Tuesday 12 March 2024

Psalm 111

Background

Today’s reading affirms without question that fact that God is sovereign. God can do as God likes, whenever God likes and with whom God likes, without needing to ask for our approval! 

In the 1950s the BBC introduced a series of short films intended to provide a relaxing interlude between programmes. One of these was ‘The Potter’s Wheel’ which featured a potter patiently making a vase that slowly grew out of the wet clay.  

However, the potter never actually finished making the vase. The fascination was not in seeing the finished product, but in watching the skill of the potter transform the clay from one thing to another, with the added excitement that at any point the whole thing might collapse into a gungy mess.  

Similarly, Jeremiah is taken to the potter’s house where he watches the potter making a vessel out of a piece of clay. The clay of course has no power of its own. Creating the pot comes from the skill of the potter's hands doing the work.   

This time, the potter does have an end product in mind. As Jeremiah watches, the vessel he is making spoils but this is due to flaws in the clay, not because of the potter’s lack of skill. Patiently the potter reworks it into something else: "as seemed good to him". (v. 4) 

As the potter, God can do as God wills with Israel, which, as the clay, must accept God’s sovereign will. Exile and suffering will be the inevitable punishment for the disobedience of Israel and their failure to follow God's ways.    

However, God, like the potter is also loving and creative and wants to refashion the clay (Israel) into something else with a beauty, design and purpose to it. So as well as judgement we can detect a note of hope in this passage, not only for Israel but for ourselves as God patiently moulds us into faithful, loving people. 

To Ponder:

•  How do you reconcile a God that is both loving, forgiving and compassionate, yet at the same time capable of allowing destruction and suffering to come upon on a nation? 
• Do you sometimes struggle with God’s sovereignty? 
• Can you recall a time when you felt God was moulding you into something else?  Did it mean a role or opportunity you were interested in was given to someone else instead? How did you feel? 

Prayer 

Loving God, help me to remember that you are sovereign and recognise that you hold everything you have made (including me) in your hands. Amen.