What and Whose, Sept 9, 2007

Jeremiah 18: 1-11
Luke 14: 25-33
This morning, in order to begin,we entreat you to shake off all distractions, to take a deep breath and let it out, to center yourself, breathe in and out, listen and feel the rhythms of life all around us, shaping you, molding you. As we sang together earlier, Spirit of the Living God, melt me, mold me, fill me, use me. We are as clay and God is our Potter.

Years ago, I worked for a pottery studio. The wonderful lesson there, is that nothing is EVER wasted. As described by the Prophet, the Potter center's themselves, and sets the wheel in motion. All that we see and know is atop the upper wheel, but beneath this reality, are the larger wheels of the universe, that the potter kicks into motion, and consistently, in rhtythm what happens out of sight, keeps the wheel spinning smoothly. The potter leans against the moving clay, and the friction, the motion and resistance over and against, bring the lump of earth to the very center. Then, like the opening of a flower, the potter places their thumbs into the clay, pulling and lifting, as the walls of clay open.

Occassionally, more often than we would like, things happen. There is an inconsistency in the clay, a thin spot or a thickness, or a speck of grit, the very motion of the wheel, that can take the pot out of true, off center. Frustratingly, the potter cannot recenter or go on with a spoilt pot. If the clay is off-center, it is off and everything about that piece will be off. At which point, the potter cuts the clay, never throwing anything away, for nothing is ever wasted. But cut off, the clay, is thoroughly reworked, kneaded and rubbed, dusted to take out excess moisture, allowed to rest, then kneeded and rubbed anew, in order to be centered once again, to begin to be molded by the potter.

This passage is more beautiful in the Hebrew Language, where the word for CLAY, for EARTH, for HUMUS is ADAMA. and ADAM is the word for Mortal being, the Earthling from the Earth, humanity from out of the HUMUS, Adam from Adama.

When the potter has worked a piece, that clay is set aside to age and mature. Again, things happen the days are too hot, the night's too damp, and the clay cracks. If so, the dried out clay is dropped into water, to soak and saturate over time. Then, the water is rawn off, and all the muck, the sediment at the bottom is poured out together, until the potter, takes a fresh clump and kneads and works the mass into a ball of clay. Even after being aged in the fire of a kiln, becoming hard as rock and brittle as china, if spoilt, the potter can grind the clay to shards and the shards to dust and ash. And the ashes and dust, are used sparingly throughout the clay to provide binding grit and fiber. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust, we return from whence we have come.

The problem as Jeremiah sees it, is that the clay does not recognize the potter's efforts. While being kneaded and centered, the clay imagines it is being pummelled and beat down. Our sense of time and space are so brief and limited that we focus on our imperfections, on being cut off and left aside, rather than witnessing that God is using us, working and blending us together to become what we never imagined.

Jeremiah testifies to FREE WILL, to our desire to do our own thing, even when it is wrong; and YET also to GOD'S SOVEREIGN POWER that never abandons, always watches over and uses us. We tend to believe in a world of Absolutes, black and white, right and wrong, good and bad, free and enslaved. But RELATIONSHIPS OF FAITH undercut this, challenging us to Forgive. Not to FORGET, but to choose to forgive, knowing our rights, knowing what we have done wrong, Choosing to Forgive and to accept different relationships, different understandings, a new normal.

In CONTRAST to FREE WILL could there be any more subjugated and controlled identity than ONESIMUS? Born into slavery, bought and sold, considered as property and whipping boy, ONESIMUS fled.Throughout Western history, the Letter to Philemon has been used to justify slavery, because Paul never states that SLAVERY IS WRONG. Paul even sends Onesimus back to his owner, Philemon. BUT What Paul does, is to undercut Slavery which identified one people as human, and another as described by the Constitution of the United States as 3/5ths human or as property, and instead declare the slave and owner are brothers.

How often, we are blinded by our Perceptions of INHUMANITY to another, perceiving only our side. The answer to AGGRESSION cannot be matched with greater and greater acts of AGGRESSION, nor as is our temptation with DEFENSIVENESS. All these do is perpetuate a WIN/LOSE relation. IF we are focused on WIN/LOSE, Onesimus is a runaway slave and the slave belongs to Philemon. But what Paul declares is that while in Prison, Onesimus has become a Christian, claimed as part of the Body of Christ, your BROTHER and TEACHER.

How different, for Philemon to receive Onesimus back, not anly as SLAVE but as TEACHER.

It is indeed hard to stand up to one another, to challenge and accuse, yet even so, how hard also to accept and claim anew, when that other returns home.