In our world, the biggest questions we ask as a people are “Who is God?” and “Who am I?” You haven’t asked those questions? Let’s take a quick look at the news headlines today. Earthquake Rattles Oklahoma and Dangerous Days ask the questions. Why controls the earth and sky, wind and waves? Does God send hurricanes and earthquakes, tsunamis and tornados?
NASA probe takes first every photos of images of Jupiter’s’ poles. How did the world begin? When was it created? Who created it? What does God have to do with pictures of Jupiter? How do they affect me? Mother Teresa to a Saint. What is my place in the world? Are some people good and other people bad? Can people be like God?
This morning, we are beginning a series of messages, entitled I AM. These are declarations of who we are in relation to God, who we are as children of God, who we have been created to be. They answer the questions begin asked about who is God and who am I? On this Labor Day weekend, it is good to remember that we are created by a God who worked to create us and then rested. A God who give us an example of work and rest, creation and Sabbath, creator and created. We are fearfully and wonderfully made by God in God’s image and for a purpose.
Jeremiah, the prophet, was taught about God at the feet of a potter. If you have ever watched a potter, you know that part of the process is creation and recreation, engagement and seeming abandonment, releasing and reclaiming. A potter gets the wheel going with the clay with one image of how the clay might come to be. Only a slight change of conditions is necessary to affect the result. As soon as the piece goes astray, the potter pushes it down and starts again. Potters never waste clay. Old, failed pots might get recycled into new ones, but potters would never just toss the clay. There is always some other way to rework the clay. Reworking is not a punishment or a determent. Often reworking is even more incredible than the original. The potter shapes the clay. As the potter taught Jeremiah, the potter teaches us about God. God shapes our identity. God shapes who we are. God hold us our whole lives in God’s hands. God does not waste anything in our lives; everything has use to rework who we are. As the psalmist recounts, “I praise you God because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”
Being fearfully and wonderfully made means that you and I were created in the image of God for purpose and meaning. Fearful is the same root as awe. This is what allows us to use the word awesome about the threatening storm and the Grand Canyon. Being fearfully and wonderfully made means that we are made the very image of God and each of reflect something of that image. What keeps us from living most fully into the image of God created in us? What keeps us from reflecting the love and image of God to others as they lose their way? Fear, guilt, shame (among perhaps others).
Being fearfully and wonderfully made does not mean that we are doomed to paralyzed in fear, beat down by guilt, and constricted by shame. Brene Brown is an author, researcher, storyteller who has spent years learning about human behavior, shame, and vulnerability. She speaks on shame. She says guilt is I did something bad; shame is I am something bad. “Shame is highly, highly correlated with addiction, depression, violence, aggression, bullying, suicide, eating disorders. And here’s what you even need to know more. Guilt inversely correlated with those things. The ability to hold something we’ve done or failed to do up against who we want to be is incredibly adaptive. It’s uncomfortable, but it’s adaptive.” 1 This is not just good research; this is biblical. This is the story of the potter and the clay. Making mistakes is not being a mistake. Knowing that God creates us for purpose and that purpose is for good is not based in shame and is not based in guilt. That purpose is Luke’s exposition to the disciples to count the cost, pick up your cross, and follow.
How do we follow? We embrace that God has fearfully and wonderfully made each and every one of us. If we are going to embrace that truth, we are going to have to dismantle this shame that keeps us from living fully. Leaning on Brown, she suggests this shame is different for men and women. In broad strokes and generalities. Brown first studied women. She summarizes much of female shame this way: “I can put the wash on the line, pack the lunches, hand out the kisses and be at work at five to nine. I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in the pan and never let you forget you’re a man.” That was the tagline for the perfume, Enjoli. “Shame is, do it all, do it perfectly and never let them see you sweat.” 2
Brown only studied men later after inquiries came to her about male shame. “For men, shame is not a bunch of competing, conflicting expectations. Shame is one; do not be perceived as what? Weak.3” Brown found that men carry their shame when they perceive themselves or others perceive them as weak in some way.
We who are fearfully and wonderfully made need to be limited by shame and guilt. We have the chance to break the cycle, break free from the bondage, and embrace our potter, our creator, our God. We have the chance to live with purpose and embrace our neighbors. “If we’re going to find our way back to each other, we have to understand and know empathy, because empathy’s the antidote to shame. The two most powerful words when we’re in struggle: me too.” 4
We who are fearfully and wonderfully made are not just serious of home improvements projects. We, men and women alike, have learned to look at our bodies the way we look at our homes with a long list of improvements. In the same way, we list out that we need the trim pained around the front door and the back step fixed, we list out in our minds that we want stronger arms and flatter abs. We are enough. The potter is still working on us, God has fearfully and wonderfully made us.
We who are fearfully and wonderfully made are created for purpose and meaning. We are created to be relationship with others who are fearfully and wonderfully made. Trying contemplating that thought next time you are in an argument with someone. As they are lambasting you, remind yourself that you are fearfully and wonderfully made (the increase in strength, courage, and confidence is incredible) and then take the next step as you are beginning to feel as though you could take on the world, remind yourself that the one who is yelling at you, belittling you, hurting you is fearfully and wonderfully made. See if you don’t find yourself experiencing tenderness towards me. Warning: trying this at home might cause you to care less about winning the fight and more about the person you are arguing with.
You were crafted in your mother’s womb. You were knit together with love and care. You are very image of the almighty God. You are fearfully and wonderfully made. You are enough. (Even before you seek to do it all or exude strength). I am not suggesting that embracing the identity that God created for you is easy. I am suggesting it is your life work to live into it. It is our life work to shine the image of God in which we have been fearfully and wonderfully made.
This is the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, thanks be to God, Amen.
1 https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_listening_to_shame?language=en
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
Old Testament Lessons: Jeremiah 18:1-11
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, but if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will change my mind about the good that I had intended to do to it. Now, therefore, say to the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: Thus says the Lord: Look, I am a potter shaping evil against you and devising a plan against you. Turn now, all of you from your evil way, and amend your ways and your doings.
Gospel Lessons: Luke 14:25-33
Now large crowds were traveling with him; and he turned and said to them, “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, going out to wage war against another king, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand? If he cannot, then, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for the terms of peace. So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.
Meditations For Your Week
Sunday, September 4~ Saturday, September 10
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.’” Jeremiah 18: 1-2. God invites Jeremiah to know eternal truths through human endeavors. With which ordinary endeavors will God teach you about God’s ways?
Monday: “So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel.” Jeremiah 18: 3. Jeremiah chose to answer God’s invitation. He went where God was calling without knowing how it would turn out. Prayerfully consider where God is inviting you to step out in faith.
Tuesday: “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. We are not told why the clay spoiled. The focus is on a new vessel. Where is God calling you to move from the focus on spoilage to the opportunity for new?
Wednesday: “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. We do not know the future. We know the One who holds the future. Prayerfully consider the peace in depending on God’s ways.
Thursday: “Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” Luke 14: 27. As those made in the image of God, we see our pattern of life in Christ. Where are you following that pattern?
Friday: “For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it?” Luke 14: 28. We often imagine that following God is a big picture. Jesus invites us to follow in the details of our lives. How are you following Christ in your grocery shopping and laundry, dishes and mowing the lawn, making dinner and driving your car?
Saturday: “So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.” Luke 14: 33. Prayerfully consider the invitation of Christ.