DO Pause to Create

What kind of activities do you do to re-create God’s world?  This will be an actual question.   Anyone sew or knit or crochet?  Anyone do woodwork or restore cars or steel bending? Anyone paint or draw or do pottery?  Anyone cook or bake or can? Anyone garden or hardscape or fish?  Anyone write or code or web design?  Anyone dance or do music or other forms of art? I can keep going…. what else? Other ways to create in God’s image and re-create?

Thank you for sharing for these beautiful ways in which we reflect some of the vastness of God’s creative prowess.   As we have been pausing during this Lent, we have been pausing first to listen.  We have been listening to God.  We start from the assumption that God is to be listened to and that God can be heard.  Even in the lesson from Jeremiah that we heard today, we hear God say to Jeremiah, “I will let you hear my words.”  God wants us to know God.  God wants to be know among God’s people.  After pausing, we have been rising to take some action.  Throughout Lent, we have confessed, been, known, and seen.  Today, we are called to create.

One of the first ways many of us meet God is as creator. (1)  The first chapter of the first book of the biblical narrative begins with the creative story.  God creating the world.  God, who created the universe and spun the stars, also creates each and every human being.  God, who still today, Father, Son and Holy Spirit urges us, to be creative in our responses to difficult and challenging situations.  In the Gospel lesson, we heard in Mark, we heard the mounting tension between Jesus and the Pharisees.  It was not so long ago that we heard the Pharisees questioning Jesus’ actions on a previous Sabbath.  Here again, we hear their displeasure at Jesus’ healing on the Sabbath.  Jesus does not back away from the cornering presence, but rather, stands firm in healing those in need as well as creative in response.

We, who are made in the image of God, are also called to create.  We are called to be creative.  You were given playdough.  Some of you, I can imagine, took it right out and started playing with it.  Some of you, put it right away.  Others were not sure what to do with it.  I want to encourage you to take it out.  Play with it.  Feel it.  Throughout out the rest of the service, pause to create.  As I am speaking, as we are singing, as we are praying, as others are passing the offering plate, after worship, whenever feels right to you, pause to create.  What should you create, you ask?  Create a pot to remind you that God is the potter and you are the clay.  You don’t like how it comes out at first?  Don’t sweat it!  Smash it down.  And turn again!

When Jeremiah was called to watch the potter with the clay, the potter was working the clay.  We know from the description that it was both spoiled and then reworked.  We know that the potter had one idea in mind and then needed to try again.  I think we have all been there.  We thought we understood exactly how to do something and worked hard at it.  And it did not at all go the way we had planned it.  We have often imagined that this means that we were a failure or that God has failed us.  Both of those understandings have missed the boat.  Jeremiah’s watching of the potter give us this:  reworking the clay is part of the process of shaping the clay.  When we are reworked and need reworking, God is still creating in us.  God is still at work.  God has not given up yet – why have we?  This is personal, and this is communal.  This is individual, and this is political.

As the prophet Jeremiah told by God to be watching and listening, we hear the word of word speak clearly that the nations and the people have times of breaking down and times of building up.  There are times in which the people of God are righteous and following God; times in which we and they have turned from God.  These are hard words to hear.  There are times when God is not done with our nations yet.  When we have turned away from God, and we need to be reworked.  When we need to be reworked and pause to create, in our personal lives, but also in our communal and political lives.  Whenever it is that we begin to care more about the safety and security about our citizens than feeding our people, we ought to pause and be creative in responding (2).  We ought to pause to listen and be creative in responding.

As humanity, our creative pursuits teach us about failure. We learn that we try one strategy, or one method does not succeed; we try another.  Like the potter with the clay, we continue to rework that which is before us, just like God does with us.  When Michelangelo was  given the commission for the statue of David in 1501, he was 26 years old.  Many artists had accepted similar commissions to depict the biblical hero, David in marble.  Towns loved the imagery of their people being the underdog against the Goliaths of the world.  Florentine artists like Verrocchio, Ghiberti and Donatello all depicted David after the battle with the head of Goliath.  Michelangelo ventured creatively into the unknown and imagines a different David in time.  David, before, the battle.  The artist works and reworks with a wax model of the design.   From archive documents, biographies, and final product, we know Michelangelo slept little in the final two years, worked in the rain, and ultimately presented his 14-foot giant to Vestry Board in January 1504.

They tried nine different locations including the original, before they landed on a spot perfect enough to house the statue.  Eventually the statue was placed in the political heart of Florence, in Piazza della Signoria. (3)  Even today, the statue creates thought, discussion, and art among those who look for cleverness and purpose first before going to conflict and violence.  Recreating a focus on the potential energy of the story of David, in contrast to the forgone conclusion that had been previously cast in stone.

When I was a little girl, I took quilting classes. I walked from my elementary school with a few other children up the hill to a little quilting shop, had a snack, and learned to quilt.  It was not uncommon to rip out stitches and try again, whether we were working by hand or by with machine.  But my favorite part was always near the beginning.  After we chose a pattern, we laid out the fabrics and were cutting.  We would try to lay everything out so that there would be as little waste as possible.  However, it is not possible for there to be no waste.  My teacher always let us pocket the scraps.  They were going to garbage anyway.  My classmates and I would create the most clever designs out of the discarded fabrics for fairy curtains or doll skirts or whatever our imaginations could dream up.  Before we every made a stitch, we dreamed and schemed three or four ideas.

With playdough in your hands, I ask you this morning, where are you being called in your lives to create and be creative in your responses to the challenging situations?  Nothing goes to waste.  Nothing did the potter discard.  Nothing in your life does God reject.  Where is God you even today to look at the potter’s wheel and see that while the clay is still good, it must be reworked?  God brought Jeremiah to the potter’s house, not as punishment or to see a doomsday scenario, but rather so that the prophet could step outside of the ways that he had always seen the situation.  God has the habit of offering us fresh perspective, renewed chances, and reworking us, so that we might be even more that we were already.

Pause this morning to create and let God recreate in you.

This is the Gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, thanks be to God, Amen.

[1] Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time. I am thinking here particularly of the curiosity he inspires in the reader to engage in the universe around us.

[2] https://wtop.com/health-fitness/2018/03/harvest-boxes-grocers-fear-for-business-patrons-health/slide/1/

[3] http://www.accademia.org/explore-museum/artworks/michelangelos-david/

Old Testament Lesson:  Jeremiah 18:1-9

The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: “Come, go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear my words.” So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel. The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as seemed good to him.  Then the word of the Lord came to me: Can I not do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done? says the Lord. Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.  At one moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, but if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will change my mind about the disaster that I intended to bring on it. And at another moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it.

Gospel Lesson:  Mark 3:1-12

Again Jesus entered the synagogue, and a man was there who had a withered hand. They watched him to see whether he would cure him on the sabbath, so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man who had the withered hand, “Come forward.” Then he said to them, “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. He looked around at them with anger; he was grieved at their hardness of heart and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately conspired with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.

Jesus departed with his disciples to the sea, and a great multitude from Galilee followed him; hearing all that he was doing, they came to him in great numbers from Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, beyond the Jordan, and the region around Tyre and Sidon. He told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, so that they would not crush him; for he had cured many, so that all who had diseases pressed upon him to touch him. Whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and shouted, “You are the Son of God!”  But he sternly ordered them not to make him known.

Meditations For Your Week

Sunday, March 18 ~ Saturday, March 24

Sunday: “The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: ‘Come, go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear my words.’ So, I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel.”  Jeremiah 18: 1-3.  God’s creativity extends to using ordinary events and objects to illustrate God’s ways and purposes.  Consider where you might pause today to see God’s creative way.

Monday: “The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as seemed good to him.” Jeremiah 18: 4.  Reworking is part of the creative process.  Where is God calling you to rework something you are working on?

Tuesday: “Then the word of the Lord came to me: Can I not do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done? says the Lord. Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.” Jeremiah 18: 5-6. Prayerfully ask God to sculpt you.

Wednesday: “At one moment, I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, but if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will change my mind about the disaster that I intended to bring on it.” Jeremiah 18: 7-8.  God is seeking God’s ways.  Where is God seeking God’s way in our world?  Pray for creative ways that you can be a part of restorative justice.

Thursday: “And at another moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it,” Jeremiah 18:9.  Where is God building you up?

Friday: “And Jesus said to the man who had the withered hand, ‘Come forward.’ Then he said to them, ‘Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to kill?’ But they were silent. He looked around at them with anger; he was grieved at their hardness of heart and said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ He stretched it out, and his hand was restored.” Mark 3: 3-5.  Jesus is always healing and bringing forth hope in the midst of challenge. Consider your call to healing and bringing forth hope in the midst of challenge.

Saturday: “Jesus told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, so that they would not crush him; for he had cured many, so that all who had diseases pressed upon him to touch him.”  Mark 3:9-10.  Creating and recreating requires time and space.  Pray today for God’s people to have time and space to re-create.