Jeremiah 18:1-11, The second week of Creation Liturgy, September 8, 2019
This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: 2 “Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you my message.” 3 So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. 4 But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.
5 Then the word of the Lord came to me. 6 He said, “Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?” declares the Lord. “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel. 7 If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, 8 and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. 9 And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, 10 and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it.
11 “Now therefore say to the people of Judah and those living in Jerusalem, ‘This is what the Lord says: Look! I am preparing a disaster for you and devising a plan against you. So turn from your evil ways, each one of you, and reform your ways and your actions.’
Jeremiah served as a prophet in Jerusalem for decades before Judah was destroyed by Babylon in 587 B.C. He was born to a family of priests in Anathoth, five kilometers north of Jerusalem. His family is all right. Things were not good in his time. The country was disturbed by the threat of the Imperial Babylon and the public was not happy. The word of God preached by Jeremiah was not very pleasing to the general public, not to mention the royal family and nobility. Most people turned their backs on him. He was imprisoned for disturbing the people, and his life was at stake. The Jews would not have been able to bear it because they were told that the future of the bondage was uncertain at a time when the threat of the Babylonian Empire was too great. The text of today's sermon is one of those criticisms.
According to the text of today's sermon, Jeremiah 18:1 and below, Jeremiah one day visited the home of the potter. These days we don't use many earthenware vessels, but in the old days, most of them were earthenware. Once upon a time, there were many famous potters in our country. Our country also transferred technology to Japan. The potter makes clay his own way and makes rice bowls, glasses, and vases. The shape of the earthenware is not what clay wants. It is determined only by the wishes of the potter. Another important thing here is that the potter also breaks down some of the works that he doesn't like. If the earthenware pot doesn't work as well as you want, mix it in the mud. He makes another work out of it. The potter will have all the deciding rights.
God, the superintendent of history
Jeremiah realized God's will in the house of the potter. Jeremiah proclaimed it to the people of Jerusalem. There are two main things he's been spreading. The first is that the fate of Israel is in God's hands. I'll read the verse 6. The word is solemn enough to ring our souls out of that abyss.
He said, “Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?” declares the Lord. “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel.
Jeremiah's message that the fate of a country is in God's hands, just as mud is in the hands of the potter, means that the superintendent of history is God. This message would have sounded like nonsense to some people. This is because people think that the fate of a country is determined by an empire. The empire of Jeremiah's time was Babylon. North Israel, which was a brotherly kingdom, was defeated by the Assyrian Empire 140 years ago. As Assyria weakened, Babylon overpowered the eastern Mediterranean. The Empire is bound to have an expansionary policy. Otherwise, it collapses on its own. Most of the small countries that are against the expansionist empires have been defeated. To avoid defeat, a small country must become a colony of tributes. In Jeremiah's time Judea was spared by tribute. The idea that an empire decides history is accepted by people as truth both in the old days and in the present. If you look at the /external appearance of historical phenomenon, that seems right.
The empire of today is America, no matter what you look at. China is a similar country, but it's definitely America, which has a bigger impact on us. The Babylon, where Jeremiah was active, may be evil and now some people may think America is just, but it is not. Babylon was also a very sophisticated, rational, and the most civilized country. In 587 B.C., at the end of Jeremiah's activities, Judea fell. Many nobles and intellectuals were taken prisoner by Babylon in accordance with her policy of assimilation. There they either devoted themselves to learning or lived as state officials with certain benefits. It seems to us that America, the world's strongest nation, has the destiny of the world in its hands. We can't ignore it. There are many people who think that we should read America's countenance as much as possible. There are even people who are reading Japan's countenance.
This issue is not only at the national level. So is our personal lives. The idea of a successful life is pervasive in people only when there is such a powerful force as the empire. I don't have to tell you one by one what it looks like in our lives today. I'm sure you're familiar with the story behind the Justice Minister's hearing these days. The reason that many young people feel uncomfortable about the justice minister candidate is that he actually lived a very strong vested interest in liberal values. I don't know, but his family would be in the top 1 percent of our country. Any parent in that class would have made such an effort as it was revealed to the Ministry of Justice's family for their children. If his daughter went to a high school where all the talented students from across the country, she would have made a point of exchanging information for herself. It's not illegal, but it's enough to give a sense of deprivation to young people who can't get there. It can't happen in a country like Germany. I don't think this problem is solved by witch-hunting criticism of either parent or student. The biggest problem is that Korea is an academic society. The academic hierarchy continues to affect teenagers from the beginning to the end of their lives. Even if you become a pastor, it is good in Korea to graduate from Seoul National University. Academicism and imperialism are the same thing.
Jeremiah declared a completely different message. He says the fate of Israel, or the people of Jerusalem, is determined by God, not by the hands of the empire. It means that God is the master of history. Look at the numerous empires that have appeared in the past history. The strongest empire was Rome. There are also many books and papers on the history of the fall of Rome. There's a debate about whether the cause of the collapse is external or internal. What's important is that Rome, which seemed to last forever, collapsed in vain. China thinks it's the world's center. So the name also uses the word Jung(中), which means center. Do you think so? Protests are now continuing in Hong Kong that are comparable to the civil revolution. Tibet has long been trying to become independent from China. Many other minorities will also be separated when there is an opportunity. Just like the Soviet Union collapsed in the 1990's and was divided into countries. The right concept for this is the butterfly effect. No one knows when or what will happen.
The ancient prophets were able to confirm that God was breaking up the history of the Empire and making a new one in the Outer Oyster case. Ancient Israel could not dream that they would be liberated from Egypt. The first reason for this was that they managed to make ends meet in Goshen, Egypt, and the second reason was that Egypt's power was too strong. They crossed the Red Sea in Moses' guidance. It was God's power that ancient Israel first experienced at the ethnic level. After Egyptian horsemen fell into the Red Sea and died in pursuit of Israel, the young women, including Moses' sister, danced and sang the following song. “Miriam sang to them: “Sing to the Lord, for he is highly exalted. Both horse and driver he has hurled into the sea.”(Exo. 15:21). What do you think? Do you agree that God is the master of world history?
The Opened future
The second message Jeremiah issued to the people of Jerusalem is that God changes his initial thoughts. That's what's written in verse 8. If a nation turns away from evil, it will undo what God had planned to do, and if a nation does evil in God's sight, then God will reconsider the good God had intended to do for it. According to this, the criterion for God to change his original will is evil. It is often said that if we try to lead good life, God will bless us; if we do evil reversely, God will punish us. If you're not very naive, you know the world doesn't work this way. You can't conclude that a good person is always healthy, rich, and has a happy family We cannot conclude that the life of a wicked man is going to get worse. We should not accept Jeremiah's message that turning away from evil is blessed, and that doing evil is punished as a lesson of the good and bad. That's a lesson that can come from teachers of ethics in the East and the West. The Bible is a more fundamental dimension.
Jeremiah, the prophet, is not sitting idle at his desk discussing historical philosophy, saying, "History determinism or openness." Now, in the present situation of Judea, his people, who are afraid of the Babylonian Empire, are proclaiming God's will in the spirit of vomiting blood. At that time, the Jews were either afraid that their country might be destroyed like any other country around them, or they were convinced that God would protect them unconditionally. And that conviction is actually a phenomenon that comes from anxiety. The Jewish people were in a state of complete disarray and anxiety. Jeremiah conveys the will of God that he has realized. The future of Judea has not been decided. The fate of all countries, not just Jews, has not been decided. You don't have to be vaguely determined or despairing. The fate of the Jewish people depends on what they do here. In light of this, Jeremiah expressed his willingness to change his will, taking the risk that God's concept of omnipotence could be compromised.
Not only the nation, but also the future of the individual is open, not closed. Some people live by feeling this fact, while others do not. People who don't feel this are either bored with life or are obsessed with it somewhere. On the other hand, people who feel this live in tension, looking at life as interesting. Let's say someone went on their first trip to Eastern Europe. Prague in the Czech Republic is good, too. He walks through these alleyways with a bag on his back, or with a map in his hand, or a smartphone with a map app in his hand. It's interesting because he doesn't know what's going to happen around that alley. When we look at our daily lives on the surface, the same thing seems to happen over and over again. If it's new, it's just a lot of money and a lot of social status. From the depth of everyday life, today and tomorrow are completely different. The peach flavor we eat today is different from the peach taste we eat tomorrow. Today's feeling of rain and wind is definitely different from tomorrow's. Today's me and tomorrow's me are different. If you go deep into your soul, tomorrow is much more new. If we're ready, our future will be completely new. Because the future is not closed. The culmination of such a new future experience is the experience of heaven.
In his book 'Days of Awe and Wonder' Marcus J. Borg says about Jesus' alternative wisdom as follows. I read a part of it. "The alternative wisdom of Jesus, the path that many people haven't yet gone, is, in fact, a life that lives in the relationship with the Holy Spirit. The wisdom of Jesus leads us to a life of holiness -- God -- that is a very central place within. In contrast, life follows conventional wisdom, which most of us have lived for a long time. I hope we all pay attention to two of the many consequences of living in a world of conventional wisdom. One thing is that conventional wisdom blinds us to surprises." Marcus Borg's conventional wisdom is that he sees life as a fixed entity. It's a closed world view. No matter whether there is knowledge or wealth, a person bound by conventional wisdom does not experience the wonders of life.
There is actually one message that Jeremiah would like to convey to the people of Jerusalem. In other words, look not only at the international political technology level, but at the relationship with God. Verse 11b says the relationship with God: “So turn from your evil ways, each one of you, and reform your ways and your actions..” The text does not specify what the evil way is. We know what the prophets of the Old Testament share in common. These are two things. One is idolatry, and the other is to make society feel bad about orphans and widows. These two things work together. Idol-ism is materialism. It's the attitude of life that regards money as the best value. In a materialistic society, if the gap between the haves and have-nots increases, the social poor will increase. Most of the countries of the time went on this evil path just as they do now. It's a natural thing to look like this. You have to eat well and live well, and you have to increase your defense spending. In order to do so, we need to build up the strength of our country. In these times, the just world was not a concern for people. So did Judea, the kingdom of Jeremiah. Jeremiah appealed to the people to turn away from the evil road as soon as possible, because God planned to bring disaster on him.
Did the Jews listen to Jeremiah? Sadly, no, of course, they didn't listen to Jeremiah's message. According to Jer. 18:12, the next passage of the text of today's sermon, they mocked Jeremiah's words as futile. They're going to keep living the way they've been. According to Jer. 18:18, there was a collective voice against Jeremiah, and they conspired to kill Jeremiah. These days, there are many people in Korea who are uncomfortable with or refuse to reform. It's the same with personal life. The conventional attitude of life within us holds on to us.
Dear saints, do you usually live with the full power, the providence, and the power of God, like the hand of a potter? Or do you absolutize the world experience you've accumulated so far? Don't forget. We are clay and earthenware in the hands of the potter. Our fate is in the hands of the potter, God. For those who accept it will be blessed by God who does not expect it.
This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: 2 “Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you my message.” 3 So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. 4 But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.
5 Then the word of the Lord came to me. 6 He said, “Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?” declares the Lord. “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel. 7 If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, 8 and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. 9 And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, 10 and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it.
11 “Now therefore say to the people of Judah and those living in Jerusalem, ‘This is what the Lord says: Look! I am preparing a disaster for you and devising a plan against you. So turn from your evil ways, each one of you, and reform your ways and your actions.’
Jeremiah served as a prophet in Jerusalem for decades before Judah was destroyed by Babylon in 587 B.C. He was born to a family of priests in Anathoth, five kilometers north of Jerusalem. His family is all right. Things were not good in his time. The country was disturbed by the threat of the Imperial Babylon and the public was not happy. The word of God preached by Jeremiah was not very pleasing to the general public, not to mention the royal family and nobility. Most people turned their backs on him. He was imprisoned for disturbing the people, and his life was at stake. The Jews would not have been able to bear it because they were told that the future of the bondage was uncertain at a time when the threat of the Babylonian Empire was too great. The text of today's sermon is one of those criticisms.
According to the text of today's sermon, Jeremiah 18:1 and below, Jeremiah one day visited the home of the potter. These days we don't use many earthenware vessels, but in the old days, most of them were earthenware. Once upon a time, there were many famous potters in our country. Our country also transferred technology to Japan. The potter makes clay his own way and makes rice bowls, glasses, and vases. The shape of the earthenware is not what clay wants. It is determined only by the wishes of the potter. Another important thing here is that the potter also breaks down some of the works that he doesn't like. If the earthenware pot doesn't work as well as you want, mix it in the mud. He makes another work out of it. The potter will have all the deciding rights.
God, the superintendent of history
Jeremiah realized God's will in the house of the potter. Jeremiah proclaimed it to the people of Jerusalem. There are two main things he's been spreading. The first is that the fate of Israel is in God's hands. I'll read the verse 6. The word is solemn enough to ring our souls out of that abyss.
He said, “Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?” declares the Lord. “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel.
Jeremiah's message that the fate of a country is in God's hands, just as mud is in the hands of the potter, means that the superintendent of history is God. This message would have sounded like nonsense to some people. This is because people think that the fate of a country is determined by an empire. The empire of Jeremiah's time was Babylon. North Israel, which was a brotherly kingdom, was defeated by the Assyrian Empire 140 years ago. As Assyria weakened, Babylon overpowered the eastern Mediterranean. The Empire is bound to have an expansionary policy. Otherwise, it collapses on its own. Most of the small countries that are against the expansionist empires have been defeated. To avoid defeat, a small country must become a colony of tributes. In Jeremiah's time Judea was spared by tribute. The idea that an empire decides history is accepted by people as truth both in the old days and in the present. If you look at the /external appearance of historical phenomenon, that seems right.
The empire of today is America, no matter what you look at. China is a similar country, but it's definitely America, which has a bigger impact on us. The Babylon, where Jeremiah was active, may be evil and now some people may think America is just, but it is not. Babylon was also a very sophisticated, rational, and the most civilized country. In 587 B.C., at the end of Jeremiah's activities, Judea fell. Many nobles and intellectuals were taken prisoner by Babylon in accordance with her policy of assimilation. There they either devoted themselves to learning or lived as state officials with certain benefits. It seems to us that America, the world's strongest nation, has the destiny of the world in its hands. We can't ignore it. There are many people who think that we should read America's countenance as much as possible. There are even people who are reading Japan's countenance.
This issue is not only at the national level. So is our personal lives. The idea of a successful life is pervasive in people only when there is such a powerful force as the empire. I don't have to tell you one by one what it looks like in our lives today. I'm sure you're familiar with the story behind the Justice Minister's hearing these days. The reason that many young people feel uncomfortable about the justice minister candidate is that he actually lived a very strong vested interest in liberal values. I don't know, but his family would be in the top 1 percent of our country. Any parent in that class would have made such an effort as it was revealed to the Ministry of Justice's family for their children. If his daughter went to a high school where all the talented students from across the country, she would have made a point of exchanging information for herself. It's not illegal, but it's enough to give a sense of deprivation to young people who can't get there. It can't happen in a country like Germany. I don't think this problem is solved by witch-hunting criticism of either parent or student. The biggest problem is that Korea is an academic society. The academic hierarchy continues to affect teenagers from the beginning to the end of their lives. Even if you become a pastor, it is good in Korea to graduate from Seoul National University. Academicism and imperialism are the same thing.
Jeremiah declared a completely different message. He says the fate of Israel, or the people of Jerusalem, is determined by God, not by the hands of the empire. It means that God is the master of history. Look at the numerous empires that have appeared in the past history. The strongest empire was Rome. There are also many books and papers on the history of the fall of Rome. There's a debate about whether the cause of the collapse is external or internal. What's important is that Rome, which seemed to last forever, collapsed in vain. China thinks it's the world's center. So the name also uses the word Jung(中), which means center. Do you think so? Protests are now continuing in Hong Kong that are comparable to the civil revolution. Tibet has long been trying to become independent from China. Many other minorities will also be separated when there is an opportunity. Just like the Soviet Union collapsed in the 1990's and was divided into countries. The right concept for this is the butterfly effect. No one knows when or what will happen.
The ancient prophets were able to confirm that God was breaking up the history of the Empire and making a new one in the Outer Oyster case. Ancient Israel could not dream that they would be liberated from Egypt. The first reason for this was that they managed to make ends meet in Goshen, Egypt, and the second reason was that Egypt's power was too strong. They crossed the Red Sea in Moses' guidance. It was God's power that ancient Israel first experienced at the ethnic level. After Egyptian horsemen fell into the Red Sea and died in pursuit of Israel, the young women, including Moses' sister, danced and sang the following song. “Miriam sang to them: “Sing to the Lord, for he is highly exalted. Both horse and driver he has hurled into the sea.”(Exo. 15:21). What do you think? Do you agree that God is the master of world history?
The Opened future
The second message Jeremiah issued to the people of Jerusalem is that God changes his initial thoughts. That's what's written in verse 8. If a nation turns away from evil, it will undo what God had planned to do, and if a nation does evil in God's sight, then God will reconsider the good God had intended to do for it. According to this, the criterion for God to change his original will is evil. It is often said that if we try to lead good life, God will bless us; if we do evil reversely, God will punish us. If you're not very naive, you know the world doesn't work this way. You can't conclude that a good person is always healthy, rich, and has a happy family We cannot conclude that the life of a wicked man is going to get worse. We should not accept Jeremiah's message that turning away from evil is blessed, and that doing evil is punished as a lesson of the good and bad. That's a lesson that can come from teachers of ethics in the East and the West. The Bible is a more fundamental dimension.
When God changes his mind, it means that history is not closed, but open. The former is history determinism, and the latter is history openness. Historical determinism is more familiar to us. If you switch to a term that we're used to, it's a theory of planning. In other words, God has scheduled those to be saved and those to be thrown away. Partly the theory of the plan is not wrong, but the whole Bible is misleading. If we mechanically press forward with the theory of the schedule, we have no responsibility for history. Everything is scheduled, so there is no choice between evil and distrust. It's a kind of fatalism. Scheduled theory doesn't mean that history can't be predetermined and changed, but it means that our salvation is mysterious.
Jeremiah, the prophet, is not sitting idle at his desk discussing historical philosophy, saying, "History determinism or openness." Now, in the present situation of Judea, his people, who are afraid of the Babylonian Empire, are proclaiming God's will in the spirit of vomiting blood. At that time, the Jews were either afraid that their country might be destroyed like any other country around them, or they were convinced that God would protect them unconditionally. And that conviction is actually a phenomenon that comes from anxiety. The Jewish people were in a state of complete disarray and anxiety. Jeremiah conveys the will of God that he has realized. The future of Judea has not been decided. The fate of all countries, not just Jews, has not been decided. You don't have to be vaguely determined or despairing. The fate of the Jewish people depends on what they do here. In light of this, Jeremiah expressed his willingness to change his will, taking the risk that God's concept of omnipotence could be compromised.
Not only the nation, but also the future of the individual is open, not closed. Some people live by feeling this fact, while others do not. People who don't feel this are either bored with life or are obsessed with it somewhere. On the other hand, people who feel this live in tension, looking at life as interesting. Let's say someone went on their first trip to Eastern Europe. Prague in the Czech Republic is good, too. He walks through these alleyways with a bag on his back, or with a map in his hand, or a smartphone with a map app in his hand. It's interesting because he doesn't know what's going to happen around that alley. When we look at our daily lives on the surface, the same thing seems to happen over and over again. If it's new, it's just a lot of money and a lot of social status. From the depth of everyday life, today and tomorrow are completely different. The peach flavor we eat today is different from the peach taste we eat tomorrow. Today's feeling of rain and wind is definitely different from tomorrow's. Today's me and tomorrow's me are different. If you go deep into your soul, tomorrow is much more new. If we're ready, our future will be completely new. Because the future is not closed. The culmination of such a new future experience is the experience of heaven.
In his book 'Days of Awe and Wonder' Marcus J. Borg says about Jesus' alternative wisdom as follows. I read a part of it. "The alternative wisdom of Jesus, the path that many people haven't yet gone, is, in fact, a life that lives in the relationship with the Holy Spirit. The wisdom of Jesus leads us to a life of holiness -- God -- that is a very central place within. In contrast, life follows conventional wisdom, which most of us have lived for a long time. I hope we all pay attention to two of the many consequences of living in a world of conventional wisdom. One thing is that conventional wisdom blinds us to surprises." Marcus Borg's conventional wisdom is that he sees life as a fixed entity. It's a closed world view. No matter whether there is knowledge or wealth, a person bound by conventional wisdom does not experience the wonders of life.
There is actually one message that Jeremiah would like to convey to the people of Jerusalem. In other words, look not only at the international political technology level, but at the relationship with God. Verse 11b says the relationship with God: “So turn from your evil ways, each one of you, and reform your ways and your actions..” The text does not specify what the evil way is. We know what the prophets of the Old Testament share in common. These are two things. One is idolatry, and the other is to make society feel bad about orphans and widows. These two things work together. Idol-ism is materialism. It's the attitude of life that regards money as the best value. In a materialistic society, if the gap between the haves and have-nots increases, the social poor will increase. Most of the countries of the time went on this evil path just as they do now. It's a natural thing to look like this. You have to eat well and live well, and you have to increase your defense spending. In order to do so, we need to build up the strength of our country. In these times, the just world was not a concern for people. So did Judea, the kingdom of Jeremiah. Jeremiah appealed to the people to turn away from the evil road as soon as possible, because God planned to bring disaster on him.
Did the Jews listen to Jeremiah? Sadly, no, of course, they didn't listen to Jeremiah's message. According to Jer. 18:12, the next passage of the text of today's sermon, they mocked Jeremiah's words as futile. They're going to keep living the way they've been. According to Jer. 18:18, there was a collective voice against Jeremiah, and they conspired to kill Jeremiah. These days, there are many people in Korea who are uncomfortable with or refuse to reform. It's the same with personal life. The conventional attitude of life within us holds on to us.
Dear saints, do you usually live with the full power, the providence, and the power of God, like the hand of a potter? Or do you absolutize the world experience you've accumulated so far? Don't forget. We are clay and earthenware in the hands of the potter. Our fate is in the hands of the potter, God. For those who accept it will be blessed by God who does not expect it.
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