The Cosmic Potter and Human Clay
Jeremiah 18:1-11

How firmly fixed is the future? Generally speaking, God’s future plans for the world are firmly fixed. God has promised to defeat sin, evil, and death when Jesus Christ comes again. We know the final goal of history. God’s kingdom will come, and God’s will shall be done on earth as it is in heaven. However, in the time between Christ’s death and resurrection and his return, the future destiny of individuals or nations does not appear to be written in stone.

This is somewhat of a foreign notion to us as Presbyterians. We believe deeply in the sovereignty and providence of God. As the Westminster Confession of Faith, a seventeenth-century exposition of Christian doctrine, declares regarding the providence of God, “God, the great creator of all things, doth uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures, actions, and things, from the greatest to the least, by his most wise and holy providence.”

Although we believe that the Westminster Confession accurately describes God as God truly is in the divine person and essence, there seems to be a greater openness to the future than our confessional standards proclaim. God’s relationship to the past, the present, and the future is murkier than we would like for it to be. We believe that God is the sovereign of the universe, and that God is ruling and reigning over creation by his providence. However, it is very difficult to trace the hand of God in personal or corporate history. It seems as though there are a number of possible futures for us. Uncertainty about the future is both unnerving and encouraging. Things may not turn out well for us in the end. That is very disconcerting, but on the other hand, the future may be brighter than we think.

This morning’s reading from the prophet Jeremiah helps us to think fruitfully about the future and its multiple possibilities. The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah and directed him to visit a local potter. Jeremiah found the potter seated at his wheel working on a pot. If you have ever tried to throw a pot on a wheel, you know the clay is not always cooperative. Sometimes it will not yield to your hands or things can be taking shape very nicely when with just one slip the vessel is spoiled. This is what happened to the pot the potter was throwing. It was spoiled in his hand, but the potter was skilled. He was able to rework the marred pot into a new vessel. Despite a setback, the potter was fully in control of the clay.

Through this prophetic parable, God reveals how he is at work in history, both our personal history and corporate history. God is the cosmic potter fashioning vessels as seems good to him. We are like the clay in the potter’s hand. God is molding us and shaping us, but sometimes we are also like the uncooperative clay.

The openness of the future to different possibilities occurs at the point where the potter’s skilled hand intersects with the cooperative or uncooperative clay. And so, the Lord says that if a nation that has been destined for destruction turns from its evil, God will change the divine mind about the nation’s destiny and avert destruction. And the inverse is also true. A nation destined for blessing can lose its divine favor if it does evil and refuses to heed God’s voice. The same is true of individuals.

Just as an interesting aside, God the cosmic potter and the prophet Jeremiah shared a common vocation. You will recall from Jeremiah Chapter One that the Lord commissioned Jeremiah to be a prophet with these words: “See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant” (Jer. 1:10). Similarly, God, the cosmic potter in our text, plucks up, breaks down, and destroys (Jer. 18:7), but the Lord also builds and plants (Jer. 18:9).

There appears then to be a certain fluidity in a nation’s or an individual’s future. This is actually wonderful news. God’s world is not a closed system. The universe is not a relentless and merciless machine cranking out unchangeable destinies. Quite the contrary, there is a certain amount of openness to the future. Even if we are marred, we can be remade. If we are on the broad road that leads to destruction, we can change the direction of our lives and embark on the narrow path that leads to life. We are like a lump of clay in the cosmic potter’s hands.

However, the prophetic parable of the potter ends on a very dark note. “Look, I am a potter shaping evil against you and devising a plan against you” (Jer. 18:11a). The prospect of God devising an evil plan against us is a frightening image!

We learned last Sunday that the Kingdom of Judah was characterized in Jeremiah’s day by immorality and idolatry. “Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, 'We are safe!'—only to go on doing all these abominations?” (Jer. 7:9-10). The cosmic potter commands the clay. “Turn now, all of you, from your evil way, and amend your ways and your doings” (Jer. 18:11b).

This way of dealing with individuals and nations is in accord with God’s nature. Exodus 34:6-7 is an important text in revealing God’s attributes. “The Lord passed before him, and proclaimed, 'The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, yet by no means clearing the guilty, but visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.'”

God is merciful, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. God forgives iniquity, transgression, and sin. Yet God will not clear the guilty when they refuse to change. Look at Jeremiah 18:12. Judah is speaking. “It is no use! We will follow our own plans, and each of us will act according to the stubbornness of our evil will.” Judah hardened her heart against God’s will and way.

As a result, God shaped evil against Judah. God devised a plan against them. In God’s time, the Babylonian armies appeared and conquered Jerusalem. They deposed the Davidic king and burned the temple with fire. The survivors were taken into captivity for three generations. The iniquity of the parents was visited on the children and the children’s children to the third and fourth generation.

But notice this carefully. God’s malevolent plan was only temporary. After seventy years, the Lord brought his chosen people back to the promised land, and they rebuilt Jerusalem and the temple. Judgment may extend to the third or fourth generation, but God’s steadfast love extends to the thousandth generation! God’s plans are weighted towards mercy.

The Westminster Confession also expresses this great truth under the heading of divine providence. The Westminster divines wrote, “The most wise, righteous, and gracious God doth oftentimes leave, for a season, his own children to manifold temptations, and the corruption of their own hearts, to chastise them for their former sins, or to discover unto them the hidden strength of corruption and deceitfulness of their hearts, that they may be humbled and to raise them to a more close and constant dependence for their support upon himself, and to make them more watchful against all future occasions of sin.”

So even when God devises a plan against a person or a nation, it is not etched in stone; it is not permanent and immutable. The God who devised an evil plan against Israel in Jeremiah 18 will promise their restoration in Jeremiah 29. “For thus says the Lord: Only when Babylon’s seventy years are completed will I visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. For surely, I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you. When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart, I will let you find me, says the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile” (Jer. 29:10-14). Verse 11 is a great verse to commit to memory. “For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.”

So, how firmly fixed is the future? We are merely clay in the hands of the cosmic potter. God can fashion us as seems good to him. God can pluck up, break down or destroy, but God desires to build and to plant. The great unknown seems to be the human element. Will we turn from our evil ways? Will we amend our ways and our doings?

Yet, even when we harden our hearts, even when we say to ourselves, “It is no use! We will follow our own plans, and each of us will act according to the stubbornness of our evil way,” even then God has plans for our welfare to give us a future with hope. It seems that there is an openness to God’s plans for us. God’s future for us is responsive to our behavior.

This means that while there is life there is hope. So, hear the good news of this text. Though we are marred, God can remake us. We can change for the better. We are not locked into a future we cannot change or by a past that is set in stone.
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. God's mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Indeed, great is God's faithfulness. (See Lam. 3:22-23) Indeed, the Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore, with lovingkindness have I drawn thee. (See Jer. 31:3) Thanks be to God that mercy triumphs over judgment.

Let us pray. O Lord, thou art our Father. We are the clay. Thou art the potter. We are all the work of your hands. Mold us, Lord, into your perfect will. Mold us, Lord, with your hands. Use us, Lord, to show your glory here to those of us who do not understand. In Jesus’ name. Amen.