Reverend Raymond Osborne, Pastor

Please Note That Most Messages Follow
The Revised Common Lectionary

The Potter & the Clay
Mark 7:1-8,14-15,21-23 & Romans 12:2

One of the things I learned in seminary was not to give away the theme of the sermon you are about to deliver in the title. Well let me assure you I failed that one this morning! I could think of no other way to put what was in my heart and on my mind. I want you to know that there is something very special about this morning’s sermon. I have never struggled and wrestled with a sermon like I have over this one this past week. I had prayed and prayed about this sermon. I followed my usual routine in sermon preparation but nothing was coming. When it came to hearing God’s voice about this message, He was silent. I kept praying, “Okay Lord I’m listening! Any time now Lord! Come on Lord this is taking far too long!” See I usually have my sermons written by Thursday of each week and I have taken some degree of pride in that.

I think God was trying to remind me of three important facts this week. First, this is HIS message and not mine. Second, I need to learn to be a little more patient. And finally, I need to remember He has never failed me in the past and He wasn’t going to start.

So I just remained open to Him and continued to pray. Saturday morning I took my family to Cokesbury’s bookstore on Tyvola Road. As we headed home Stephanie was practicing a new song she had just purchased and as I sat at the red light waiting to turn onto 485, all of a sudden it hit me! God spoke to my heart and said “This is the message for this Sunday but first you have to go find a box of Playdough.” I must admit that it kind of puzzled me, but who am I to argue with God? So I asked Seth and Paige who were in the back seat doing what brothers and sisters do best – fighting with one another, “Do you guys care if I borrow a can of your Playdough for Sunday’s sermon?” They began to get excited! I have in the past borrowed some of their things for the sermons but never have I borrowed the Playdough before!

I kept reading the lection text for this week and I think one of the problems I kept having was that in our text there is a strong word from Jesus to a bunch of Pharisees who had allowed their worship of God to become filled with legalities and ritualistic practices. As I read that passage over and over this week, I kept saying to myself, “But this is not the people I know at Pleasant Grove, Wesley Chapel, or Union.” See I KNOW you are good people! I know your hearts are warm and caring and loving. I know all that! I think there is another reason I had a difficult time sitting down with this passage. It caused myself to become involved in some introspection. See, this passage of Scripture challenges us to examine our walk with Jesus. It challenges us to examine our relationship with Him. It causes us to ask the question, “Am I the Disciple Jesus wants me to be? Is my life everything is ought to be in the eyes of God?”

The answers to those questions bother me. No! No! No! No! No! I am not the Disciple Jesus wants me to be! My life is NOT everything it ought to be in the eyes of God! I have not reached the perfection John Wesley speaks of. But I am trying and by the grace of God Almighty as I stand before my Lord and my Redeemer I shall at that moment have obtained perfection.

What’s that got to do with Playdough? Why am I standing here holding this glob of something that I can do absolutely nothing with?

My favorite author is Leonard Sweet. I try to get my hands on every single thing he has ever written and keep my eyes open for all his new works. He is a man who consistently challenges the church to change that will reach a post-modern generation living in a non-church culture.

This past week I began reading A Cup of Coffee at the Soul Café. In chapter one, he makes reference to the potter and the clay metaphorically. In that chapter there is a quote from Al Qoyawayma, one of the world’s finest potters. Let me share that quote with you:

There is quite the possibility that I am drastically missing the mark here. As United Methodists we believe in the Doctrine of Perfection. It’s biblical. Jesus tells us in Matthew 5 verse 48, “Be perfect! Even as your Heavenly Father is perfect!”

I don’t know about you, but I have met a lot of people in this life who truly believe that they ARE perfect. I am far from it. If you think that your newly appointed minister came without blemish, you might want to think again. I have not yet reached the perfection that John Wesley speaks of and even more that Jesus speaks of.

Look at this blob of clay in my hands. I can’t make anything out of this clay. My skills lie in preaching, teaching, and playing the guitar. Believe me I am not a potter by any stretch of the imagination. The same is true with my life. If what I become in life is the result of my own doing, I can promise you this much – I will never amount to a hill of beans. BUT, if I continue to place my life in the hands of the Master Potter, then, and only then will I be the Disciple Jesus wants me to be, and then and only then will my life be everything it ought to be in the eyes of God.

Now I want to close but I have to do it in a very strange way. I need to give you a quick lesson on making a pot. Let me put forth a disclaimer first. I am not a potter. Okay?

The way I understand it, from reading everything I could read about it, the kind of clay one uses to make a pot will only make a pot if it is what? If it is wet. If the clay will accept the water and becomes wet it is easily molded. However, if the clay will not accept the water then it remains hard and will never be molded into anything.

Remember earlier I mentioned that Sweet made reference to the potter and the clay metaphorically? Allow me to read you a paragraph from his book:

“Genesis 2 portrays God as Master Potter, scooping dust out of the earth, adding water, and then breathing that swampland into consciousness. As anyone who saw the movie Ghost knows, right after a potter takes a lump of clay and places it on a wheel, the next thing that has to happen if the clay is to be molded is it has to be wetted down. The moisture of the clay is the expression of the clay’s receptivity to the potters will. If the clay remains hard and refuse to allow itself to be moistened, the best potter in the universe cannot fashion a thing of beauty out of it. It will be a crusty clump of clay, unformed and unfashioned forever.” And then he asks the question,

“Is the clay of our souls moist?”

I don’t know about you, I only know about me. I want the clay of my life to be moist. Moistened by the Holy Spirit of God.

Today, I am doing something very radical and I think that’s okay. I want to serve you water. I have here in my pottered jug – water. Pure spring water. I want to ask any and all who will come to step out of your pew, come forward, and receive a cup of water. By coming you are symbolically saying, I want my life to be molded by the hands of God.

Benediction:

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