Works in Progress
The Rev. Dr. Karin J Ekholm, September 7, 2025
Next week, my high school class will gather to mark 30 years since our graduation. As scans of old film photographs are shared on WhatsApp, I find all kinds of memories surfacing and I’m noticing things I didn’t know at the time. Middle and upper school was a time of many transitions for me. Most of my younger years we lived in a small town in southern Germany, when it was still divided from the East by a wall. We then spent some time in England before returning to Vienna, Austria, where my parents had lived when I was born. My junior year, I moved schools again, locally this time, to attended a United Nations-sponsored school with students from all across the globe. While I cherish these opportunities, that was a lot of changes for a young person trying to figure who she was.
Beyond these moves, this was a time when it felt like everything in the world was changing. The Iron Curtain came down with unexpected speed, the Soviet Union split into independent nations, Northern Ireland was wracked by violence, and our neighbor, Yugoslavia, was engaged in a bitter civil war. We acutely felt the weight of this political and social unrest and wondered where the world was headed.
In midst of all the tumult and uncertainty, I took a pottery class at school, and I vividly recall finding solace and a sense of deep calm in learning to throw on the wheel.
I took pleasure in every step: kneading the clay, cutting a slap, forming a ball, centering it on a wheel, drawing the mass outward and upward to form a vessel, and glazing finished pieces. But I think what I loved most was the feeling damp of clay in my hands when it was in motion and perfectly centered.
Often, this state of balance lasted for only a moment. Almost-finished pieces could be knocked off kilter in an instant or damaged in transitions from the wheel to the drying rack to the kiln, and then the whole process would start again with kneading the clay, cutting a slap, forming a ball, and so on.
In today’s reading from Hebrew Scripture, God leads Jeremiah to a potter’s shed to observe him working at the wheel. The prophet relates how, “The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as seemed good to him.” The Lord then interprets this image for him: the potter at work is a metaphor for God forming his people.
Throughout Scripture, God is depicted as an artisan. At the beginning of Genesis, there are two Creation stories. In the first, when all was formless and dark, Creation begins with the breath of God sweeping over the face of the waters and the Word forming light. Through a process of separation, bodies of all kinds are formed and finally, God creates humans in his image. In another telling, he forms man from the dust of the earth and breathes life into him. Our liturgy recalls this story on Ash Wednesday, as we are reminded, "dust you are and to dust you shall return."
Like Jeremiah, Isaiah compares humans to clay and God to a potter (64:8), and other prophets liken God to other kinds of craftsmen. The Psalmists, too, praise him as a maker who formed the heavens, the mountains, and living beings. Most notably, the Psalm appointed for today describes God as knitting, weaving, and writing humans into being.
In our times, as science and reproductive choice are under attack, I want to stress that this is poetry. St Augustine’s guidelines on interpretation remain relevant today as naïve readings of Scripture are wielded against research-based evidence and health care. St. Augustine taught that when observations contradicts Scripture, we are to interpret the latter metaphorically. Interestingly, Galileo referenced Augustine’s argument in the 17th century, when he faced mounting threats for positing that the earth revolves around the sun. Psalm 139 presents a poetic recognition of God as creator with a focus on how intimately he knows us.
There is another reason for emphasizing the prevalence of poetry in Scripture. Poetry, with its figurative language and metaphors, has the capacity to convey meaning on multiple levels and often in a deeper sense than more straight-forward prose. In part, we come to know God who exceeds our understanding through analogies to things in our realm of experience. God is like a potter throwing at the wheel, a sculptor of clay figurines, a knitter, weaver, author, and poet breathing life into matter, forming, and re-forming his people as communities throughout the history as well as in the lives of individuals.
The prophecy Jeremiah receives is one of divine judgment of a people who have turned against him through engaging in social injustices, false prophets, and idolatry. God sent him to warn the Kingdom of Judah and to prophecy the siege of Jerusalem and Babylonian captivity as consequences for breaking covenant. At the same time, Jeremiah’s ancient message offers teachings about God and his relation to humanity in our time. The good news in this reading is that when his work turns out badly, the pieces are not discarded, but rather, the potter begins again using the same clay and perseveres in forming and re-forming until his vessels seem good to him.
Our God who knows our deepest longings, knows our hearts, minds, bodies, and souls, from our first breath to our last, loves every one of us, regardless of what we have done or left undone. There is profound comfort in the company of those who love us in spite of our gaffes and weaknesses, and how much more so does this hold in the case of our Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer.
Yes, Jeremiah’s prophecy is a call to repentance and transformation of our hearts, minds, and actions. Each of us individually and as a church are works in progress. But no matter what we have thought, done, or said, God is already working to form and re-form us in a way that seems good to him.
Drawing on my experience at the wheel so many years ago, I imagine God centering and continually re-centering us as we veer out of balance and resist his guiding hands.
There is beauty in this portrayal of God as artisan of many trades. And as beings created in his image, we too are made to create objects from physical materials or words or sounds.
In these times of so many changes and transitions—the departure of our beloved Rector, the arrival of the new program year, and all the political and social unrest in our country—I invite you to consider two questions:
In which aspects of your life are you experiencing God’s hand holding, centering, and forming you?
As his beloved child, created in his image, what kinds of making bring you joy, calm, and a sense of being who you were made to be?
In the months ahead, hold onto these, and consider how you might share them to contribute to God’s ongoing formation of his people through this church.