How many church attendees do you suppose get up on Sunday morning and think, “I’m going to go to church so I can pretend to be righteous and appear to be holy”? No, when we church people admit to being hypocrites, we aren’t usually confessing to playacting. More often, we mean that we failed to follow through on our good intentions or that we can still see the gap between the people we are called to be and the people we actually are. But we aren’t trying to deceive anybody; we’re seeing where we still need to work to bring our behavior up to the level of what we really believe.

            It appears, then, that when somebody is outside the church and has no intention of coming in, it’s easy for him or her to say it’s because of hypocrisy in the church. And there are some gaps between our best intentions and our follow-through. But church insiders are more likely to see those gaps differently. In other words, if you really get involved with members of a congregation, you are less likely to see problems in the church in terms of hypocrisy and more in terms of human failure. And when you’re talking about human failure, it’s easier to include yourself in that category. In fact, many people stay in the church because, though they recognize imperfections among both fellow attendees and themselves, they also see it’s a place where we’re called higher. And if you pay attention in church, you’ll often see people who are working very hard to follow Jesus faithfully.

            Thus, one good reason to come to church is because it puts us in company with other people who also see that gap between their profession and practice, and care enough to want to narrow it. In church, we find people who aren’t that different from ourselves and who are on faith journeys similar to ours. And there is always room for one more!

As the old hymn goes:

                Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!

                Thou art the Potter, I am the clay.

                Mold me and make me after Thy will,

                While I am waiting, yielded and still.

This hymn was written more than a century ago, leaving us with the question: Can we still find “the Potter’s House” today? Or will we decide to ignore God’s map for us?

First we need to make a right turn. A word that appears repeatedly in this passage from Jeremiah is “turn.” God speaks of a nation that “turns from its evil” (v. 8) and calls for Israel to “Turn now, all of you from your evil way” (v. 11). God also says that “I will change my mind” about a nation that turns from its evil (v. 8), and “I will change my mind” about a nation that turns toward evil (v. 10). This language of turning and changing is the language of molding and making. Nothing is fixed, everything is changing.

Second: When you get there, allow the potter to work with your clay as he chooses. Don’t worry about what shape you are in now; the potter can reshape you. Don’t fixate on the flaws of the past; the potter can purify you. Don’t stress about wrong turns you’ve made in the past; the potter can help you move in a new direction.

                In the Potter’s House, you are ever-changing clay in the divine potter’s hand.

 Allow the divine potter to make you and mold you, according to his will. Open yourself to being filled with the Holy Spirit, until — as the old hymn says — all shall see “Christ only, always, living in me.”


Jeremiah 18:1-11