The Potter’s House 

Jeremiah 18:1-6 

September 18, 2016 

Mark S. Bollwinkel 

(This sermon is delivered from a potter’s wheel as the preacher “throws” pottery…)

            Jeremiah was called to be a prophet of God at an early age.   He would preach for more than forty years, surviving a number of kings and crises.   He began his work during the exciting and positive reforms of King Josiah and ends it leaving Jerusalem in ashes, destroyed by the Babylonian armies which also carried off the royalty and intelligencia of Israel into slavery.  It was Jeremiah’s job for those forty years to warn the leaders and people of Israel that there were consequences to breaking the covenant with God.  He warned them that their corruption and injustice would result in calamity for “God’s Chosen People”.  He especially called to task the King and royal priesthood for their complicity in the injustice that was violating their relationship with the One God.

            As you can imagine, Jeremiah’s personal life was a disaster as a result.  His friends abandoned him.  The leaders scorned him and threw him in the stockade.  The royal priests decried his preaching and labeled him a heretic.   Life was lonely and painful for Jeremiah, prophet of God.

            But it would be this same “prophet of doom” who would see on the horizon of history the coming of a new covenant and a new messiah.  As clearly as he could see the destruction of his beloved nation, he could also see that God was using these historical events to create something new.  A “new covenant” would arise out of the ashes of Israel’s apostasy, a covenant not written on stone or paper but on the human heart (Jeremiah 31:31-34).  A covenant of love and forgiveness sealed by the authority of a new messiah unlike the faithful had ever seen.   It would be a new day.  It would be a “second chance” for God’s people.

            [The scripture lesson is read and the piece of pottery collapses on the wheel at the “appropriate time”!]

            In our lesson this morning, the prophet is wandering the streets of Jerusalem searching for some sign of hope in the midst of the coming destruction and his own personal sufferings.   He sees a “potter’s house” and goes inside.  There while watching the craftsman form a vessel, Jeremiah is amazed at how the potter can re-build yet another pot even after the one he was working on collapses in failure.

            In that metaphor Jeremiah finds the hope for which he was searching, as God, like a potter, can re-form our lives again and again with strong and loving hands.

            The formation of clay into domestic ware is an almost universal craft among human cultures.  Clay, made mostly of alumni and silicates, is one of the most common resources on the surface of the planet.  Since the beginning of human history folk have fashioned useful items from it and burned it at high temperatures to vitrify the silica into a substance impervious to water. 

            One of the amazing properties of clay is its ability to be re-generated.  Mined, ground and then mixed with water it becomes the plastic material which we recognize as clay.  But when it dries out either as a failed piece or as scrap material, it can be reground and rejuvenated with water and used all over again and again.  Even after it is fired at high temperatures, the vitrified clay can be ground into what we call “grog” and added to wet unfired clay to make it stronger.   You’ll note that at archeological digs thousands of years old that the most common antiquity discovered is pottery and that by studying the dating, shapes and uses of such pottery experts can determine much about the culture.

The bowls I am making this morning will be trimmed, fired and glazed to 2,200 degrees Fahrenheit. I’ll donate these pieces each year for the Wayfarer Women’s Craft Sale which will be held in November. If you treat them right, archeologists will be digging them out of the ruins 5,000 years from now and marveling at the legend of the “pastor potter”, a minister who could walk and chew gum at the same time!

To me it’s no accident that in the second creation poem of Genesis, God takes a handful of dirt…or dust…or clay…and breathes spirit into it to create the first human being (2:7).    Our bodies are made of the same stuff as clay, the same stuff as the stars (Psalm 8).  When Jeremiah marvels at the ability of the potter to re-fashion another vessel out of the failure of the first, seeing God’s hand in Israel’s history in the re-creation of its future hope, it’s no accident to me that we, too, can know the God of the “second chance”.

If there is a common theme in the preaching of Jesus, it’s in the redemptive power of love and forgiveness.  He offers it to an immoral Samaritan woman at a well (John 4), to a corrupt collaborator with the Roman occupation tax system by the name of Zacchaeus (Luke 19:1-10) and a zealous religious official by the name of Saul in charge of persecuting Christians on the road to Damascus (Acts 9).  

And God offered a second chance to Bob.

Bob picked up a hitchhiker by the name of Marcie on his motorcycle and fell immediately in love.  He was a struggling screenplay writer in Hollywood.   She was a young, beautiful woman with a deeply troubled past from which she was trying to run.  Bob honorably offered her shelter and time to think things through before she went back to her home.  They continued to keep in touch and build a relationship.  Bob hoped that Marcie would fall in love with him, too, but it just wasn’t the time.  For all the talent and good intentions of Marcie she was a magnet for troubled men, probably the result of what her father and uncle did to her as a child.  Bob was overwhelmed with the stress of one professional failure after another.  Eventually Marcie would marry John and they would have a beautiful son together.  She and Bob kept in touch in a loving and appropriate way throughout those years, even when John went to prison for drug dealing.  After that divorce, Marcie responded to the constant grace in Bob’s life for her and they married, giving birth to a beautiful baby girl.  Bob struggled financially as a writer and Marcie worked as the children’s music director for a United Methodist church. 

Marcie was Bonnie Bollwinkel’s best friend and college roommate.  They worked together in a bi-lingual preschool in the barrios of Southern California.   Bonnie and Marcie were more like sisters than friends.  Bonnie was one of the first to hear Marcie’s news that she was diagnosed with terminal cancer. To make a long story short, it was also Bonnie who stood by her bedside just hours before Marcie died of cancer at the age of 36.

Bob was left to raise the kids.  Frankly nobody thought he had it in him. Yet after she died he hung in there offering security and stability for two brilliant children whose mother was taken away all too young.  Church was a big part of that household.  Now both college graduates, Bob has amazed all of his friends at the strength and love he was able to provide those two kids.   He’d be the first to tell you that it was God who gave him the second chance to love Marcie when and how she needed it the most…as the father of her two children after she was gone.

God does not control each and every moment in our lives as if some Universal Puppeteer.  Rather God’s spirit lures us in each and every moment to what is best and most lovingly possible.  That lure is powerful indeed and if we yield ourselves to it we can find ourselves re-made and re-formed and renewed again and again.

Like the potter’s hand can remake a little bit of clay, something so common it may seem worthless, into something precious and useful indeed.

The hymn has us sing, “Have thine own way Lord, have thine own way.  You are the potter I am the clay.  Mold me and make me after thy will, while I am waiting, yielded and still” (UM Hymnal # 382, “Have Thine Own Way Lord”).  God sees each of our lives as something well worth saving, even if we need to be made over again and again and again.

Amen.

Is There a Balm in Gilead?

Jeremiah 8:18-9:1

September 11, 2016

15^th Anniversary of 9-11 Attacks

Mark S. Bollwinkel

In the sixth century BCE, the prophet Jeremiah watched the armies of Nebuchadnezzar march from the north to destroy Israel, the nation of God’s chosen people.  The Temple of Zion, where he worshiped YHWH and tried to warn the people of their apostasy, was burnt to the ground.  The leaders and intelligencia of his Israel were carted off to Babylon in chains of slavery.  The devastation was complete.  It would take years before the exiles were allowed to rebuild the city, their nations and their lives.

            In a terrible moment of anguish the prophet cries out “O that my head were a spring of water, and my eyes a fountain of tears, so that I might weep day and night for the slain of my poor people! I mourn, and dismay has taken hold of me.  Is there no balm in Gilead?”

Gilead was a mountainous region east of the river Jordan noted for its production of a medicinal salve taken from the aromatic resin of a tree.  This ointment was used for cosmetics, embalming and by physicians for the healing of wounds.

We can assume it was widely known and used in Palestine.

            In his despair, anger and grief at the destruction of God’s city of Zion, Jeremiah asks the question metaphorically, “Is there no comfort…is there no healing…is there no relief from this pain…is there no balm in Gilead?”

            We often think of the great African American hymn when we hear these words.  But its composer doesn’t ask it as a question but rather asserts a conviction, “There is a balm in Gilead…there is comfort…there is healing…there is relief from our pain”.

            African slave poets and musicians in North America can answer Jeremiah’s question asked thousands of years before in Israel.  What did they discover that he did not know at that moment?

            We had better explore their answer because it is our question, too.  In the face of the horrific evil of September 11^th 2001, and the violence of wars and terrorism since, aren’t we also left to ask, “Is there any comfort…is there any healing…is there a balm in Gilead?

Every one of us can remember the moment when we learned of the planes hitting the Twin Towers in New York, the Pentagon in Washington DC and that field out near Stonycreek Township, Pennsylvania fifteen years ago today.    We’ll never forget where we were and what we were doing. 

During those fifteen years since we’ve sent our men and women off to war against the agents of those attacks, spending their valor and our nation’s treasure.  The common perception is that things are no better as a result.   In spite of their efforts things seem to be worse.  The violence of extremists has infiltrated the streets of our cities.  The citizens of Paris and Belgium, San Bernardino and Orlando now weep along with the victims in Bagdad, Aleppo and Karachi.

We are outraged and afraid as our sense of security has been violated by crime after crime against humanity itself.   It can be overwhelming. 

 As Christians what do we do with our anger?  What do we do with our fear?

Old Testament Proverbs say that anger is for “fools” and “whoever is slow to anger has great understanding” (12:16, 14:29).  The writers of the Epistles say that it has no place in the Christian community (Ephesians 4:26-32, Colossians 3:8, James 1:20). Jesus and the apostle Paul say to avoid anger at all costs (Matthew 5:22, Romans 12:19).

Yet in the face of religious hypocrisy (Mark 3:1-5, 11:15-19) Jesus, the Son of God, himself gets angry.  This same God, the God of love and peace, is also described throughout the Bible as One who can also focus terrible anger and wrath on the wicked (Psalm 7:11-17, 21:8-12, Isaiah 13:9, Ephesians 5:6, Colossians 3:6).

As human beings there is no way we will not be outraged by the events of September 11^th and the violence of the last fifteen years.   But as Christians we cannot let that anger consume us.   Our tradition clearly warns that it can.  And when anger overwhelms us we often strike out at others.

The week after 9/11 two Sikhs were killed in Arizona simply because of their appearance which includes wearing turbans and beards (San Jose Mercury News, 9/17/01).  In the weeks that followed 9/11, the FBI investigated 50 cases of hate crimes against Arab, Muslim and Sikh Americans (San Jose Mercury News, 9/20/01).  On August 5, 2012, a massacre took place at the Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, where 40-year-old Wade Michael Page fatally shot six people and wounded four others before taking his own life.  Page was an American white supremacist and Army veteran (CNN, August 6, 2012). The Sikhs come from India not Arabia.  They wear turbans and beards as an expression of their religious tradition. They are not Muslim. 

Last month 30,000 Muslims marched in London denouncing the violence of Islamic extremists; “The only thing the terrorists are achieving is to completely violate the teachings of the Holy Koran and of the Holy Prophet Muhammad,” His Holiness Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad told attendees, “Let it be clear that they are not practicing Islam, rather it seems as though they have invented their own hate-filled and poisonous religion.” (The Independent, August 15^th, 2016). Since 9/11 Muslim leaders and organizations here in the USA and around the world have denounced the violence of Jihadi radicals but it rarely gets mentioned in the press.   Not all Muslims are out to kill us!  To label all 1.2 billion Muslims as potential terrorists is not only wrong, it is a ploy to promote fear.  

Religious and racial prejudice has no place in our country or in the Christian heart.  Yet it always seems to find one.  That is what happens when anger and fear overwhelm us.  We strike out at others.

The New Testament warns us that fear is the opposite of faith (Matthew 6:25-34, Luke 12:22-28, I Corinthians 7:32, Philippians 4:6, I Peter 5:7). 

Last year photographer Joel Meyerowitz, whose book “Aftermath: World Trade Center Archive” chronicles the months following the attack, gave the National September 11 Memorial Museum a fragment of a steel beam from the South Tower on which was fused pages of the Kings James Version of the Bible.  An unnamed firefighter found the fragment in March 2002 and gave it to the photographer years later.  The only pages legible were from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount from the Gospel of Matthew: 

“Ye have heard that it hath been said, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.” ...“Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy.  But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you” (NYT, 09/25/2015)

If we’ve learned anything in years since 9/11 is that we will not win the war against terrorism with guns alone.  We can kill terrorists but violence will not heal the poverty, ignorance and oppression that breeds cells of terrorism in the first place.  If all we do is continue the cycle of retaliation and retribution, with all of our might and sophistication, we will not defeat terrorism; some would argue we’ve made it worse.  All we have to do is look at the results of 60 years of revenge and retribution between Israel and Palestine to be reminded that violence only breeds more violence.

The apostle Paul reminds us when dealing with anger and fear;

“If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.  Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, says the Lord, I will repay.”  No, if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.  Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” (Romans 12:18-21)

I do not suggest for a moment that these terror crimes against humanity go ignored or rewarded.  Just the opposite, their perpetrators must be resisted and defeated.  But in our anger, however righteous, let us not forget that the American eagle…which we find on our government’s seal and our currency…holds out both the arrows of war and the branch of peace at the same time.

To win the war against terrorism we will have to be as vigilant and determined in our peace making as we are in our military response.

“With guns you can kill terrorists, with education you can kill terrorism.”

Malala Yousafzai (Pakistani advocate for women’s education, victim of terrorist attack and youngest winner of Nobel Peace Prize [2014])

The Jihadists will claim that God is on their side.  Fundamentalist Christian preachers will tell you that God caused the planes to crash on 9/11 to punish America’s sin, as they define it (see Ann and Franklin Graham, Farwell, Robinson, etc.).

But God didn’t cause those planes to fly into those buildings on 9/11.  God didn’t reject the prayers of the victims.

God weeps with us in our sorrow.  God grieves with us in our loss.  God sent his angels to minister to the fallen through the courage and sacrifice of the emergency personnel.  God inspires and strengthens us to rebuild our cities and lives, to resist and defeat the agents of terrorism.

God was there on 9/11 as the New York firefighters and police men and women went up the stairs as the buildings came down.  God was with those valent passengers who fought back against the hijackers on United Flight 93.  God rushed with the rescuers at the Pentagon who pulled victims out of the burning rubble.

In our rage and anxiety we may blame God for all manner of things, but what more need God do to reveal that God wants the best for us all.  It’s those human beings that reject and distort God’s gift that must take responsibility for earth’s horrors.  Not God.

Maybe that is why the African American poets could insist “There is a balm in Gilead.”

It took the faith of an oppressed people, a powerless people who had been ripped out of their worlds, people who were the victims of the worst of human deeds, to answer Jeremiah’s question.

God doesn’t cause human suffering, God shares it.

In spite of every effort to violently dehumanize them, in Jesus they discovered that they were precious in God’s sight, no less than Children of God.  No master’s whip could ever drive that grace out of their lives.

Aliens in a foreign land, victims of violence in every way, they were never alone, they had each other and they had the love of God.

Someday they would be free.  Someday there would be justice.  Someday they would live in peace.  And they sang in the face of terrible anger and fear, and they still sing today, “Yes, there is a balm in Gilead.”

Can we?

We need to believe in the future.

We need to resist evil with good.

We need to stand with one voice, as a nation, as a world and in the threat of darkness insist that in God’s gift to us of life and love, “There is a balm in Gilead” and we will not be defeated by anger or fear.

Amen.

The Way of Love

Luke 14:1, 7-14

September 4, 2016

 Mark S. Bollwinkel

            Twenty-three years ago this month, I traveled for the first time to Sarawak, East Malaysia, on the northern part of the island of Borneo.  During my week there I met with church leaders of the Iban Conference of the Methodist church of Malaysia.  The Iban are the old headhunters of Borneo and I was there to research their rural development ministries.

            In Kapit, a logging town in the interior of the rain forest, I went out with an Iban church team to visit the long house church at Rumah Dari, six hours north, by dugout canoe.

            We traveled all day up a small river, pulling the wooden longboat over rocks when it got too shallow.  When the water was deep we would zoom by outboard motor under overhanging branches and orchids, vines and ferns, watching parrots and hornbills fly across our path.  It was as if we were in the Jungle Boat ride at Disneyland.

            When we finally reached Rumah Dari we were exhausted, hot and sweaty.  We arrived just as the 200 folks of this village on stilts were getting ready for their late afternoon bath.  Our team was eager to join them.

            It was quite a sight.  Everyone does down to the river, young and old, boy and girl, to bathe at the same time.  Men went down stream and women went up stream in two neat and distinct groups.

            Everyone kept some clothing on while bathing.  The Iban are modest and proud people.  The ladies bathe with sarongs tied properly around them and the men with trunks or briefs on.  It was a happy occasion with lots of water play and laughter, swimming and lots of soap.  The Iban are very clean people.

            I jumped right in.  I was desperate for a bath and the water felt wonderful.  My presence created quite a stir among the people, as I was the first white person to have visited Rumah Dari in six years.  Many of the children had never seen an “orang puteh” before.  Some were afraid I was a ghost, others though I was covered in paint.

            Never-the-less, the occasion of seeing a tall (in comparison to their average male), fat, red bearded, white man taking a bath in their river was the high point of their day.

            The folks quickly gathered around the banks of the river to watch me finish my bath.  They were very polite, and very curious, talking and giggling among themselves.

            My church teammates who had brought me to Rumah Dari got a big kick out of this and explained to me all that was going on.

            Then it came time to get out of the water.

            I asked my friends how I was supposed to get out of my wet underclothes and into dry ones.  They explained, by word and example, that one takes a dry sarong, slips it over the head, and while holding an edge in your teeth, you step out of the wet clothing, place it aside and then step into the dry clothing.

            It sounded easy enough.  I took a dry sarong, slipped it over my head, stepped out of my wet underclothing.  So far so good.  Two hundred people were watching me undress and all was going well.

            Then, with my back to the crowd on the riverbank, as I stepped into my dry clothing, I stepped down on the sarong and pulled it out of my teeth.  It fell to the ground and before I instantly pulled it up around myself again, a huge cheer roared out from the village.  They clapped and yelled, slapping each other on the back.  We all laughed together.

            That night after dinner at our community meeting and worship service, they lovingly gave me a new nickname, “Bulan Besai”, which literally translated means “Great White Moon”, the nearest thing in their experience to what they had seen that afternoon at the community bath.

            The story illustrates my clumsiness and Iban curiosity.  But I also like to think of the event as an example of “conspicuous Christianity”.

            I stuck out like a sore thumb in their world.  I had made a fool of myself in front of them.  Yet they also knew I had traveled 10,000 miles away from my family, to a strange and difficult land.  They knew I had done so for Christ and his church’s efforts to help feed their children.  In the end we became brothers and sisters.

            Three years later I would return to Sarawak with Bonnie, Matt and Daniel as United Methodist Missionaries, to discover that many more people than those at Rumah Dari had heard about the legend of Bulan Besai.

            One of the challenges of living outside of the United States once you return is getting used to the inconspicuousness of Christianity in our society.  Believers or unbelievers all look the same and act the same, for the most part.  North America is an easy place to hide one’s faith.

            How can you tell who is a Christian and who is not?  You can’t tell by one’s clothing, or one’s surname, or even by our bumper stickers.

            The only thing that distinguishes us as disciples of Christ is our capacity to love.

            Our love for each other and the world is not just an intellectual, personal or contemplative love but also an active way of life, a way of life that can be observed by all around us.

            Christian love is conspicuous; it stands out like a sore thumb.

            It is no coincidence that here at Church of the Wayfarer we collect clean socks for homeless men in Salinas, or non-perishable food items for the food closet at All Saints Church down the street or open our church for the I-Help rotating homeless shelters for men and women.

            It is no coincidence that the vast majority of prison programs in our nation connecting the inmate to the outside are run by faith-based organizations.

            It is no accident that our government counts on Christian organizations…such as Church World Service (CWS), Episcopal Migration Ministries (EMM), Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services (LIRS) or the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB)…to do the hands-on local work to resettle refugees from Syria, or Africa or Eastern Europe.

            Christian love is conspicuous.

            It’s conspicuous in the couples who fight to keep their marriages alive in the face of trails and temptations.   It’s conspicuous in the singles who with courageous efforts keep their families going in spite of broken hearts.

            It’s conspicuous in the many saints of the church, in this church, who generously share their time and money for Christ’s ministry of compassion and justice.        Consider our gospel lesson this morning, as Jesus teaches the rich host that he should not only invite friends and family to his banquet, but “the poor, the maimed, the lame and the blind” as well.

            For Jesus, righteousness didn’t mean superiority or the right to condemn others who are different.  Just the opposite.  The truly righteous welcome those who don’t count to their tables.  Jesus describes a radical love, a love that includes not excludes, a love that is humble, not full of self-righteousness.

            This is not an easy or comfortable love, a romantic love.  In fact, this is a hard lesson to follow.  There are many, many folks we would refuse to have at our dining room table; the AIDS patient, the illegal immigrant, people with different sexual orientations than our own, persons of different races than our own, even specific members of our own families who we have written off, we would not welcome to our tables.

            But the love to which Jesus calls us urges us to invite even those who don’t count.

            That kind of love is conspicuous.  It stands out in contrast to the cynical, expedient world in which we live.

            We are about to be invited to the table of the Lord, the sacrament of Holy Communion.  All are invited.  It is a conspicuous act by those who choose to participate.  We will physically, publicly demonstrate our need for God’s nourishment in our lives and our commitment to respond to Jesus’ teachings.  We don’t do it passively.  We act to receive it.  We don’t do it anonymously.  All can see us as we partake.  And we don’t do it alone.  We share this symbolic meal in the community of like-minded people who seek the same promise as we do.

            A life where God matters.  In a world of accomplishment and acquisition we step forward to say that life with God matters.  It can make all the difference.

            It may not be as conspicuous as dropping your sarong in front of 200 people, but it is a conspicuous commitment to the way of love none-the-less.

             Amen.