I wonder how many of you have watched 'The Great Pottery Throw Down', a reality TV, Bake-Off style competition between potters to see who can perform the best in as many different styles of pottery as possible.
The show has had some great presenters who have been amusing, engaged and empathetic, the judges – rather than being catty and critical – are affirming – with expert ceramicist Keith Brymer Jones famously crying with pleasure whenever one of the competitors exceeds expectations. The competitors, as well as being talented potters, are always fascinating people with interesting back stories, but the ultimate star of the show, and the thing that keeps viewers tuning in, is the clay and the amazing range of artefacts that can be fashioned from it.
Clay that has been dampened and kneaded is a malleable, flexible substance that can be formed into elegant tall shapes, expansive wide forms, or moulded, pinched, cut and patted to form detailed figures or structures. It is only once the work of shaping and moulding is complete that it is fired to become hard and set in its final, finished form. Up until that point, however far the formation process has gone, it can always be returned to a lump or ball of clay and the process begun again.
That is what Jeremiah saw happening when God told him to go and view the local potter at work (Jeremiah 18: 1-11). What he saw was an initial attempt to form a pot that was unsuccessful. As a result, the potter ended his first attempt, returned the clay to its initial form and began the process again, creating a different pot from the same lump of clay.
In Jeremiah’s prophecy, the people of Israel are the clay and God is the potter shaping the people into the people of God. The people, like the clay, don’t always form in the way the potter intends and so, God returns the people to the beginning of the formation process and starts again, shaping them differently as a result of the flaw that developed and the change that resulted. The implication is that God works in a similar way in our lives and wants to do the same with us as a church and team, not just as individuals.
There are two key reflections that emerge from this image for us. Firstly, it is always possible for God to begin again with us. Second, we need to be as supple and flexible as possible in order that God can work as effectively with us as possible.
Jeremiah saw the vessel that the potter was making being spoiled in the potter’s hand, and him reworking it into another vessel, as seemed good to him. This was God’s way of showing us that it is always possible to begin again. Within all of our lives, we can go down tracks or paths in life that aren’t helpful to us and that ultimately do us harm as well as perhaps to others. We can easily think we are stuck in those ways of acting and behaving. This image or vision is God’s way of showing us that that isn’t so. There is always the opportunity for a fresh start and a new beginning. That is what Jesus offers to us through his death on the cross because there he shows us that there are no depths to which God will not go to draw us back to him and give us a new beginning. That’s what forgiveness is all about, turning around and starting again. Jesus, through his death on the cross, shows us that that opportunity is always there for us.
Kneading or wedging involves the potter in throwing the clay down and rolling it into a tight spiral before working the clay into a uniform mixture by pressing, folding, and stretching. This makes the clay more pliable, ensures a uniform consistency, and removes air pockets as well as small hard spots in the clay before you use or reuse the clay. Air added to clay bodies, can cause cracks and breaks when pots are fired in the kiln. Kneading or wedging is used to remove air from clay before it is used in hand building or wheel throwing.
Jeremiah’s image of the potter and the clay can appear to be one in which God is active and we are entirely passive. However, that is not how Jeremiah ends his reflection. He ends by calling on Israel to turn back to God. He is, therefore, looking for active co-operation with God from us. We are not inert like the clay and God can only do his creative shaping work in us, if we co-operate with him.
Unlike the inert clay, we can actively co-operate with God to enhance our flexibility and malleability by being open to change and development. Change is often what worries churches most and can be something that is resisted. For many the Church is the one unchanging element in their world and, as a result, change is resisted in order to provide the sense of security that people think they need in an ever-changing world. Yet, the reality is that change is natural and something that is always occurring throughout our lives. The cells in our bodies - trillions of them - are not all the exact same cells that we had yesterday; our body's cells are constantly replicating, creating their own replacements.
If change is natural and if change is God’s plan, then, like the clay becoming pliable enough to be shaped and moulded, we also need to develop a similar pliability in order that God can achieve a process of change in us. We can do this by pro-actively seeking change or by co-operating with change, rather than resisting it.
In 2006, the artist Theaster Gates made his home in a former confectionery store on South Dorchester Avenue in the heart of Greater Grand Crossing, one of Chicago’s most deprived areas. In 2009 he purchased the neighbouring building, which became known as the Archive House, home to 14,000 books from the former Prairie Avenue Bookshop. Reconstructed using discarded resources from across the city, it fulfils his Rebuild Foundation’s remit of regeneration via “individual empowerment and community engagement.” His most ambitious projects are those which use abandoned buildings in Chicago as sites of community transformation and gathering in a bid to reverse the trends of social and economic fragmentation in the city.
Before developing these projects, Gates was first a potter. He says: “Clay made me and is forever the root of my artistic interest.” Clay feels to him like “a philosophy,” as potters “learn how to shape the world.” He has then gone on to apply that philosophy more widely recognising that all his starting points for inspiration - blackness, clay, immateriality, and space – “are all launch pads that encourage advanced practice, reflection, trial, and iteration” and, as a result, he is constantly “practising acts of creation.” As someone who, as a youth, joined the New Cedar Grove Missionary Baptist Church choir, Gates sees this philosophy as one that connects with the Bible. The first words in his film called ‘A Clay Sermon’ are: “In the beginning, there was clay. Clay was without form.” This echo of the Book of Genesis comes at the beginning of a film that combines music, images, and words to paint a picture of the limitless potential of clay and working with clay.
Theaster Gates is, therefore, a contemporary example of what God is calling us to be through Jeremiah’s prophecy, a people who are open to change, pro-active about change, and creatively enabling change to occur in ways that reflect God’s kingdom and its values. That is what God is calling us to be and do in the Wickford and Runwell Team Ministry, as that this the call that God is continually sharing with his people, just as was the case when he told Jeremiah to visit his local potter. We are more likely today to watch ‘The Great Pottery Throw Down’ that we are to visit a local potter. However, may we be inspired, as was Jeremiah, to see ourselves as a constantly evolving work of art and also to become those who initiate new projects that bring change within our communities, as Theaster Gates has done in his.
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