Have Thine Own Way, LORD

The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying, “Rise and go down to the potter’s house, and there I shall let you hear My words.” And I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was, attending to the task on the wheel. And if the vessel that he was making in clay in the potter’s hand was spoiled, he would go back and make another vessel as it fit in the eyes of the potter to make. And the word of the LORD came to me saying: “Like the potter cannot I do with you, house of Israel?” said the LORD. “Look, like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in My hand, house of Israel …” [Jeremiah 18:1-6, The Hebrew Bible, tr. by Alter].

As I spied the Old Testament reading appointed for this upcoming Sunday, Jeremiah 18:1-11 [the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost, RCL, Year C], I was effectively transported back to the Olney Presbyterian Church pews of my childhood. My mind’s eye sees that the congregation has just stood for the Sabbath’s closing hymn. The hymnal is turned to Adelaide Addison Pollard’s “Have Thine Own Way, Lord, Have Thine Own Way.” As many of you know, that old, popular hymn is based on this week’s OT reading. “Thou art the potter/I am the clay.”

My eyes glisten when I think of the hymn because it was one of our dad’s favorites. Now don’t get me wrong; “T.E.” was no musician. He never sang in the choir. He couldn’t read a note of music, but he could carry a tune, and if one was careful as one stood beside him in the pew, one could sometimes sense the power that seemed to course through him as Holy Spirit mixed magically with the melody of an old, camp meeting tune.

Mold me and make me after Thy will
While I am waiting yielded and still.

Lean forward just a bit, as I whisper a confession: I’ve always found it difficult—nigh on impossible—to wait for the LORD, “yielded and still.” To be sure, I’ve always recognized the sovereignty of Yahweh. I’ve always understood that Yahweh can and will do whatever suits Him. I know that His ways are mysterious and unfathomable. I fully acknowledge that He can smash you and me as the small lumps of clay that we are, but that His love usually prevents Him from giving us “what we deserve.”

It’s just that if I’m honest with myself—and I can delude myself with more vigor than can most of you—I must admit that there is something within me that resists Yahweh’s efforts to mold me into some beautiful work of art. That is, of course, exactly what our LORD desires to do: mold us into something beautiful. Those who work with clay and the potter’s wheel tell me that the clay is sometimes quite resistant to the efforts of the potter. It is as if it refuses to yield. Alas, sometimes, I think it is the same for me. Why do I resist the potter’s fingers?

The same was true for the children of Israel. Yahweh had wanted to mold them into something beautiful, something that would be a blessing not only to their families and kin, but to all of Creation. And so, through Moses, Yahweh had led them out of Egypt. He had provided manna for them in the wilderness. He had sheltered them from potential enemies. He had given them the Law that, had they followed it, would have strengthened their community and their bond with Him. In due time, Yahweh had given them the Promised Land, had caused them to prosper among hostile foes, and had offered them a future greater than any of them could have imagined.

Yet, as I discussed last week, the children of Israel had sought after “ungods.” They had spurned “living waters” and had chosen instead the brackish waters of contaminated cisterns. As they had followed after empty ungods, they had been transformed into empty creatures. They had lost their beauty, their purpose, their sense of identity. The clay has resisted the potter, but the potter isn’t finished with the clay.

Yahweh deeply desires that His prophet, Jeremiah, understand not only what is at stake with regard to the children of Israel, but that Jeremiah understand what Yahweh has determined to do. A picture, of course, is worth a thousand words; and so, Yahweh tells his servant, Jeremiah, to go down to the potter’s house. Yahweh doesn’t describe the potter as someone of piety or goodness. It isn’t the potter’s personal essence that Yahweh wants Jeremiah to see; it’s the potter’s craft.

As Jeremiah gazes at the potter’s work, he senses that something is wrong. The potter was trying to fashion a vessel from the clay on the potter’s wheel, but for whatever reason, the clay was being uncooperative. It resisted the potter’s efforts. As Jeremiah watches closer, he notices that the potter’s reaction to the resistance is not to discard the clay and cast it outside into the trash heap. Rather, the potter carefully refashions the clay into a ball, perhaps adding a bit of water, and begins again to fashion it into the vessel that the potter desires.

Jeremiah’s mind is clarified by the powerful vision. Alas, Jeremiah understands that Yahweh is about the same process with the children of Israel. He will not cast them aside to the trash heap of History, nor will he tolerate the blemish that has worked itself into the clay. Instead, Yahweh will reshape Israel; He will remold the people according to His own design, so that they may finally be transformed from a useless pile of dirt into something of beauty and utility. The process may even be painful for the children of Israel—being exiled/kidnapped to Babylon is traumatic and frightening—but since Yahweh desires vessels of beauty from the children of Israel, vessels of beauty He will eventually have, even if the clay resists the careful hands and fingers of the divine Potter.

Eight hundred years later, St. Athanasius of Alexandria, who lived from about 296 to 373 (A.D.), saw a similar theological theme within the artist’s crafting of a portrait. St. Athanasius wrote that when a portrait that has been painted on a panel becomes obliterated through external stains, the artist does not throw away the panel, but rather the subject of the portrait has to come and sit for it again, and then the likeness is re-drawn on the same material. Thus, allowed St. Athanasius, the Son of God, the Image of the Father, came and dwelt in our midst, in order that He might renew mankind made after Himself, and seek out His lost sheep [St Athanasius, De Incarnatione pp.41-43].

Whether the image is that of the potter or of the painter, can we see that through the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, Yahweh is not done with us? Despite our stubbornness, our resistance, our hesitancy, and our tendency not to yield, through the movement of the Holy Spirit, our Risen Lord is even now at work not only within our gathered congregations and communities, but within each of us, pressing, molding, remolding, and restoring.

Have you at times felt as if your life was broken, much like a blemished vase or pitcher? Have you ever looked in the mirror only to see that your goodness has been obliterated through external stains? Rest assured, dear friends. Even when those of us resist the Potter or the Artist, He does not cast us aside. As difficult as it can sometimes be for us, may we pray to our Heavenly Father, “Have Your Own Way, Lord, Have Your Own Way.”