SPEAKER_00: Have you ever watched a master potter at work, someone who works with clay?
SPEAKER_00: It's pretty mesmerizing.
SPEAKER_00: He takes what looks like nothing more than a lump of wet clay, places it on the wheel, and then with incredible patience begins to shape it.
SPEAKER_00: His hands press, pull, smooth, and reshape.
SPEAKER_00: Slowly something beautiful begins to emerge.
SPEAKER_00: But then something unexpected happens.
SPEAKER_00: The vessel collapses.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe there was an air pocket, maybe the walls became too thin.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe the shape wasn't right.
SPEAKER_00: So what does a potter do?
SPEAKER_00: Well, he doesn't throw the clay away.
SPEAKER_00: He simply starts again.
SPEAKER_00: That's the image God gives us today in the first reading from Jeremiah.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hands.
SPEAKER_00: But notice something beautiful, God isn't working with finished products.
SPEAKER_00: He's working with unfinished people.
SPEAKER_00: That's every single one of us.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we imagine holiness means never making mistakes.
SPEAKER_00: Well the saints would tell you otherwise.
SPEAKER_00: Holiness isn't about never failing.
SPEAKER_00: It's about never refusing the potter's hands.
SPEAKER_00: Think about Simon Peter.
SPEAKER_00: One moment he's professing that Jesus is the Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The very next moment Jesus is saying, Get behind me, Satan.
SPEAKER_00: Later he promises he'll never abandon the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Just a few hours later he denies him three times.
SPEAKER_00: If anyone looked like a cracked vessel, well, it was Peter.
SPEAKER_00: And yet Jesus didn't throw him away.
SPEAKER_00: He reshaped him.
SPEAKER_00: The same fisherman who failed became the rock on which Christ built his church.
SPEAKER_00: God specializes in beginning again.
SPEAKER_00: That's why the church gives us confession.
SPEAKER_00: The confessional is the potter's workshop.
SPEAKER_00: We bring him the broken pieces of our lives, and instead of discarding them, he reshapes us with his mercy.
SPEAKER_00: But there's another side of today's reading.
SPEAKER_00: Clay has to remain soft.
SPEAKER_00: Because once clay hardens, it's very difficult to reshape.
SPEAKER_00: That's the same, that's the truth with spirituality.
SPEAKER_00: Every time we refuse God's grace, every time we justify our sins, every time we make compromises, every time we ignore his voice, our hearts become harder and harder.
SPEAKER_00: Not all at once, but little by little.
SPEAKER_00: That's why Scripture so often says, If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
SPEAKER_00: God can do extraordinary things with a humble heart, but he cannot force an unwilling one.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if we turn to the gospel, Jesus speaks about a fishing neg, gathering fish of every kind.
SPEAKER_00: At first everything is gathered together.
SPEAKER_00: Only later comes the separation.
SPEAKER_00: Again, here Jesus is reminding us that there will be a judgment.
SPEAKER_00: The point isn't to make us afraid.
SPEAKER_00: It's to remind us that our lives are moving towards a destination.
SPEAKER_00: One day each of us will stand before the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Death is the great equalizer.
SPEAKER_00: But on that day, the question won't be whether we were successful.
SPEAKER_00: It won't be whether we had any fancy titles or whether you were wealthy and had a lot of influence, even if you even being admired.
SPEAKER_00: No, the question will be very simple.
SPEAKER_00: Did I allow God to shape me into the person He created me to be?
SPEAKER_00: At the end of the gospel, Jesus asks his disciples, Do you understand all these things?
SPEAKER_00: The answer, yes.
SPEAKER_00: I always smile when I read that.
SPEAKER_00: Because if you keep reading the gospel, it's obvious they didn't understand everything.
SPEAKER_00: And neither do we.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because the Christian life isn't about having all the answers, it's about trusting the one whose hands never stop working.
SPEAKER_00: So today, maybe the Lord is pressing gently on areas of your life that you may resist.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe he's asking you to forgive.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe he's showing you some very hard truths.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe he's asking you to pray more faithfully, to return a confession, to let go of resentment, to really look at those sins you keep falling into, to trust him with a future you can't yet see.
SPEAKER_00: Don't resist the potter's hands, because the hands that shape us are the same hands that were stretched out on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Those nails pierced his hands, knowing exactly what they were doing.
SPEAKER_00: And they are not finished with you yet.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord is desiring to shape you into the disciple that he's calling you to be.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.