DAY 303

THE POTTER AND THE CLAY

Jeremiah 18 & 19 and 2 Timothy 3

The setting for these chapters is probably in the early years of the reign of King Jehoiakim—you might recall he is the king that followed King Josiah. Josiah was the good king, the one trying to reform Judah. Jehoiakim comes to power and immediately returns to the evil ways of idolatry and therefore Jeremiah is a threat.

Chapter 18 gives us the image of a potter working, or I should say re-working, clay. It is a metaphor for personal and national repentance and conversion. Clay has remarkable properties. While it is soft it can be molded and shaped, but when it is hardened you cannot remake it. Chapter 19 tells us Judah has reached this point. It is a few decades from utter destruction. Jeremiah when he smashes the pot symbolically communicates that there is no putting it back to together…it is beyond reform.

If we dig a little deeper we can think about a few other aspects of these two chapters. The image of the “potter and the clay” is a powerful one in which we are powerless. The potter will make and shape what he chooses. The image communicates our standing with God. But of course the metaphor has its limit. The clay, that would be us, in this case seems to stand on “its own two feet” (as if clay had feet) and refuses to be shaped. This clay refuses to be formed into the image that the potter desires. What image does God desire us to be shaped into? His image—this is the message of Genesis where God said “let us make humankind in our image” and then God “got down on his hands and knees and formed us out of the ground.” I know that is metaphorical, but the Hebrew for “form” and for “potter” has the same root. God formed and desires to form us.

The people of Jeremiah’s day refuse and we see their pride in 18:18. They say “the law will not be taken away from the priests, nor counsel taken from the wise, nor the word taken from the prophets”—(there are more prophets then just Jeremiah). That verse reveals the prideful stubbornness of their hearts. They believed they were the people with the Temple, and in the end, God would never leave them…and this pride hardened their hearts…so hard that God would have to smash them.

And so Jeremiah carries out a pot to the Valley of Hinnom. I wrote about that place when we studied chapter 7. This is the place where evil is carried out. This is the place where false religion is practiced. Before Jeremiah carries out this act he prays against them. Maybe he has done this before, but I had not noticed until now. Certainly God has spoken harshly against the people, but up until this point I remember Jeremiah praying for them. Today he prays against them. His invective perhaps reveals the depth of the evil he will face with this new king, or perhaps that he is reaching the end of his proverbial rope. And so after smashing the pot, he goes to the Temple and proclaims the same message.

What is the message for us...for me? Keep a soft heart. We should keep ourselves open to God. You may have noticed that these prophecies (most of the time) are open to revision. Think of the times Moses “debated with God and God “changed His mind.”” Think of the times God told Isaiah he was going to do something and then Isaiah got King Hezekiah to repent and God relented…all because people kept their hearts soft.

God is the Potter. He is in the business of re-shaping. He re-shaped Saul into Paul, the tax collector Matthew into an Apostle, and the list goes on.  He will re-shape all who allow his strong, tender, skillful hands to grasp their hearts to be changed.