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Transcript of Homily
I think I have a short sermon today. So
pay attention, I usually don’t get to the point until I’ve been going
for 15 minutes.
But this could be short if I do it right.
Cause it’s a simple idea.
The, in the second reading.. let me get
the second reading out here.
…In the second reading…
We read in the prophet Isaiah, “you,
Our Lord, you are our father. We are the clay and you are the potter, we
are the work of your hands.”
I don’t know if any of you have experimented
with pottery…
…Or watched someone working at the potter’s
wheel.
It can be a very violent thing.
You know, it’s a funny thing, it’…you’d
put a lump of clay on a potter’s wheel, and you gotta have water, and
wet hands… and you’re shaping this thing..
And you’re working this clay, if you’re
watching a potter, he’ll have a nice looking pot, then all of a sudden
he…..BOOM! He will hit this thing.
The clay will just crumple.
I remember watching this thing, thinking
“What the heck is he doing..” it seems inefficient.
Well, what has happened, the potter’s
hands, if they’re a good potter, they’re pretty sensitive.
And he knows his clay, or she knows her
clay, and they find a lump in the clay.
And they have to blend that lump with water,
and soften it so that the entire lump of clay has the same consistency…
because if there’s a hard, dry, lump of clay, in the pot..
..when the pot goes into the fire… it
will crack.
So, that’s when the potter’s doing.
He found that lump and he slams it down
and starts all over again.
You are the potter, we are the clay.
Have you ever felt like God just slapped
you down?
You know?
And go back to the beginning and start
all over again.
Well, god found a lump in us.
And believe me; some of us are pretty lumpy.
God has gotta get those lumps out of us,
so He can make a vessel that can hold what He has to give us.
Most of us, and by most of us, I mean me.
When we pray, we say “oh Lord, give me
what I want, amen.”
Whereas the prayer of a Christian, a mature
Christian is “Lord, teach me your ways.”
We read in the second reading, St. Paul
says, “We were called in Christ Jesus.”
We’re called, called for what?
We have a vocation, that’s what the
word “vocation” means, it means a calling.
We look at our lives as things we make.
This is who I want to be.
This is what I want to do with my life.
When I think of myself ten years down the
road, especially when you’re young, this is what I want to be.
As Christians, we believe this isn’t
very important. As Christians, we think, “What does God want me to be?”
God created me for a purpose.
That’s at the heart of the Christian
faith, that you have a purpose.
God looks at you, and He sees something
that you don’t see.
And lord knows we don’t see it either.
You know when you see your kids are born…
you see that little kid for the first time, and you think “Ah, gonna
be a brain-surgeon, it’s written all over his face”, you know?
You have great plans for your kids.
And in variable they turn out to be something
you didn’t quite expect, you know?
They are their own people
Well, with us that’s fine.
Because we don’t have ‘vision’ we
are not all seeing.
When it comes to God, who is both the father,
and the potter who forms the clay, well…. He knows the purpose for which
He made us.
And He has that right.
We will never attain to happiness or real
success, until, or at least in part for the purpose in which God made us.
That’s the sermon.
I have a couple of more things to say,
you didn’t think you’d get off that easy.
But when was the last time that you or
I, have seriously has God, seriously asked God…
What did you want me to be? What did you
see when you made me?
Because all of us have this nagging sense,
this wasn’t sup—there are some good things! …But in general….
This isn’t quite the way it was suppose
to be in my life.
I had great dreams.
Well the truth is God had greater dreams
still.
To ask God seriously ‘what did you design,
when you made me?’
That’s a question worth asking.
You know, there’s the analogy of the
potter… in which the potter smacks down the clay, to beat lumps out of
it.
There’s another analogy that St. Paul
uses.
He talks about gold refined in the fire.
I remember years ago, before gold got terribly
expensive… gold was ones regulated, much cheaper than it is now.
I … this is in the dim past of my memory,
but this is how I remember it.
There’s a place in Florence called the
( ? ? ? ), the old bridge.
And the gold smiths use to be there
And they would just be working gold, right
there, In front of everybody.
I saw this also there in Jerusalem, with
the silver smith, it’s fascinating how they do it.
What they do, they get gold ore or silver
ore and they break up these rocks, put it in a little vestal, break them
up as much as they can , then they put it in this crucible, this small,
metal pot.
And they have a gas-jet, and they crank
up this fire.
And they melt these rocks of gold ore.
And you’ll watch and the gold smith,
or his apprentice and they’ll keep going and they’ll look in the pot,
and they’ll come back.
And all the while the gold is melting.
And I wondered what they were looking,
and then, I found out.
That fire first melts the gold, and then
it burns off all the impurities. It burns off all the carbon, all the dreck…
all of the garbage from the gold.
And what happens is that the gold becomes
like a mirror.
The gold or silver becomes like a mirror.
And when the goldsmith and see his own
face in it, well then the gold is ready.
When God looks at you, and He sees Christ
in you, then you are ready.
And if you’re not ready, well he turns
up the heat.
That’s what God is trying to do.
He’s trying to make you resemble Christ.
All of your prayers, all of the things
for which you long and hope, are not nearly as important as the vision
of God has for you.
Now we all have to work and make a living,
don’t quit your job right away.
But ultimately what God is trying to do
with your life is make you look like His son Jesus.
All the world might know he’s the Lord.
God loves you more than you can imagine.
So much that He wants to adopt you.
But He can only adopt you if only He reforms
you into the image of His son.
And so, He is the potter, you are the clay.
As long as you have lumps, He will knock
them right out of you, and build you once again.
So as He does this, trust Him.
Because He loves you, and wants to make
you into something more glorious than you can now imagine.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son,
and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
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