On Being Clay

Clay has been a part of our daily life and art for as long as we can remember, and longer. It is a rare culture that has not fashioned ceramic objects of some kind; across continents and millennia, we have used clay to bear our water, to serve our food, to adorn our bodies, to build our homes, and to represent our deities as well as ourselves. Perhaps despite this long acquaintance, clay can speak powerfully to our sensibilities, informing even our most metaphysical views. Pottery combines in its manufacture all of the four elements known to the early Greeks: earth, air, fire, water.

The people of Israel were intimately familiar with clay and its formation into vessels. Thus it is not surprising that the image of the clay and the potter should appear several times in the Scriptures. In Genesis, one version of the creation story portrays the first man as formed from clay, brought to life by the breath of God. Pleading for mercy upon a wayward people, the prophet Isaiah invokes the loving care of a potter for his work:

Yet, O Lord, thou art our Father; we are the clay, and thou art our potter; we are all the work of thy hand. (Isaiah 64:8, RSV)

In the Gospel of John, Jesus heals a congenitally blind man by making a clay poultice from the humblest of materials: soil and spittle. In his letter to the Romans, Paul struggles with the question of God's compassion and wrath. Paul asserts God's freedom in granting mercy, though its apportionment may seem injust:

...Will what is molded say to its molder, "Why have you made me thus?" Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for beauty and another for menial use? (Romans 9:20-21, RSV)

Paul's metaphor is troubling, for it suggests that, like clay, we are inert and molded entirely to the will of our maker. Yet one need not play with a lump of clay very long to realize that it has a will of its own. For all its plasticity, clay will not submit to extreme stretching and rapid drying without protest. In the kiln it may become brittle, crack, sag, even explode. Fire matures the clay, but also fixes its form. So too it is with us: as greenware we have our weaknesses, and once fired by experience we can become rigid and fragile. Whatever clay may be like, we are decidedly not lifeless; nor, possibly, are we wholly subject to the will of the potter.

But like clay, our weaknesses may become our strengths. Under stress we may assume unexpectedly beautiful forms, and in firing may take on striking or subtle colors. A story of Jeremiah, while still emphasizing God's will for God's people, suggests this possibility:

The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: "Arise, and go down to the potter's house, and there will I let you hear my words." So I went down to the potter's house, and there he was working at his wheel. And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter's hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do. Then the word of the Lord came to me: "O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter has done? says the Lord. Behold, like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel." (Jeremiah 18:1-6, RSV)

As a community of faith we are gathered here not merely to play with clay, but also to envision new beginnings. In this time of transition for our church, we may fear that the forms we have sculpted will crumble or crack, spoiled in the potter's hand. But surely we will be reformed, as it seems good to the potter to do. We owe much of our scholarly knowledge of the Scriptures to the Essenes at Qumran, who preserved text fragments in large earthenware jars. Whatever change may lie ahead, let us, like those jars, be vessels of the Word.

Jim Schaal, First Congregational Church of Berkeley
UCC Camp Cazadero, 2 October 1993

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