How many times is it that the psalmist cries “How long, O Lord?” Do you sometimes get the idea that the Hebrew scripture is all about waiting? Abraham waits 25 years for the promise of an heir. In these chapters Jeremiah is waiting beyond exhaustion for peace and justice. In fact, Jeremiah is so frustrated that he claims that God duped him. Deception, sorrow and terror have brought the prophet close to the point of despair; nevertheless he has expressed his utmost confidence in the triumph of God’s will. Jeremiah consistently points out the useless resistance to Babylon, since the Lord has delivered Judah to Nebuchadnezzar. This advice, not being well received, gets Jeremiah denounced and imprisoned as a traitor. Rev. Michael Piazza in Liberating Word refers to Jeremiah as the “Weeping Prophet”. Piazza says, “Who can blame him, given the fact that he is called to preach a message that God says is destined to be ignored?......In Jeremiah 18, we are offered this great image of God as a potter…. With this image of God as a potter trying to shape uncooperative clay, it is no wonder Jeremiah wept. The point of the entire book is that, if the people of God had been shaped by the law and teachings of God, the mess they were in could have been avoided. God tries to shape us into bricks that can be used together to build a new world, and we keep insisting that we are vases to be treated with special care. Thus, the poor potter ends up having to try to build something with bricks that have all decided to put their hands on their hips and stick out their elbows and insist they are vases. We all want to live in Lake Wobegone where “all the children are exceptional”.” This week I will meditate on being malleable clay that conforms to the size required to build God’s new world. I wonder if I may choose my very own color.
How many times is it that the psalmist cries “How long, O Lord?” Do you sometimes get the idea that the Hebrew scripture is all about waiting? Abraham waits 25 years for the promise of an heir. In these chapters Jeremiah is waiting beyond exhaustion for peace and justice. In fact, Jeremiah is so frustrated that he claims that God duped him. Deception, sorrow and terror have brought the prophet close to the point of despair; nevertheless he has expressed his utmost confidence in the triumph of God’s will. Jeremiah consistently points out the useless resistance to Babylon, since the Lord has delivered Judah to Nebuchadnezzar. This advice, not being well received, gets Jeremiah denounced and imprisoned as a traitor. Rev. Michael Piazza in Liberating Word refers to Jeremiah as the “Weeping Prophet”. Piazza says, “Who can blame him, given the fact that he is called to preach a message that God says is destined to be ignored?......In Jeremiah 18, we are offered this great image of God as a potter…. With this image of God as a potter trying to shape uncooperative clay, it is no wonder Jeremiah wept. The point of the entire book is that, if the people of God had been shaped by the law and teachings of God, the mess they were in could have been avoided. God tries to shape us into bricks that can be used together to build a new world, and we keep insisting that we are vases to be treated with special care. Thus, the poor potter ends up having to try to build something with bricks that have all decided to put their hands on their hips and stick out their elbows and insist they are vases. We all want to live in Lake Wobegone where “all the children are exceptional”.” This week I will meditate on being malleable clay that conforms to the size required to build God’s new world. I wonder if I may choose my very own color.
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