Sunday Worship 7 September | Lectionary Proper 18: On Pottery and Discipleship

Jeremiah 18:1-11

This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: “Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you my message.” So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him. Then the word of the Lord came to me. He said, “Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?” declares the Lord. “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel. If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it. “Now therefore say to the people of Judah and those living in Jerusalem, ‘This is what the Lord says: Look! I am preparing a disaster for you and devising a plan against you. So turn from your evil ways, each one of you, and reform your ways and your actions.’

Luke 14:25-33

Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple. And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, saying, ‘This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish.’ “Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Won’t he first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand?  If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples.

I have commented before that sometimes the lectionary readings feel quite disparate and sometimes they seem to be tied together by a theme. My initial instinct was that this morning’s theme is discomfort, because I don’t find either of these particularly easy passages, but I think I have wrestled a blessing out of them this week.

We’ll start with the passage from Jeremiah, which sees us at the potter’s house. “I went down to the potter’s house and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands so the potter formed it into another pot.” These verses have inspired a number of worship songs, and to many people they are a powerful and beautiful assurance that God holds us and guides us. I don’t want to take anything away from that, but others of us bristle at the thought of being moulded by someone else. It threatens our sense of self or our sense of control. And that's without considering the promise of disaster, which I would read as a warning of consequences rather than a threat of punishment.  

So not an easy passage, but this week I listened to a reflection on this passage by Melissa Myers, a pastor in the United Methodist Church, and she offered me an entirely new perspective.

She recalled watching a potter at a county fair. When she had finished throwing her pot, she screwed it up. Many of those in the audience were frustrated at seeing the pot destroyed, and went away grumbling, perhaps feeling the time they had spent watching had been wasted, but Melissa stayed to talk to the potter.

She explained that she had destroyed her creation because the clay wasn't cooperating and would have shattered if it had been fired. She knew from experience that clay has a mind of its own, and she must work with it and love it into what it needs to be. Sometimes she is trying to make a bowl but the clay wants to be a mug, and she has to start again and make that mug, because it is only when the clay and the potter come together that the magic can happen.

That opened up the passage in a whole new way for me. The potter isn’t trying to force the clay to be something it isn’t, but helping it discover what it is. That doesn’t sound threatening but liberating. And however we see the relationship between the potter and the clay, we must remember that if the clay is still being formed, it is because the potter hasn't given up on it. We are all works in progress, still being fearfully and wonderfully made and remade by the God who loves us.

What I know about pottery could be written on the bottom of a teacup, but I do know that clay must be centred before it can be thrown. This means making sure the clay is evenly distributed on the centre of the wheel. If this doesn’t happen, the clay will spin outwards and collapse. This seems a good moment then to think about centring prayer, the practice of settling ourselves into the presence of God, finding a still and quiet place within ourselves where we can focus on and be open to God.

And so I invite you to take a few moments to recentre your scattered senses upon the presence of God. You may find it helps to close your eyes and focus on a few slow breaths. You may like to choose a word or phrase to come back to as your attention wanders. To bring this time to a close, I will use the sound of the Angelus bell, which traditionally calls monks to prayer. When you hear it, start to become more aware again of your surroundings, but try to stay in the place you have settled with God. Be still and know that I am God. Be still and know. Be still. Be.

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Having taken time to recentre ourselves, let's turn to Luke now, and at first reading I find this an uncomfortable passage too. Hating your family, carrying a cross, giving everything up...who would choose that life? Especially when we remember that the cross was not seen as symbolic at this point, but as a very real instrument of death. Why was Jesus saying this and what are we meant to do with it?

It often helps to look at Jesus’ audience, and at this point he is talking to large crowds, so perhaps this is a kind of winnowing exercise, making sure these crowds are not just following because of the miracles, thinking only of what they can get and not what they must give. Jesus may be terrible at marketing, but that is because he wants people to know what they are getting into. There may be a few surprises, but there should be no hidden tripwires on the path of discipleship. Jesus also wants us to take discipleship seriously, because it is not just a couple of hours on a Sunday but a whole life commitment.

Let’s look then at what Jesus is asking us to commit to, starting with “if anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple”. This seems so wildly inconsistent with Jesus’ usual message of love, that it definitely warrants a second look. To be honest, I’m not sure why we still insist on translating this verse as we do, because the consensus across all the commentaries I have ever read on this passage is that hating family simply means not giving them preferential treatment.

This is not about rejecting family but repositioning them, not loving them less but loving others more, and it acts as a warning against any kind of bounded or insular community. As author and activist Glennon Doyle says, “there’s no such thing as other people’s children”, because we are all responsible for everyone.

Next Jesus says “whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple”. That phrase “cannot be my disciple” is repeated here, so it is worth saying that “cannot” should probably be read as meaning “is not able” rather than “is not allowed”. It’s not that Jesus rejects us, it’s that discipleship is impossible if we do not wholeheartedly choose it. And that idea of choice is important, especially when we so often read these verses in terms of cost.

In reflecting on this passage, theologian and preacher Karoline Lewis says this: “When it’s all about cost, it’s all about what you give up...When faith is cast as cost, we become rather ignorant of the fact that life itself is costly...To carry your cross is to carry the choices and burdens and realities of a life that has made a certain commitment...Carrying your cross is a choice and ironically it is a choice for life and not death.” Understanding taking up our cross as a choice does not deny that there are costs to following Christ, but it reminds us that this is something we take up because we believe it is good, and it reorients us towards that goodness.

Finally, Jesus says “those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples”. The Greek word translated as “give up” has a sense of “renounce” or “take leave of”, and so I think there is a sense here of releasing our grip on things, a call to be ready to drop whatever is asked of us. And in that sense this is perhaps not so much about what we possess as how we possess it, how attached to it we are, how much value we put in it.

The underlying message of this passage is that faith comes first, before family or life or possessions. It is a hard message, but it must be balanced with Jesus’ promise of abundant life. God wants us to have lives that are good and full, so perhaps we need to be willing to let go of what we have so that our hands are free to take hold of something better. And of course God wants everyone else to have lives that are good and full too, so perhaps we also need to be willing to let go of what we have so that others can share it. 

We will not always be asked to choose between God and our family or our life or our possessions, but where there is a choice to be made, it must be a choice for God, trusting that we choose this sacrifice for the good of us or another. The Catholic social activist Dorothy Day once said “I wanted life and I wanted the abundant life. I wanted it for others too.” I think those are good words to live by, as we think about what it means to choose discipleship.