The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: “Arise, and go down to the potter's house, and there I will let you hear my words.” So I went down to the potter's house, and there he was working at his wheel. And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter's hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do. – Jeremiah 18:1-4
I had a good friend who was a decent amateur potter. I have some things she made and gave to us, and I treasure them not so much for their beauty or quality but
for her sake who fashioned them. That’s
the extent of my knowledge of the potter’s art.
I can assume, though, that sometimes the potter makes a mistake with the
clay, and sometimes the clay is not consistent or not of a kind that willingly
takes the shape the maker intends. The
clay I know is the cold, red clay of the hills – diabolically clinging and
slick as polished metal when wet, unyielding and bitterly hard when dried out.
God found Himself some clay and began to work it upon His
wheel. He was not trying things, for He
knew what needed to be done, and, unlike us, unintended consequences never
catch Him unaware. He knew from the
first the Vessel that would be needed, and He worked and reworked patiently,
forming, finding flaws, adding, taking away, mixing and melding.
That’s the story as it begins – in Genesis – as it ricochets
through the Law and the Prophets. He
called out a man and made of him a tribe and then twelve. They were plied four hundred years in Egypt
as they grew into a nation. Pulling and
pounding, shifting and sifting, God’s hands were always upon them (something to keep in mind). Every flaw that could not be smashed smooth into the slowly perfecting mixture had to
be found and exposed and removed. It would take
centuries. God is patient. If He were not God, we would call Him
wasteful in His extravagant disregard for all that gets put aside.
Sometimes there is something essential to the final vessel
that is too closely bonded to a flaw.
The essential must be replaced.
Where to find it? Perhaps in
the unlikeliest place, as when God needed undying loyalty and reckless
devotion. So we read that in the days of
the judges, a severe famine fell upon Israel such that a man of the tribe of
Judah abandoned his inheritance and sojourned in the land of those often-mocked
Moabites, the descendants of Lot by debauchery.
And in that land, along with his only two sons, Elimelech died, leaving behind
his aging wife and two childless daughters-in-law.
Surely this was punishment for sin. Right?
That family line would be eradicated and forgotten. Except that God had found in the heart of a
young woman of the despised Moabites an element that He absolutely needed for
that final, perfect Vessel.
But Ruth said, “Do not urge me to leave you or to return
from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will
lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there will I be
buried. – Ruth 1:16-17
The whole story does not need to be repeated. It is sufficient that we remind ourselves
that Ruth had a son who, according to the Mosaic laws of inheritance, was
accounted the son of her late husband and the rightful heir of Elimelech. His name was Obed, and one of his descendants
was named Jesse, who had a son named David.
Not the end.
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