Jeremiah 18:1-2 – Glory in Every Key
The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying: 2 “Arise and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will cause you to hear My words.”
In yet another of my favorite scenes from The West Wing, Leo, the craggy, practical political strategist who goes from best friend to campaign chairman, to White House Chief of Staff plants the seed of wholesome presidential ambition within his friend, Gov. Jed Bartlet. Leo isn't given to rhetorical flourishes himself, but he tells Gov. Bartlet's, "You are going to open your mouth and lift houses off the ground."
Jeremiah has already been there and done that. See the end of Jeremiah 17. He tells us the nobles and notables that the houses and gates in which they trust will be gone. How does one follow that grand, well, jeremiad in the Lord's service? With our ingrained sense of meritocracy, we envision and assume bigger and bigger audiences and influence. We transcribe that the journey from glory to glory will be discernible on a resume. Perhaps Jeremiah, having proclaimed faithfully at the seat of power in his own country, will expand to a world tour?
Not so much. He who has lifted houses off the ground with his faith-filled rhetoric is told to go and wait. This might be a jolt, but there are settings in which we can go and wait which bespeak their own promise. We know and laud a Cincinnatus who goes back to his plow but is only a summons away from "great things." It isn't just political ambition which, as said one of the Founding Fathers suspicious of Jefferson's desire to retire from the public arena, grows best in the shade.
No, Jeremiah is summoned to a pretty ordinary setting in which dirt is transformed into pottery only slightly more noticeable. He goes without guff noteworthy in the Scriptures. He, presaging the centurion in the New Testament whose faith Christ commends, is a man under authority. The Lord says go to Babylon, and he gets his passport in order, again, to point toward Genesis and play in the dirt. The Lord says come and watch the potter, and he comes to watch the potter, apparently just as expected of glory in ordinary setting as in an exotic one.
Do we have or develop preconceptions of the calling of which we are worthy? Have we been used, in efficacy wrought by grace, to do some thing, the greatness and gravitas of which even men took notice? Do we begin, then, the calculus which James decries of, okay, if I am doing this today, I will progress to this tomorrow? Or, as with the book of Jeremiah's masterful series of short-cycle visions, are we ready to go where the Lord leads, to study where He turns our gaze, and to gratefully open our ears, ever amazed that He would speak to us at all?
Chances are, the day's routine looks a lot more like the potter's opening Jeremiah 18 that the pundit's which Jeremiah undertook by faith to close out what comes down to us as the book's seventeenth chapter. So be it. Our Savior drew in the dirt to make His points. The God Man worthy of every watt of Heaven's splendor relished the ordinary, Earthly daylight which allowed Him and His to go about their Father's business relatively unimpeded before the close of that act.
Our senses, but for the impact of grace through the Spirit and the Word here, grow dull and begin to look for stimulation where the world does. The big thrills that move our spirits, temporarily, we are told, and too often believe, take place on the world's biggest stages. Chesterton is right in Orthodoxy. Our Father, and for that matter Christ our Brother, are younger than we. They can exult in what too often we see as mundane or monotonous. They look at the potter's wheel, or the phone, or the computer, or the washing machine, as imbued with the majesty of impending revelation. With what eyes and ears will we come to them?
In yet another of my favorite scenes from The West Wing, Leo, the craggy, practical political strategist who goes from best friend to campaign chairman, to White House Chief of Staff plants the seed of wholesome presidential ambition within his friend, Gov. Jed Bartlet. Leo isn't given to rhetorical flourishes himself, but he tells Gov. Bartlet's, "You are going to open your mouth and lift houses off the ground."
Jeremiah has already been there and done that. See the end of Jeremiah 17. He tells us the nobles and notables that the houses and gates in which they trust will be gone. How does one follow that grand, well, jeremiad in the Lord's service? With our ingrained sense of meritocracy, we envision and assume bigger and bigger audiences and influence. We transcribe that the journey from glory to glory will be discernible on a resume. Perhaps Jeremiah, having proclaimed faithfully at the seat of power in his own country, will expand to a world tour?
Not so much. He who has lifted houses off the ground with his faith-filled rhetoric is told to go and wait. This might be a jolt, but there are settings in which we can go and wait which bespeak their own promise. We know and laud a Cincinnatus who goes back to his plow but is only a summons away from "great things." It isn't just political ambition which, as said one of the Founding Fathers suspicious of Jefferson's desire to retire from the public arena, grows best in the shade.
No, Jeremiah is summoned to a pretty ordinary setting in which dirt is transformed into pottery only slightly more noticeable. He goes without guff noteworthy in the Scriptures. He, presaging the centurion in the New Testament whose faith Christ commends, is a man under authority. The Lord says go to Babylon, and he gets his passport in order, again, to point toward Genesis and play in the dirt. The Lord says come and watch the potter, and he comes to watch the potter, apparently just as expected of glory in ordinary setting as in an exotic one.
Do we have or develop preconceptions of the calling of which we are worthy? Have we been used, in efficacy wrought by grace, to do some thing, the greatness and gravitas of which even men took notice? Do we begin, then, the calculus which James decries of, okay, if I am doing this today, I will progress to this tomorrow? Or, as with the book of Jeremiah's masterful series of short-cycle visions, are we ready to go where the Lord leads, to study where He turns our gaze, and to gratefully open our ears, ever amazed that He would speak to us at all?
Chances are, the day's routine looks a lot more like the potter's opening Jeremiah 18 that the pundit's which Jeremiah undertook by faith to close out what comes down to us as the book's seventeenth chapter. So be it. Our Savior drew in the dirt to make His points. The God Man worthy of every watt of Heaven's splendor relished the ordinary, Earthly daylight which allowed Him and His to go about their Father's business relatively unimpeded before the close of that act.
Our senses, but for the impact of grace through the Spirit and the Word here, grow dull and begin to look for stimulation where the world does. The big thrills that move our spirits, temporarily, we are told, and too often believe, take place on the world's biggest stages. Chesterton is right in Orthodoxy. Our Father, and for that matter Christ our Brother, are younger than we. They can exult in what too often we see as mundane or monotonous. They look at the potter's wheel, or the phone, or the computer, or the washing machine, as imbued with the majesty of impending revelation. With what eyes and ears will we come to them?
"Do we have or develop preconceptions of the calling of which we are worthy?"
ReplyDeleteWe all do this, I know I do. Would the Savior really call me down to the dirty floor, to wash the revolting feet of grown men, or is that just an object lesson so I have some groundwork of "humility" laid in my life? If you ask any new Christian, or newly called minister-in-training, or missionary, or parishioner writing a painful check for a new building campaign you will find one consistent emotion - expectation. They (we) all expect the great things God will do through their efforts, they are overwhelmed by the possibilities.
Oh, but for reality! Expectation is fine, it is the substance of our faith, but making human grandeur the object of expectation is a recipe for burnout. The Chesterton quote is apt, we are all disillusioned with God's "normal" working in the world, hungry for a miracle/sign. We grow exasperated with Jesus messing with our human tendencies that we demand something bigger, more flashy that will hold our affection, albeit for a little while (Mt. 12).
Every time I fall into this trap, especially with regard to ministry, I feel like a fool. Here I am in the garden again, believing the lie that God's call to humble, perhaps unnoticeable service is his way of keeping something good from me. All I can do is pray for his energy to return to the stewardship of God that is by faith to which Paul instructed Timothy.
Amen. If there were any part of Jeremiah which, unrecorded, would have resisted this seeming demotion in the scope of his ministry, I wonder if what he taught his culture at the end of Jeremiah 17 did its work in his own soul. After all, he just told them that if they didn't on to submit and rest in Christ's worth, their splendid gates and buildings would do them no good.
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