The Parable of the Potter

Jeremiah learned something about God by observing a potter working at his wheel.  (Jer. 18:1-11)  What he learned is worth looking at.  The message is not what it may appear at first.

This is what Jeremiah observed.  “The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter's hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as seemed good to him.”  (v. 4)  The overall message has to do with God’s ability to punish the disobedient and save the repentant.  We rightly see God in the potter, but perhaps not so rightly see the nation of Judah, and by extension, humanity, in the vessel.

The human part of the analogy is not the vessel. It’s the clay.  God destroys the vessel, but God keeps the clay.  The clay is reworked and neither destroyed or even replaced.

One should not read into this that God is pleased with the human side in the parable of the potter.  There is a message of judgment to be sure.  But there is something much more important, much more surprising, and much more hopeful.  The really stunning thing about this story in the Bible is not that God judges the vessel.  It is that God and the clay are responsive to each other.

The clay is shaped at the potter’s hand.  When it is spoiled, it is reshaped.  God is not content with the vessel that is less than God intends.  So God reworks it.  God responds to the clay.  The vessel may start out badly but be righted into a vessel that pleases God.  The clay responds to God.

The creation is in God’s, the potter’s, hands.  But the result takes the potter and the clay together.  God is the potter.  We are the clay.  Fulfilling God’s design takes both, each responding to the other.  Creation is on-going.  We do not work alone.  Neither does God.

Peace,
+Stacy