Wingham United Church

September 7, 2025

Lumps of Clay

Jeremiah 18:1-11

Psalm 139:1-18

Philemon 1-21

This week’s readings leave me with a bit of a conundrum. Psalm 139 is a favourite of mine. It’s a favourite of a lot of people. There is so much here in which I find great comfort. The idea that God knows everything about me, and, perhaps even more impressive, God cares to know. When I sleep or am awake, if I travel or am at home, even before I know what I am going to say, God knows. Through it all, every moment of my life, God’s hand of blessing rests upon me. It is too much for me to take in. And all that is just in the first six verses.

Our prescribed reading for today leaves out the next few verses, but I chose to include them anyway. Verses 7 through 12 might feel a little intimidating to some. David reflects that there is nowhere that he can hide from God. The imagery is beautiful, but the message reminds us that God sees everything. God’s constant awareness of us is wonderful, but also a little frightening. As much as I take comfort in God’s watchfulness, I am also aware that includes the things I do and even think about that I am perhaps not so proud of – things I would just as soon keep to myself. But there are no secrets from God. Who can stand up to that sort of scrutiny?

Yet, as we read on, we are led to reflect on how we were created, “knit together in [our] mother’s womb.” Then, perhaps one of the most thought-provoking passages of all: “Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.” It really is amazing, isn’t it, the complexity of the human body. I marvel at the knowledge that a single cell, as it keeps splitting and replicating, can become a fully functioning human body, and the fact that no two of us are the same. Eyes that see, ears that hear, fingers that touch, our amazing nervous system with all of its intricacies, and the creativity and capabilities of the human brain, all aspects of ourselves that science is still exploring and seeking to better understand. It really is incredible, when you take a moment to consider it all.

But then I hit my stumbling block. Verse 16 says,

“Your eyes saw my substance taking shape;

in your book my every day was recorded;

          all my days were fashioned,

          even before they came to be.”

          Now the Calvinists are rising up and saying, “Aha! I told you so!” Every moment of my life laid out before I was even born. That’s a concept I struggle to accept. Am I just a marionette and some unseen puppeteer is pulling my strings according to some script written even before I was a twinkle in my father’s eye? If so, then this sermon was written decades ago, maybe even centuries, or millennia. If that’s the case, why was it so difficult for me?

          Far more disturbing is the idea that the bad things that have happened in my life were also part of the script. Hardships and trials, and my responses to them, all pre-programmed into my operating system “as I was being fashioned in secret, intricately woven in the mystery of clay.” That idea disturbs me. It makes me wonder what it’s all about. What’s the point? What am I here for if everything I have ever done, and will ever do, has been dictated since the beginning of time? What does it matter what choices I make if they have already been made for me?

          If all of that is true, though, why did Jesus come to walk among us and show us how to live those lives, to teach us how to make better decisions and do better things if we had no choices to make, if they had already been made for us?

          Thankfully, alongside Psalm 139 this week, we have a prophecy delivered to us by Jeremiah. God says that we are like lumps of clay on the potter’s wheel. The Potter is constantly trying to shape us into the form he has in mind. He has a plan for that lump of clay, it’s future shape and purpose all decided while it was still just a bit of mud in a bucket. But, as the wheel turns and the skillful hands of the Creator work the clay, shaping and stretching it according to his vision of what it will become, the clay resists. It tears or collapses or just refuses to hold the shape the potter has in mind. So, the potter starts over. He rolls the clay back into a formless lump, throws it on wheel and begins again. Perhaps this time, it will go better, or perhaps what was to be a jar will become a bowl.

          God makes it clear in this passage that we have the ability to change, and that God will change His plans for us accordingly. If someone turns from evil to goodness then the destruction God had planned will be changed to blessing. Conversely, of course, those who once did good but turn away from following God’s will can also have their divine fortunes reversed. What was to be blessed can also be destroyed.

          Paul’s letter to Philemon further illustrates this point. We don’t encounter Philemon very often, perhaps because it is so brief, the third shortest book of the Bible, in fact, yet it contains a great deal of food for thought. Some say it contains the greatest theological depth of anything Paul wrote. Proof, perhaps, that sometimes less is more.

The purpose of this letter is to ask a favour. Paul wants Philemon to allow Onesimus to return. We don’t know much about what leads up to this. Some believe that Onesimus was Philemon’s slave and that he had run away, perhaps even stolen from his master. Maybe he got caught and that is how he met Paul in prison. No one knows for sure. What we can surmise, however, is that while in prison together, Paul shared the gospel with Onesimus who became a Christian. Onesimus, it appears, is being returned to his master, and Paul wants Philemon to treat him with kindness and acceptance. In fact, instead of being treated like a slave, he should be treated as a brother. Paul asks that Onesimus be shown the same sort of welcome Paul himself would enjoy if he was able to visit once again.

          Now that Onesimus has become a Christian, Paul assures Philmon of Onesimus’ usefulness to him now that he has spent this time under Paul’s tutelage and mentorship. In a very clear reflection of Christian grace, Paul offers to pay Onesimus’ debt. Onesimus is to be given a second chance to become better and more useful.

          Onesimus means useful. His second chance, with his debts clear, is the same chance we all get. This lump of clay is being rethrown and given another chance to be made into something useful by the skill of the master’s hand. God does have a plan for each of us at our birth, a hope for how our lives will be lived out.

God has also endowed us with free-will. God loves us and wants us to love back, but love cannot be demanded or coerced. A puppet cannot love its puppeteer. Love is not really love unless it is freely given. So, the story of our lives looks more like an atlas than a storybook. Every intersection an opportunity to turn in the right direction and get back on track, but with options that tend to lead us astray and get us lost. The Spirit is always showing us the way we should go, but we must yield to its guidance.

In truth, we are all just lumps of clay, works in progress, spinning on the master’s wheel. As long as we live in this version of reality, we are not complete. The Potter is still shaping us, perfecting us. Perhaps we were intended to be beautiful jars, but we didn’t cooperate. Maybe we became too dry, hard, lumpy, too set in our ways, for God to turn us into what God had planned. Maybe we will end up as bowls, or even plates, but as long as we remain soft and malleable, the Potter can continue to shape us into something more useful in the Kingdom of God.

Rev. Colin Snyder, MDiv