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Worship
Service for September 4, 2022
Prelude
Announcements:
Call to Worship
L: God is like a potter who shapes and forms
our lives.
P: We have been called to be faithful to
God’s intention.
L: God seeks for us to be vessels of
compassion and service.
P: We have been given multiple opportunities
to witness to God’s love.
L: Come, let us worship the Creator who gives
us life.
Opening Hymn – In This Very Room Hymn #612 Brown
Prayer of Confession
Forgiving God, we have messed
up in so many ways. You gave us a
wonderful world, filled with beauty, power, and majesty, and we have ravaged it
– tearing away at its gifts with our own greed and cowardice. We have not treated this world or one another
with compassionate love. We have turned
our backs on situations of need in which we could have been instruments of
help, healing, and peace. We have
neglected service to others and have focused our lives on accumulating things
and status. We have chased after false
gods – greed, power, fame. You are the
potter, O Lord. You fashioned us, but we
focused on developing our flaws rather than working with our strengths. Please forgive us, Lord. Refashion us to be Your people, celebrating
Your love in service to others. For we
ask this in the name of Jesus Christ. (Silent
prayers are offered) AMEN.
Assurance of Pardon
L: God’s loving choice for you is peace and
hope. God has fashioned you to be God’s
people. Rejoice! For God is with you, reaching out to heal and
care for you.
P: For this, we give Thanks to God! AMEN!
Gloria Patri
Affirmation of Faith/Apostles’
Creed
I believe in God the Father
Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth; And in Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord;
who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under
Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; He descended into hell; the
third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, and sitteth on
the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence He shall come to judge
the quick and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Ghost,
the holy catholic Church; the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins; the
resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. AMEN
Pastoral Prayer and Lord’s
Prayer
We are
broken vessels, O God. You have watched
us. You have called to us. You have blessed us and yet we have chosen our
own flawed ways. Throughout the ages you
have sent your prophets to help us return to you. Some people heeded your call and turned again
to lives of love and witness. But others chose not to listen. Please help us to tune our ears and our hearts
to you, O God. Help us to seek peace and
justice rather than greed and complacency. As we have gathered here this morning to
listen to your word, to sing praise, to offer our prayers, help us to remember
that you hold us dearly in your hands. You
cherish our lives and listen to our cries. You respond to our needs. Enable us to place our trust in You totally,
that we may faithfully serve You all of our days.
God of
creation, Lord of Salvation, and Spirit of Peace, we give you thanks for
calling us to be your people. We ask
that you would hold your church firmly in your hand, strengthening and guiding
it to proclaim your good news in all the world.
We take up our own responsibility to do that where we live, where we
work, among the people we encounter each day.
Allow us to proclaim Your Good News in word and deed. We ask, Lord, that you would show the leaders
of the nations of the world your gracious offer of hope and peace that they
might obey and serve you alone. We also
ask, Lord, that you look with kindness upon all who are sick and suffering,
granting them peace and the ministry of your people. We especially pray for…
But these are not our only prayers, Lord. There is much on our hearts that you need to listen to and understand, to hear and comfort us, so in silence we offer those prayers also up to you.
In all
that we do and say, Lord, bind us to your world of promise, which has sustained
the saints in every age and points to the world to come and in whose promise we
find comfort, our Savior Jesus Christ who taught us to pray together saying…
Our Father who art in
heaven, Hallowed be Thy name. Thy
kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our
debtors. And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil. For Thine is
the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. AMEN.
Hymn – I
Love Thy Kingdom, Lord Hymn
#405 Brown
Scripture Reading(s):
First Scripture Reading – Jeremiah
18:1-11
Second Scripture Reading – Luke
14:25-33
Sermon –
In the Potter’s
Hands
(based on
Jeremiah 18:1-11)
What
we have in our text from Jeremiah today is a powerful example of the contest of
wills that is at the center of human history.
I’m referring, of course, to the contest between God, who created and
rules both heaven and earth and us human beings who seem to have, over the
course of history, a tendency for wanting to take the reins of that
control. Jeremiah 18 gives us unique
insights into both the mystery and tragedy of that contest.
Jeremiah
has been given a grim mission by God, to announce doom to Judah. But the ultimate aim of that gloomy message
is for the people to repent. So far,
Israel hasn’t responded to Jeremiah’s words; however, in the verses after our
reading the leaders of Judah are so angry with the messenger of this doom and
gloom that they plot to kill Jeremiah. But
in our passages this morning, God gives Jeremiah an object lesson for Judah
designed to convince them to pay attention and to repent. In a tradition that Jesus would continue, God
uses an ordinary part of ancient life to drive home an extraordinary message. God tells Jeremiah to “Go down to the
potter’s house and there I will give you my message.”
At the
potter’s house, Jeremiah sees an ordinary thing. A potter is working with a piece of clay to
form a pot of some sort. When the pot
turned into something the potter hadn’t intended because of some flaw in the
material, the potter simply started over, forming the clay into another pot,
“shaping it as it seemed best to him.” And
the message is this - the Potter has absolute control over that lump of
clay. The Potter can do whatever seems
best with that clay. So far, so
good. Everyone knows that this is
true. No argument.
But
then the word of Yahweh came to Jeremiah.
“O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter does…. Like
clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.” Here is when that ordinary part of ancient
life is given an extraordinary message. God
asserts his complete sovereignty over Israel; he can do “whatever seems best to
him” with the clay that is his people.
However,
four times God uses the word “if” in verses 7-10. The sovereign Lord promises that if
his people change their behavior, God will change his plans. This text, therefore, seems to say that
Israel’s destiny is in its own hands.
Here are my plans, says God, but if you change your behavior, I will
change my plans.
Does
this mean that humans are ultimately sovereign, that the Pot is in charge of
its own life? That is the conclusion
drawn by some scholars. But I think it means
that in his sovereignty, God has given human beings a frightening (or
heartening – depending on your viewpoint) role in God’s plan. Because, we are not inanimate, senseless
pieces of clay. We are made in God’s
image with a mind and a will and the ability to affect our own relationship
with God. Does God cede control to us,
then? No, not control, but in God’s
loving control, God gives us an important role to play in the outworking
of God’s plan.
This
may all seem too complex, but it is the reality that runs through the
Bible. God wants, commands, invites our obedience…in
faith. That is the message to
Israel. “You are mine,” God says, “and I
expect you to love me, obey me, trust me.
When you don’t, you are playing with fire, with darkness, with
death. I can destroy you, but that’s not
what I want. I want you to turn around
and come back to me. I will do
everything I can to bring you back. But
you have to choose to come back. If you
do make that choice, I will not do what I said I would do. Instead, I will do what I’ve wanted to do all
along, namely, bless you, build you up, plant you, save you.”
God
ends all this complex and confusing talk with a simple, direct, and devastating
warning. “Look! I am preparing a disaster for you and
devising a plan against you.” What would
you do if God spoke that directly to you?
“I’ve been patient long enough; now the end has come. Prepare to meet your Maker, the Potter. There is no more chance for you to turn
around and come back to me.” Wouldn’t that
would be devastating?
Well,
that exactly what God was saying here.
And, if you read through the Bible, that’s exactly what God said a
number of times when the people of God thought that they were the ones in
control. But, thankfully, that’s not
where God leaves things. Instead of ending
his warning with an exclamation point of anger, God ends with yet another
invitation. “So, turn from your evil
ways, each one of you, and reform your ways and your actions.”
Exodus
34:6,7 says: “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to
anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands and
forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.”
Of
course, that text goes on to say, “Yet he does not leave the guilty
unpunished….” And that’s where Israel is
now in Jeremiah—guilty, guilty, guilty.
But not just guilty. Totally
unrepentant. That’s the point of verse
12, which we didn’t read, which says, “But they say, ‘It is no use! We will follow our own plans, and each of us
will act according to the stubbornness of our evil will.”
All
the “if’s” of verses 7-10, all the promises of God relenting and reconsidering,
all the possibilities for new life, all of that is a moot point. Because Israel is stuck in their sin.
“It’s
no use” may be an expression of defiance (“it doesn’t matter what you say,
God!”) or an expression of despair (“we’ve gone too far to turn back”). The result is the same. We will pursue our plans, no matter what God
plans. The ancient struggle of wills
goes on and on, because our hearts are set on being stubborn and doing what we
want. How many of us have seen a person,
harm themselves in one way or another, just out of stubbornness? And yet, we all do it, with God.
God
may claim to be sovereign, but, in fact, we are. So, go to hell, God. I know, that sounds blasphemous. But that is, finally, what rebellion against
God is.
Who
can blame God for finally ending it with Israel? Except because God is the God explained in
Exodus 34, God didn’t end it….not completely. There was a terrible punishment, but it lasted
for “only” 70 years.
I’ve
brought today, a grouping of various types of pottery I own. Each of them serves a different purpose, some
were professionally created, using special techniques, some were made by semi-professionals
that do work by hand, and others were simply made by loving members of my own
family who molded and shaped something for my enjoyment. Each piece has a purpose, unique unto itself. I sometimes wonder, how often the Potter
started over, not satisfied that what they were making was turning into what he
or she had desired, had dreamt possible, had imagined it could be.
What
role will you play in the Potter’s hand?
Are you willing to be molded and shaped?
Are you malleable and flexible enough to bend to God’s will? And if there are flaws in you, are you willing
to be remade, reshaped, made into a new creation? Or are you stubborn enough to believe that
you are in control of all things?
Offertory –
Doxology –
Prayer of Dedication –
Lord, today we lay before you
gifts that you have given to us, and we ask that in the giving, we might be
transformed into generous servants; we ask that in the receiving all will be
blessed and multiplied. We ask this in
the name that is above every name, your son Jesus the Christ. AMEN.
Closing Hymn – I Have Decided to Follow Jesus Hymn #602 Brown
Benediction –
Let the joy and love of the
Lord flood into your hearts and lives today. Let this day of discipleship be a
day of celebration as you go into the world to serve God. Go forth in peace and
joy in all that you do.AMEN
Postlude
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