September 7, 2025

Pentecost 13 Lectionary 23

Jeremiah 18:1-11, Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18

Epiphany, Winnipeg

You might remember the story as it’s told in Genesis 2. It’s way back in the beginning, when there were no plants, no fields, no trees, no herbs, nothing growing anywhere because there had been no rain. There were no animals, no insects, birds, or beasts. There was just a stream that would gush up out of the ground and water the whole land. In this barren place, God took some dirt and shaped it into something with two legs and two feet and two arms and two hands, and God breathed into its nostrils, and it came to life. And what was this first person’s name? Adam. And what were they made out of? Earth. And what’s the Hebrew word for earth? Adam. Well, Adam but with an “h” at the end.

It’s a pun! It’s a beautiful pun. God took a handful of Adam with an “h”, and made it into a person, an Adam. See? See how close we are to this earth we walk on every day?

God took a handful of earth, and shaped a person out of it and blew into its nose and the person came to life. It’s not a history lesson about who the first person was, it’s not a biology lesson about how we were really made, it’s not science and it never intended to be, and it’s not a buildup to a story to prove that marriage is better than everything else or anything like that. It’s a word about how, right from the start, we are that close to the land. We come from the earth. We know it’s true. The soil feeds and sustains us, it feeds the tomatoes and potatoes and carrots and beans and grains in the fields that we’re all harvesting these days. If you’re a carnivore, you’ll be glad that the soil fed all those burgers you’ve enjoyed this burger week. One day each one of us will return to the soil, and become soil again. We say it at the beginning of Lent every year – “remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” It’s spoken at almost every graveside: “We return Paul, we return insert your name here, to the ground, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”

That’s how the story begins. God makes people out of earth. Out of deep love for us and for all creation, God makes us all from the earth.

Now if you know anything about the biblical story from that first person on you know that it doesn’t always go well for these earthy people. In that story in the Bible the earthy people can be a wonder sometimes, but a lot of the time they are anything but a wonder. Right away they seem to forget who it is who made them. They’d rather trust a snake than trust God. People turn against each other, they go to war against each other, some get really really rich and so many get really really poor. They invent things like slavery and debt and oppression, they forget about the ones who are weakest among them, they say, “My nation is better than yours!”, and they worship power and riches. And doesn’t that all sound familiar? It’s all over the story of the Bible, and it sounds like just another day in the news in September 2025.

We heard that reading from Jeremiah a few minutes ago, about a potter who takes some clay and starts to shape it into something. The potter’s got a vision of what this is going to be: maybe a pot or a bowl or a cup, maybe something beautiful because beauty is good all by itself. But the clay doesn’t seem to be taking the shape that the potter wants, so they squash it back down on the wheel and start again. They don’t throw out the clay, mind you. They just start again, because the potter can always take the same earth, the same clay, and keep on shaping it into what the potter wants it to be.

Jeremiah sees this potter and then he says that that’s what God is doing with God’s own chosen and beloved people and their nation. It’s twenty-six, twenty-seven hundred years ago, and the nation of Israel and Judah seems to have forgotten who their God is, so they’d rather worship another God, whether that’s the god of the country next door or the god of the money in their pocket. They’ve forgotten who God is, and so they’ve forgotten who they themselves are, and instead of seeking to be a blessing to the world they’ve built a society where the rich take advantage of the poor, and widows and orphans and all the ones who have the least are ignored and pushed aside, and no one is blessed.

Jeremiah warns the ones who hold the power that if all this keeps up there well be a national disaster of their own making. God sees what’s going on, and God is not pleased with how the vessel is taking shape, and like a potter starting all over again to make something of the clay, God will just let it go, let it fall. And start all over again. Take that earth, take that clay, and let it fall, and breathe into it again; shape it into something new again.

That image still fits today, a few thousand years later. We can look around, not just in those places over there but in this place right here, even in our friendly country, with elbows up or elbows down. In our own ways it seems like we’d rather worship other gods, gods with names like economic growth or holding on to power; Gods with names like my people or my race or my own security. Sometimes it seems like we’ve forgotten who we are, and instead of seeking to be a blessing to the world we’ve built a society where the rich take advantage of the poor, and the ones who have the least are ignored and put out of sight, and the air and the water and the soil from which we’re made can slowly die because changing our ways would hurt the economy. And no one is blessed. We don’t need a list, we just need open eyes.

Jeremiah would say that God is losing patience today. And maybe God’s heart breaks too, to see how this people made of earth and God’s own breath have strayed so far God’s vision of what the piece of clay on the wheel will be.

But God doesn’t throw out the clay. God the potter can always take the same earth, the same clay, and keep on shaping it into what God the potter has created it to be.

There’s one more little piece of earth and clay in our readings today. We said it together when we spoke Psalm 139: “God, you have searched me and known me. I can’t escape from your sight, I can’t run away from your presence. I never could, because it is you who formed my inward parts….my frame was not hidden from you when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth…” Intricately woven in the depths of the earth, and we might add, intricately formed from the soil and your breath.

It’s the Season of Creation now – September 1st to October 4th. It’s not just a time to lament the harm that is being done to creation, although we need to keep that lament alive, and we need to work together to turn the harm around. During this season we simply give thanks for the gift of life that is all around us in our communities and in the things that grow and walk and fly and swim in the air and the water and the soil. And this season of creation invites us to remember that we are so close to the life of the earth. We are creation too. We’re made from the soil, the air and the water become a part of us, we receive and give our lives to the other living ones around us. We’re all together. So the life of one is the life of the other, the health of one is the health of the other, the hurt of one is the hurt of the other.

There’s one more dust and earth and clay story at the heart of all the stories: The one who formed us from the soil will never stop working that potter’s wheel to make this creation whole and alive again. God the potter will stop at nothing to make that happen, even if it means becoming human just like us, intricately woven in the depths of the earth jut like you and me. Even if it means suffering and dying; even if it means returning to the dust of a tomb, and being intricately woven in the depths of that earth, living again so that we and all creation will live.

God the potter will always give life to the clay