We all know from our various history backgrounds that at various times in years past, and on occasion today, a nation or two in Europe or somewhere else may find a point of frustration and even great dislike of another or other nations in Europe or somewhere else.Such struggling has been going on for years even, on occasion escalating to a point where the desire might be to wipe the presence of each other off the face of the globe.
One of the great rivalries of centuries past is that of Great Britain and Spain.Their conflicts came over a variety of issues notably water and land.Both the English and the Spanish claimed to rule the seas and both were in conflict with the other because each saw itself as a great colonial power.Often times the Spaniards and the British would find themselves at odds over a common piece of turf.How great it would be to remove the image of the enemy from the world, might have been one of the talking points.
I don’t know if this was the case in an interesting numismatic event of over two hundred years ago.Back in the Seventeenth, Eighteenth and even the early Nineteenth Centuries, the Spanish were busy exploring the America.Their vast interests included turf where silver was found in some large quantity.Starting in the late 1500’s the Spanish mined the silver and established mints in the New World so that the silver could be fashioned into coin.The most famous example was minted for over three hundred years.Any pirate enthusiasts will be familiar with an Eight Real, or a Piece of Eight.By the year 1800 the Eight Real had become the world’s most well known trade coin.Each individually minted piece was uniform in silver content and in weight.
In 1805 the British had need for a Five Shilling coin made of silver, one that would circulate in the motherland and in the colonies.They could have adopted the coins of their old foes, Spain, and used the Spanish Colonial coins, minted in places such as Bolivia, Peru and Mexico.In a way the British actually did just exactly that.But instead of keeping the coins as they were the British prepared new coin dyes and over struck the Spanish Pieces of Eight.The British dyes were hard enough and broad enough to obliterate the former image, to symbolically replace the Spanish ideals with their own British priorities.Unfortunately on more than a few of the re-struck coins there are spots where the relief, the design of the old shows through.Even though the desire was to do away with the old, there was still the presence of that which went before.
When ever I read in the Old Testament places such as Jeremiah where the word of God is a harsh word, I recall the coins and the images contained on each in the Old Testament.God’s word is sometimes a very threatening word.The promise is quite clear, God calls whomever the target may be, to repent.If one doesn’t do so, well God himself will remove every sign that that the person or group in question ever existed.
Hence the image in a negative form of the potter.The potter can choose to destroy the original creation and create a new form which doesn’t have any of the first design visible.A good potter can actually start with a bottle and even reshape the bottle into a bowl.
However every time we read of such talk, or hear through the prophets such treats supposedly from God, and strong promises, there is never really total destruction, or removal that comes as a result.With the coin a sign of what was remained by inefficiency and happenstance.With God’s people it is by design.When, for example, the people of Israel were captured and sent into slavery in the Babylonian Empire, a remnant remained, and even though relocated the people of God were still the people of God. In time that which remained, the remnant, became the seed of faith which was planted by God himself, which led to recreation and restoration of the great nation.
And other times the warnings are never even acted upon either because God chose not to act or because those who were targeted actually chose to repent and to commitment themselves to God through acts of faith.Like the coin with a faint image of what went before, so is the holy remnant a sign of what was and a promise of what is yet to be.
Every time God’s judgment comes and when people and nations are destroyed or displaced God always leave a few as hope for the future.God leaves people as slaves of those such as Egyptians, Assyrians, or Babylonians.There is always a remnant; a faithful few, or perhaps even a larger crowd, as in the wanderers in the wildness.Always there is some sign and on many occasions the threats come and there is not action at all to follow because the message has already gotten across.
My favorite example of this is the story of Jonah.Jonah hesitated to take God’s message of judgment to the sinful people of Nineveh.After Jonah did what he was called to do, reluctantly as we know, the people to whom the message was spoken did something marvelous and unexpected, those who heard repented, their lives changed, and peace was brought to Nineveh, the great city.God heard the confessions of the people of Nineveh and returned Nineveh to the people, because there were those holy men and women who confessed and who promised to lead Nineveh back to the right direction.God forgave and much to the dissatisfaction of Jonah there was no destruction to be found.
The over struck coin is my metaphor for the nations.God may pluck up and perhaps destroy, but out of the justice, duly deserved, there will come in time, restoration and redemption even forgiveness issued to those who were willing to repent and to be reformed.There may well be signs of the old, however, there was no question that from the old comes the new.When the people of Nineveh repented, when they turned away from their sins, and turned to God, it is implied that they changed their practices, their “ways” as well.
The image of the reformation of life, the restoration that remains to start a new nation is a way in which the redemptive power of God works.Out with the old, in with the new or better stated the “renewed” holy remnant.When we remember for example, the Babylonian captivity, no one could return home, until the people changed their ways and acknowledged God.And for time in memoriam the people of Israel remembered and God reminds them of their place as a redeemed, restored nation.
But what about the image of the potter?I’ve hassled with this for a few days.Is it different than what we have thought about before?Is it like a returned or remaining holy remnant?Is a piece of pottery like a new image struck on an old coin?In a way it is.The potter sees the imperfections and knows there is potential for a better piece.It is the choice of the potter to start over in order to create a more perfect, blemish free piece.
Yet there is more.The scripture tells us that it is the potter’s choice to destroy or to build up.The reformed bowl represents Israel.If God chose to destroy, God will destroy.If God chooses to start over, well God can start over.God has the power to destroy, but God also has the power to remold.
In the Old Testament thinking the burden is on humanity.If you come back to me, says the Lord, you’ll live.If you choose to repent, just perhaps my wrath will be appeased.If you turn from your evil ways, I God will repent from my choice to destroy you and catastrophe will be averted.The potter image on first observation is a thing of judgment, it is God whipping out the old and shaping something new.Jeremiah warns also that there will be a time when it is to late when, symbolically speaking, the pot will be fired and will no longer be moldable.It is a promise of helplessness.
Yet in this passage there are a few hints about God who could be understood in another way and at the time in a new way.God’s mind could be changed.God’s work as potter displays God as more than one who sits and judges and demands human response.It is a message of how God will work with his creation, even with us, and help us to be reformed, or in Christian language to be reborn into that which God can see.The potential to be a perfect vessel is always in the clay.God sees in us what we cannot see in ourselves.God knows the potential that is created in each life.Those of us who view God from the post – resurrection perspective do not see the judgment of an angry God, but see the justice of a God whose purpose is love and who seeks from His creation faith and trust that will allow God to work, through the Holy Spirit, in order to restore lives, to redeem sinners, and to remake the hearts and minds of those who have fallen away.
Is such a concept a new thing?Of course not.As far back as Exodus 34: 6, written nearly 800 years prior to the time of Jeremiah, there is a hint for those who will listen.At the time of the second presentation of the Commandments from God, after the people of Israel had turned again from God, Exodus states the presence of God and Moses defines God as “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.”
I’m intrigued by the potter and clay imagery.It implies more than the faint under-print of an over struck coin.It states more than a message about a remnant that exists past destruction.It tells of a unique power which sees potential that no one else can see and promises to reshape, recreate, remold and make good, perfect and sure.No one else but the master potter sees the potential and has the talent and patience to do what can and must be done.
Think of it in terms of your life and mine.What do we have in our midst that can forgive and reform?Certainly not our possessions, our power, or property, or place?Our friends and family come close and do have some potential to reform.I have known people through the years, who because of the love of another, has changed.However real, complete, life shaping, change comes from reformation of heart and mind.The work of the potter, who forms and shapes and constructs, and images until the good work is complete.Such is the power of God’s love.God is the potter, perhaps even more then sculpture.We are the clay.
I regret that we didn’t have the privilege of Larry Ludtke here at Fair Haven for longer than we did.I know that many of you knew him and Erica for some years, even decades before they joined here.Larry had been here for several months before I found out about his gift, as a sculpture.There were several interesting insights I do recall in my visits with Larry.Since Larry worked in bronze the actual first presentation was a work in clay.I gathered that the clay would be present of course without image.The image was in Larry’s mind and would be transferred by hand and tool until the clay bore the presence that was there to be revealed.
From our faith’s perspective this is how God deals with us.God sees the potential we all bear within.All it takes is the trust to allow God to go to work.God forms us as we trust in God’s words.God reshapes us as we look at our selves and see the rough spots that need God’s forgiveness.God adds form to our being as we come face to face with God’s word in scripture, through worship, in the midst of Christian Education, and through the eyes of those whom God places in our lives as holy friends.
God’s process of reformation begins when we accept God in faith, when we change directions, when we toss aside those gods that do not save, when we give up the unholy habits.God’s restoration occurs when we trust God, when we hear Jesus’ call to faith, and when we trust enough to follow.We may be talking something immediate, but truthfully, the work of the scripture takes time.Our best plan, no matter who we are, is to do the John Wesley thing, to trust God’s love to perfect us in love and faith.This means every day being open in prayer and practice to receive a little more of Divine love and insight than the day before.This means every day practicing a little more than the day before the things that will make God smile.
It is my belief, hope, prayer and trust that God isn’t finished with any of us.As long as we live God will sculpt and continue sculpting.The finished project may take time.Honestly, it may never come, during our years on this earth, at least.The joy of life is in moving day to day closer to God than the day before, and it means practicing God’s love and allowing God’s creative presence to help us share and receive God’s love, as a continuing and a new gift each new day.
The secret isn’t really a secret.God’s creative eye sees what we cannot see.If we have faith God takes us, as unfinished as we may be, and with his love brings out the best we can be.God is the potter.We are the clay.What we are to be is yet in God’s hands.What we are is God’s gift.Let us trust God, and potter, as we allow God to form us with his love.
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