The Potter Molds Us

preaching UCC Casper WY

This weekend is my first sermon at my new congregation. I decided to do a sermon series on being shaped by the Potter’s hand. So we are going to look at people who have been shaped by God’s presence.

This first week I am using Isaiah 64:8 and Jeremiah 18:1-11. Both speak of God the Potter. God gives Jeremiah the command to go and visit a potter after watching the potter God tells Jeremiah that I have that same ability. I can take you Israel and shape and reshape you the way God who fashions and forms us. I hope to share about myself and my faith.

God has worked in my life molding me and remolding me. I wish that I could say as Bono sings in Magnificent “I was born / I was born to sing for you / 
I didn't have a choice but to lift you up / And sing whatever song you wanted me to / I give you back my voice “. But God didn’t choose to make me a rock star who can share a passion for singing and moving a crowd.

God chose to mold me into a preacher. He started by showing me I had a talent for words. Those first words were a desired to write. I often said of my writing it was as if I was speaking to people, all kinds of people could hear and understand what I said. But it wasn’t enough teaching me to write, I didn’t have a passion for any subject that would lead me to write as a job. I was still in need of molding and shaping. I needed to find what I truly wanted to share with the world and until I found it the Potter had to seep refining me. "Only love, only love can leave such a mark / 
But only love, only love can heal such a scar / Justified till we die, you and I will magnify / The Magnificent / 
Magnificent
/ Only love, only love can leave such a mark / 
But only love, only love unites our hearts.”

I found that love that changed and marked me. I realized God gave me a gift of words and the ability to make connections in order to share that gift with others. While I can’t sing, I can preach that joyful noise. I can preach that challenge that Jeremiah shared with Israel. God’s longing to mold people into the creation he desires, a community of love open to all, a community called to take that love out into the streets and help transform the world into God’s vision of a world where the blind can see, the lame can walk, the captives are set free, and God’s favor is shared freely with all.