved by the morning devotional.

The Weeping Prophet

Jeremiah was caught weeping on so many occasions he’s become known as “the weeping prophet.” Most of the time, Old Testament prophets identify with God and speak on God’s behalf to the people. But Jeremiah regularly identifies with the people and weeps on their behalf to God. In today’s passage, Jeremiah sees the death, destruction, and despair that fall upon Judah as Babylon forces its people into exile. “For the hurt of my poor people I am hurt,” Jeremiah cries (8:21). “Why has the health of my poor people not been restored?” (8:22). It’s a rhetorical question. In fact, Jeremiah already knows why his people are hurting. He knows they have abandoned God and sought security in other things, like possessions and political power. He knows that suffering is the natural and unavoidable consequence of trusting in one’s own strength. But in this passage, what matters most to Jeremiah is not whether the people deserve their suffering. (In our conventional way of judging things, they have gotten what was coming to them.) What matters most to Jeremiah is simply that they are suffering. Not only are they living in a forced physical exile away from their homeland, even worse, they are also living in a spiritual exile, feeling the full brunt of their alienation from God.

God’s Eyes, Filled with Tears

There’s a hint in the text that Jeremiah is not the only party crying. The people ask, “Is the Lord not in Zion?” and then in parentheses Jeremiah gives whispered expression to God’s anguished response, “Why have they provoked me to anger with their images?” (8:19). We can almost hear the tears in God’s response. The people sit in exile, wondering how God could have let this happen—had God left them?—while God looks on them from afar, asking, “Why have they left me?” God suffers to see them suffer.

This scene is perhaps a helpful corrective to the judgmentalism of our world. God does not look upon Judah and say, “Told you so! You deserved this!” God weeps with them. Jeremiah weeps with them, even though he knows that they have reaped what they’ve sown. Our world can be so quick to pass judgment and then leave people behind to rot in their just desserts. But that is not the way of God. The ultimate divine work is not judgment but restoration, and its seed is sown with tears. Here we see that the primary response of God and Jeremiah to Judah’s suffering is grief.

What a revolution in perspective. When I look upon a world that is filled with anger and hate and conflict, I can easily lose track of the gospel and join the game, assigning blame and then celebrating when the wrongdoers get what’s coming to them. Today’s passage invites me to look upon the world’s rage and violence not with judgment, but with God’s eyes, with eyes filled with tears for the despair and loneliness and for the hurt that those things cause.

The Isolation of Wealth

By itself, today’s scripture from Jeremiah does not reveal a way out of Judah’s loneliness and despair. We are left with a people in exile who feel God-forsaken, precisely because they themselves have left God. We are left with a prophet and a God who weep for the people, lamenting their hurt and their lost hearts.

Today’s gospel text, however, may illumine a way forward. In it, Jesus tells his disciples a parable about money (Luke 16:1-9). The financial manager of a rich man has squandered the rich man’s money, presumably in an effort to benefit himself. When the rich man threatens to fire the financial manager, the manager goes to the rich man’s various debtors and cuts their debts in an effort to build relationships so that, in his words, “when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes” (Luke 16:4). Jesus, surprisingly, holds up this wheeling-and-dealing financial manager as an example (16:8-9). Where the law would find him guilty of fraud, Jesus finds him praiseworthy for his new ethics, in which he uses money to build relationships, rather than relationships to make more money. Jesus goes even further to characterize wealth as an “unrighteous” value and a temporary thing, but relationships as eternally significant: “Make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes” (Luke 16:9).

This parable is filled with surprising revelations. Notice, for instance, that Jesus identifies God’s eternal embrace with other people’s homes.[1] The kingdom of God is when others welcome us into their homes. The parable also suggests that the accumulation of wealth is not a prize to seek but a matter to grieve, for it is a form of exile. It threatens to isolate us and ultimately leave us without a home. (Which is maybe not such a surprise, when we consider that among the “developed” world, our wealthy nation ranks highest in the statistics of loneliness and despair—in suicides and homicides.) I wonder if the isolation and despair of money is not a cousin of Judah’s spiritual exile. They have lived for themselves, and so now all they have is themselves. It feels like God has abandoned them. But that is only because long ago they abandoned God and their neighbor, seeking security in possessions and political power.

“What’s Mine Is Yours”

Jesus’ parable invites me to consider how I use my money. Generously, to build relationships and discover God’s eternal welcome (Luke 16:4)? Or stingily, to secure myself in what is actually a very lonely place (16:3)?

Perhaps it is a question worth pondering as we approach our stewardship Sunday. For me, the question is larger than simply, “How much money do I commit to this or to that?” The question is, “Do I ever feel disconnected from others? Do I ever feel that life is just an endless struggle, just one thing after another with no real purpose?” If I do, then perhaps what I am actually feeling is the loneliness of self-seeking, which is what Judah felt when it went into exile. Jesus’ parable points the way home for me. It is better to give than to receive. For giving draws me into relationship. Giving reconnects me to my neighbor, to my God, and to myself. Giving draws me into my “eternal home” (16:9).

Rhonda Sneed, the woman who started the Blessing Warriors homeless ministry, shares how the folks on the street whom she has befriended will sometimes approach her with a spare dollar or two and insist that she take it for gas or for her next grocery run. They may have a lot less than I do, but perhaps some of them also have more. For their self-giving draws them into closer relationship with one another. If their money is gone, that is no matter. Jesus bluntly says in his parable that there will be a time for all of us when our money is gone, and whenever that time comes, our eternal reality will become readily apparent. We will discover ourselves either very alone indeed or in the good company of others. In the case of these generous individuals, they are already in good company, even as they still struggle for a life that is worthy of their inherent dignity as children of God.

Their example illustrates the motto, “What’s mine is yours.” Is there any other saying so frequently said yet so seldom practiced? Perhaps we keep saying it, because even as we fall short, we sense its deeper truth. Perhaps it is, in fact, the way of God’s eternal kingdom. For when we live otherwise and seek to secure ourselves, what’s “mine,” we isolate ourselves. But when “mine” is actually “yours,” we find ourselves already connected, already welcome into our “eternal homes.”

Prayer

God of eternal welcome,
Who never leaves us,
Even though we sometimes leave you—
Help us to grieve with you
The isolation that results
From our pursuit of wealth and possession
…
Invite us anew
Into our eternal homes—
Which are found in the good company of others. 

In Jesus Christ, who ate with tax collectors and sinners: Amen.

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[1] In fact, the word “homes” is skenas, more literally translated as “tents.” The implication may be that our home is not a permanent brick-and-mortar structure but rather a contingency oriented toward our neighbor. Wherever they are, is our “eternal tent.”

The End or the Beginning (Jer 4:11-12, 22-28)

Haunted by Doomsday

In the last century or so, our culture has shown an increasing fascination with the doomsday genre. Perhaps you’re familiar with the famous 1938 radio broadcast of H. G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds. It caused a significant public panic among listeners who actually thought Martians were overtaking our world. Since then, the genre has only proliferated. The list of books and movies is endless: Armageddon, The Day after Tomorrow, 2012, Interstellar, and one of my favorites, The Road. It seems that we love telling stories about the end of the world. Or, maybe “love” is not the right word. Maybe it is more accurate to say that we are haunted by stories about the end of the world. It is a story that we cannot escape. It is the truth visiting us in a dream.

There is a theme that pervades many doomsday stories. Whether the final disaster is ecological or inter-terrestrial or nuclear, the underlying cause is the same. It is we humans who are ultimately responsible. Maybe it is a piece of technology that goes awry and escapes our control and wreaks havoc on all the earth. Maybe it is a disease, and instead of fighting it together, people become suspicious of others and compete for limited resources. Maybe it is warfare, where the desire for control simply grows to astronomical levels and wipes everyone off the face of the earth. In each scenario, we are the common denominator. Our short-sighted, self-seeking tendencies prove to be our undoing. Or, to put it in theological language: our sin kills us.

I wonder if the end of the world is more than a storytelling device for providing us the vicarious moviegoing thrills of danger and survival. I wonder if it is not a prophetic expression of a difficult spiritual truth, namely that we are in danger of destroying ourselves and all creation, perhaps now more than ever.

Human Conduct, Cosmic Consequences

If that sounds a bit dramatic, just remember it’s not me—or anyone else today—who said it first. In fact, we find this message regularly in the Old Testament prophets. Over two thousand years ago, they declared that human conduct has cosmic consequences. In other words, how we treat our neighbor somehow has consequences for the trees and the rivers and the birds and the beasts of the field. This is not an obvious, common-sense observation. We like to think that we can contain and control the effects of our behavior. But the prophets tell us that our actions have an unseen, spiritual dimension that often unfolds in very real, unexpected ways.

In today’s passage, God begins with the charge against Judah that they are “skilled in doing evil” and “do not know how to do good” (Jer 4:22). Elsewhere, God elaborates that their wickedness is not simply a private, religious misdemeanor but a comprehensive failure to do justice. “Everyone,” God says, “is greedy for unjust gain,” and therefore they take advantage of the foreigner, the orphan, and the widow (cf. Jer 6:13; 7:6). But in today’s passage, after Jeremiah broadcasts God’s accusation of injustice, he shares a shocking vision that would rival any of our doomsday stories. The first line is about as end-of-the-world as you could get: “I looked on the earth, and lo, it was waste and void” (4:23). If that language sounds somehow familiar, it’s no accident. “Waste” and “void”—tohu va-bohu—are the very same words used at the beginning of Genesis, when we are told that before creation the earth was “[waste and] void and darkness covered the face of the deep” (Gen 1:2). Jeremiah is saying that when he looks into the future, he does not even see the recognizable forms of creation; he sees only the dark, murky elements of the chaos that preceded creation. To a modern audience, we might say that he sees the dark, mysterious nothingness that precedes the Big Bang. Jeremiah then expands on this image, saying that he cannot see the light that God created, he cannot see the creatures or vegetation that God created, he cannot see the natural boundaries between land and water that God created. He cannot make his point any more forcefully. It seems as though all creation has somehow been “uncreated.”

It’s difficult not to see parallels between Jeremiah’s vision and the world around us today. Just as Jeremiah envisioned a drastic collapse of creation into chaos, so we see in our world a host of ecological emergencies that threaten humanity’s wellbeing. This past week, I read about the flooding in Pakistan, a country that is twice the size of California and contains six times its population. Right now, over one third of the country is underwater. There are so many people displaced by the flooding, that the biggest concern is no longer safe shelter or housing but rather starvation. The emergency response has only been able to reach a fraction of the evacuated so far with food.[1] Although the scope of Pakistan’s flooding is what caught my attention, I’m all too aware that many people closer to home have also had to deal with more frequent flooding. It seems like David and God’s Pit Crew are going somewhere new for “muck-outs” every week. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that when I enter the word “flooding” into Google, the automated suggested response “flooding near me” pops up.

Our world’s climate can be a divisive subject of conversation. For me, it’s a not a matter of debate. I have no stake in party politics, nor am I a climate scientist. I simply observe that many of our brothers and sisters are already living through their own doomsday. And I’m haunted by the possibility that the same consumerist and materialist attitudes that devalue and disregard the poor and disadvantaged, have also devalued the earth, treating it as a resource rather than as a gift to be tended and shared. I’m haunted by the story that our short-sighted, self-seeking tendencies—or sinful tendencies—might be our own undoing.

A New Creation

Reading Jeremiah’s doomsday vision leaves me on the edge of a cliff. As I observe some similarities between his times and my own, I find myself asking, “How should you live when the world is ending?” Because maybe it is—at least in the sense that it is undergoing profound change and may look very different in a hundred years’ time.

Around one millennium ago, the archbishop of York, Wulfstan, preached to a people whose world was ending. Vikings raids had become increasingly common, and it was only a matter of time before the Vikings would prevail in England. Wulfstan’s sermon was unorthodox, to say the least. Like Jeremiah, he boldly proclaimed that the end would come and in fact had already come as many English had turned on each other in fear, suspicion, and power struggles. His response was disarmingly simple. No matter—keep living faithfully to God and one another. Do not worry about the result of things, but about your responsibility in things. Let your speech be honest. Uphold your commitments. Care for the vulnerable and the poor. It is common in difficult times for people to circle the wagons and live for themselves in a mode of self-preservation, but Wulfstan essentially invited his congregation to live even more than before for others.[2]

Concealed within Jeremiah’s doomsday prophecy is a similar call to faithfulness and hope. There’s a rascally ambiguity in his use of creational language, such as when he envisions the tohu va-bohu, the “waste” and “void” (Jer 4:23). For on the one hand, these words signal a return to chaos; they signal the end. On the other hand, these same words were originally the prelude to a good and beautiful creation. If they mean that creation has been undone, they also mean that it can be remade. Paul writes about this. He says, on the one hand, “The present form of this world is passing away” (1 Cor 7:31), but on the other hand, “In Christ, there is a new creation” (2 Cor 5:17). What the world sees as an end, Christ-followers see as a beginning. Followers of Christ see redemption in every circumstance and faithfully bear witness to Christ’s reconciling love, in which all things are being made new. 

Seeing crisis as an opportunity for God’s love, as a stage for our peculiar witness, is perhaps pertinent as we talk about stewardship this month and consider making commitments to Trinity. I won’t say much about your pledge. I will be honest that, in the past, I have looked cynically upon church stewardship drives. The request for money often seems to be more about self-preservation than the gospel’s call for self-giving. So my hope is that, if you do give, it is not to preserve Trinity or postpone its inevitable end—for all worldly things will come to their natural end (cf. Heb 12:26-28). My hope is instead that, if you give, you will be motivated by a desire to bear witness to God’s new beginning that happens wherever love welcomes the stranger and befriends the enemy and cares for the vulnerable. If you see that love here, if you have experienced it here, if you desire it here, then by all means please be a part of it in any way that you can. For our world, which is haunted by the end, needs to know about this love, which invites us into a new beginning.

Prayer

Creator God,
Who looks upon the waste and void
And sees within it a very good world—
In Christ, you reveal
That the end
May in fact be a beginning.
Give us courage
To live as joyful, faithful witnesses
To your way of love,
Even as the present form of things
Passes away.
In Christ, crucified and risen: Amen.

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[1] The Guardian, “‘There Is Nothing for Us’: Pakistan’s Flood Homeless Start to Despair,” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/06/we-screamed-our-hearts-out-for-help-homeless-escape-pakistan-floods, accessed September 6, 2022.

[2] Eleanor Parker, “The Sermon of the Wolf,” Plough 32 (2022): 32-37.

We Are the Clay (Jer 18:1-11)

What Shapes Us

Most of the time, the metaphor of God as potter is celebrated as an image of God’s power. But there is also a profound wisdom in the image of us as clay. It’s certainly an unfashionable wisdom this day and age, where many in our world still believe in the idea of the self-made man or woman. The American dream, for example, is not that we’re clay but that we’re our own potter. The American dream that has been baked into us is that anyone can pull themselves up by their own bootstraps and accomplish anything they set their mind to doing.

But I think Jeremiah’s metaphor is much closer to the truth. Like clay, we are regularly and deeply shaped by the world around us. Studies have found, for instance, that place shapes us. Zip code—where we grow up—is a better predictor of health than genetic code and is also closely correlated to its residents’ education and income levels.[1] Words shape us. Imagine, for instance, the difference between a child whose parents regularly tell her, “How sweet you are! How beautiful, how smart!” and a child who hears, “Why can’t you just be quiet! You’re so annoying.” One becomes a much-respected teacher or  a tactful business leader, the other becomes combative and suspicious and unable to hold down a job. Our screens shape us: our smart phones, which tell us we should always be entertained and there should never be an empty moment; the endless advertisements, which tell us that we don’t ever have enough, and wouldn’t this look good in our homes, and don’t we need another pair of these?; our social media outlets, which tell us who is good and who is bad and what the solution is. Our stories shape us, perhaps more than anything else: the stories we learn at school about what happened in the past and how it lives on in the present; the stories we learn in our homes about what matters most in life; the stories we learn in our churches, synagogues, mosques, about who God is.

We are shaped by so many different forces. Some of these are part of God’s handiwork, but many are not. For example, the idea that we do not have enough and the greed for more make us callous and less caring toward the need of others. God makes this exact diagnosis of the people of Judah elsewhere in the book of Jeremiah: “They have become great and rich [but] they do not defend the rights of the needy” (5:27-28).

Another influence that shapes us in ways contrary to God’s design is the idolatry of force and strength. The way of Christ is not the way of the sword, and yet the sword is precisely where much of our world places its trust. It trusts in armies and guns and powerful people. Similarly, when Judah felt threatened by Babylon, it sought the help of neighboring empires and their militaries. But God responds, elsewhere in Jeremiah, “Have you not brought this [imminent destruction and exile] upon yourself by forsaking the Lord your God, while he led you in the way? What then do you gain by going to [the empire of] Egypt…or what do you gain by going to [the empire of] Assyria? Your wickedness will punish you” (2:17-19). God implies a connection between Judah’s trust in the might and muscle of empire and its own wickedness. Because it worships force, its people use it at every turn to get their own way, which results in all manner of struggle and injustice.

God Works with the Clay Rather than on It

I’ve heard that potters, on occasion, will complain that the clay is just being stubborn and not cooperating. I think that is how God is feeling when God says, “I am a potter shaping evil against you” (18:11). In other words, I don’t think God purposefully shapes evil for Judah or anyone, but rather that this is the natural consequence when we allow ourselves to be shaped by something other than God’s love. We become hardened in our selfish ways, stubborn and obstinate. We become uncooperative clay. Elsewhere in the book of Jeremiah, God explains, “Your [own] ways and your doings have brought this upon you” (4:18; cf. 6:18).

The good news of Jeremiah, which is the same as the good news of Christ, is not that God is all-powerful and will work out any kinks in our clay and magically turn us into a good product. The good news is not a God of power, but a God of relationship. This is not a potter who works on the clay, but rather a potter who works with the clay. It’s not unlike the relationship between a parent and a child. A parent can guarantee love, but they cannot guarantee their child’s wellbeing. I had a good friend growing up whose sister tragically fell into a group of friends who lived recklessly and impulsively, constantly pushing boundaries and seeking new thrills, including drugs. Their influence shaped her. She absorbed the message that she was different and damaged. Her heart was hardened to her parents’ love. But after a couple of decades, she has rediscovered a healthy balance of life—and a fundamental reason for that was her parents’ love. Her parents’ love could not magically fix her life, not when she resisted it, but their love also never gave up or left her. So, when she finally broke down and opened up, they were there. Their love helped her to heal.

That is the good news that Jeremiah proclaims. God never leaves, God never gives up. When we turn away from the forces that are shaping us for ill, God will lovingly embrace us and shape us into a new, better shape (cf. 18:4). Even if we are as stubborn as Judah, so stubborn that there’s nothing to do but let the misshapen creation eventually shatter (cf. Jer 19), God will always be waiting for us with plans to restore us, as God was for Judah (29:10-14).

In God’s Hands, We Are Enough

Today’s passage invites me to consider myself as a lump of clay. It invites me to observe what is shaping me and to ask whether these influences are God’s handiwork or not.

Henri Nouwen, a Catholic priest who preached the good news of downward mobility—that is, living not for success but for relationship—said that the world tells us three common stories that shape us profoundly. One is the story that I am what I have. Another is the story that I am what I achieve, or what I am able to do. Another is the story that I am what others think of me. Each of these stories tells us that we are not safe until we have somehow secured ourselves. They make us hard and inflexible in the pursuit of something we’ll never find. They tell us we do not have enough, we cannot do enough, or we are not desirable enough. They tell us we need more votes, more victories, more money, more land, more followers, more likes, more members, more programs, more, more, more…

In stark contrast to these stories, is the story of a God who took some dirt from the ground, “formed” it (Gen 2:7)—just as a potter forms the clay[2]—and breathed his very own breath into it. According to this story, we are enough. Just as we are. God will forever love us, not for what we have or do or look like, but because we are God’s children. At the end of the day, being clay is not about accomplishing anything; in fact, it appears that self-striving makes us rigid and intractable and impedes the potter’s process. No, being clay is simply about appreciating the hands that form you and the breath that fills you with life and the God who says, “You are my beloved child. With you, I am well pleased.”

The good news of Jeremiah—and Christ—is not a God of power, but a God of relationship. It is the good news that we are in a loving God’s hands, and nothing other than our own stubborn, hardened will can keep us from feeling God’s touch. Tragically, Judah stopped listening to this good news, when it started aching for the security of possessions and power and prestige. We often forget the good news ourselves, we who are taught to be go-getters, movers-and-shakers, head-turners. But thankfully no amount of stubbornness or forgetfulness will ever change the good news itself. We belong to a God who loves us, just as we are. We are safe in God’s hands.

Meditation:

A Pebble and Some Play-Dough

At the beginning of the service,
You were given a sealed plastic bag
With a piece of play-dough and a little pebble.

Keeping the bag closed,
I invite you to feel the pebble with your fingers.
Feel its every edge.
Feel its hardness, how it will not be shaped.

Now feel the play-dough with your fingers.
Feel how it receives your touch.
Feel its softness, how it moves with your fingers.

Remember that you are clay.
And do not be afraid—
For you are in the hands
Of a God who loves you
With a love stronger than death,
Because you are God’s very own. 

Amen.

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[1] E.g., Jamie Ducharme and Elijah Wolfson, “Your ZIP Code Might Determine How Long You Live—and the Difference Could Be Decades,” https://time.com/5608268/zip-code-health/, accessed August 29, 2022.

[2] The verb “form” and the noun “potter” both derive from the same Hebrew root, יצר.