Our Sermons

Bible Passage: Jeremiah 18:1-11
Pastor: Pastor Schlicht
Sermon Date:  November 4, 2018

In the region Topheth by the valley of Ben Hinnom, there was something called the potsherd Gate, a place where earthen vessels were discarded. The desert ground was littered with broken clay, a graveyard of sorts for all kinds of pottery. There the elders of the people and the priests had gathered and Jeremiah stood before them, with a clay pot in his hands. The prophet trembled as he lifted the pot above his head for the words which God had given him were not easy to speak. “Hear the word of the Lord, you kings of Judah and people of Jerusalem. I am going to bring a disaster on this place that will make everyone who hears of it shudder. For you have forsaken me and made this a place of false gods. You have filled this place with the blood of the innocent. You have built high places to burn your children in the fire as offerings to Baal. So beware, for the days are coming, declares the Lord, when people will no longer call this place the Valley of Ben Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter.” With words of God’s judgment ringing in their ears, Jeremiah threw the clay pot into the ground. It shattered into smithereens and joined the growing ranks of broken vessels on the desert floor. This ominous sign would soon be brought to life, as God brought down the Babylonians from the north and they shattered Israel and their cities just like the clay pot which Jeremiah broke.

That scene is Jeremiah chapter 19. Today, however, our lesson takes us back a page to chapter 18, a time when the pot of Israel wasn’t yet hardened. We observe a vessel, not fired in the kiln, but spinning on the potter’s wheel. We watch as clay is formed into something beautiful, not smashed into dust. And we observe that our God of grace wishes to reform each of us according to his Word. So let’s rewind the clock, and go back with Jeremiah to celebrate Reformation at the Potter’s House.  

This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: “Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you my message.” So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. 4 But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him. As Jeremiah stood in the potter’s house, waiting for some word from God, he began to watch. He watched the flat, round stone wheel, powered by the potter’s feet, going around and around. He watched as firmly, yet carefully, the potter centered a lump of clay on his wheel and began to work. With pressure applied, it began to take shape, a hole developing in the center, ridges on the sides. But there was something wrong. There was a flaw in the clay and so the potter stopped the wheel. He pressed the clay down and began to reform it. Suddenly, the Lord broke into Jeremiah’s observation with a revelation. Then the word of the Lord came to me. 6 He said, “Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?” declares the Lord. “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel. The Lord wanted to form for himself a special vessel out of the nation of Israel. They were going to be the vessel from which salvation would come into the world.  They would be holy and unique, the perfect place for the Savior to be born. What a beautiful artifact they would be in the hands of their potter.

But they became marred. Even though God was with them every step of the way, they simply would not take the shape that he wanted them to. They buckled and rebelled. They stopped seeing the beauty of what they had been given. They stopped listening to the Word that guided them and became hardened clay, marred and unfit for shaping. Over and over again, God rightfully warned them that if they did not return to him, he would have to start over. And so it is, through the eyes of Jeremiah, in this picture of the potter and the marred clay, we see something truly unique: judgment and grace together. We see judgment because God is going to break them down; he is going to smash their marred clay. But he isn’t going to stop there. We see grace because God will restart the wheel and reform their clay! Like a parent who lovingly issues a warning to their children, you can even hear a strain of grace in God’s voice as he continues speaking in verse 11: “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.’ God is not at all anxious to destroy his people, that’s why he told them this plan in the first place! He will justly punish sin, yet his plan is not ultimately destruction, but reformation.

Reformation is also our purpose in gathering here today. Today we celebrate the Reformation which gave birth to the Lutheran church, and specifically the reforms which turned people back to God’s Word. It was in the Word that Martin Luther found freedom in a God who wasn’t just about judgment, but primarily grace. Luther found that God didn’t demand perfection, but provided it. Luther met a divine potter who longed to reform sinful people. Luther found a God of grace, through Jesus Christ. That is why we celebrate the Reformation today. But it has been 501 years since Luther nailed the 95 theses to the Castle Church door in Wittenberg. Where are we now as his spiritual descendants?

Could it be that, just like those Israelites, we sometimes forget the beauty of what we’ve been given? Could it be that we’ve forgotten the treasure of God’s grace in his Word? Familiarity breeds contempt, and sadly that is even true said of our relationship with God. Our love for God will change and mature over time, but I’m talking about a dry spell. Perhaps it is a life event that throws you out of rhythm with church and you begin to lose touch with hearing the Word on a regular basis. You start feeling dry and your faith wavers. Maybe you love a certain sin that you keep going back to and it makes it very difficult to open up your heart to God in prayer because you feel a separation. Maybe you’ve simply been so busy trying to control your own life, that God and his shaping Word, seem to be imposing on your schedule. Soon volunteering becomes a chore, and up your heart becomes dry in worship. Perhaps you have given God’s place in your heart to someone or something else? If you’re anything like me, it sure is easy to become dried out on the wheel sometimes, isn’t it? It’s easy to drift away from the potter and become hardened to his gracious hands which seek to form us. But marred clay that has become hardened cannot be used by the potter. Jeremiah chapter 19 is a terrible reminder of that; the thought of a pot breaking beyond repair is a terrible thought, spiritually speaking. The truth is that God is patient and longsuffering; he is merciful and wants to send us his Spirit and reform our lives. But God is not going to force us. We can harden our heart against him to the point that he will not be able to reform us. And for those that are hardened, there will come a day of destruction, not physically, but eternally.

The good news is that our God’s goal isn’t destruction, but reformation. And even though it may have seemed like Israel was finished, the great Potter started up his wheel again. 70 years after the Israelites went to Babylon a remnant was allowed to return. And into this newly formed pot, God would send his very own Son, Jesus, to be born as the promised Savior. God reformed the clay of Israel on his wheel, just as Jeremiah had seen, but what Jeremiah couldn’t see in a normal potter was that God himself would die out of love for this clay. Jesus’ body was broken, shattered on the cross, so that we can remain whole. His blood pours over our hardened clay to make us soft again. Is it that cleansing flood of Calvary that washes away all impurities within us, forgiving us of every sin. It is Jesus’ love that can turn even the hardest heart back into soft malleable clay to be used by the Potter. And it is in this Gospel of God’s grace that we then find joy in reformation.

Reformation is something to celebrate because it is all about God’s grace and God’s activity. That is the truth that Jeremiah discovered in the potter’s house, the truth Luther found in the Scriptures, and the truth we have been celebrating for half a millennia in the Lutheran church. We are reformed by a God of grace. A God who doesn’t ask us to do anything to earn his love, but loves us no matter what we do and patiently works to reform our lives and our hearts. A God who promises that salvation is by grace alone, through faith. Not of ourselves, but the gift of God, not by our works, but in the potter’s hands. This truth of God’s never-failing grace is why we celebrate reformation at the potter’s house, not destruction at the Potsherd Gate.

My friends, you already know this, but life on God’s wheel can be tough. Being reformed can be difficult. It might be easier to stay away from the wheel. If you don’t want to risk change, if you don’t want to be any different than you are today, you could stay away from the wheel. But the further we get from the wheel, the further we get from the reworking, reshaping, and reforming grace of God. So when the potter presses his hands into you, don’t resist. Listen to him and return to the Word. Remember only the potter has your final shape in mind. Be confident that no matter what you go through, as you remain in his Word, our God of grace will quietly reform you into a beautiful vessel fit for his purpose. As the Apostle says, I am “confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 1:6)

Amen.