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Foundry United Rev. |
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“Watch This Potter” Sunday, October 14,
2007 |
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Jeremiah 18: 1-6
Rev. |
Before he became a bishop,
Bishop Will Willimon was for many years the chaplain to The
father blamed Willimon for influencing his daughter who had attended chapel
at Duke while she was a student there. I think the father wanted his tuition
money back. He said, “She’s got a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering
from As the
conversation went on, Willimon discovered that the girl’s parents had been
life-long Presbyterians. They had made
sure that their daughter was baptized when she was a baby. They had raised
her in the church. They had read her
stories from the Bible when she was a little girl and they had taken her to
worship and Sunday school and sent her to youth group. Willimon
finally lost his patience and said to the father, “You’re the ones
who introduced her to Jesus, not me!
What did you expect? What did
you expect would happen when you took your daughter to church for all those
years? After a
moment of silence the father replied, “Man, we just wanted her to be a normal
old Presbyterian. We didn’t want it to
change her life or anything!” I have
a confession to make. The potters these past Sundays have been mostly for me.
I hoped you’d get something out of watching them, but they have mostly been
here for me. Sometimes
I get discouraged with the church. This last summer was a discouraging time.
Our B-WARM resolution to annual conference lost. We tried to get the
conference to support taking some of the homophobic language out of the Book
of Discipline and we lost the vote. Bummer. Then
I was afraid we’d lose our choir. I am so grateful to the
choir members who have continued through a difficult time of change to
minister to us through music. Thank you.
And
there were other things going on that I don’t have to get into. So, as
much as anything, the potters these last Sundays have been for me – a
reminder to me that God for some reason, continues to work, faulty as we are,
through the church. God continues to shape lives here. God continues to shape
communities. God continues to shape the world. God continues to turn our clay
into vessels both useful and beautiful. So I’m
ready to move on. I’m ready again to trust the Potter…to let the Potter shape
and mold us in ways beyond our own capacity to see it or control it. Our
work is to be normal old Reconciling United Methodists. I’m ready for us to
keep doing our work of being a reconciling congregation, our work of
worshipping and singing God’s praise, our work of nurturing our children, our
work of studying Scripture, our work of engaging in mission and social
justice. Our job
is to be the This
morning we are asking you to take a survey about music. If you haven’t been
to a house meeting, we hope you’ll get to one. Dee and I and our staff are
still listening. Next
Sunday Barbara Cambridge, our Lay Leader, is going to preach for Laity
Sunday. On Sunday November 4th the choir is going to sing an All
Saints Sunday Requiem. On Sunday November 11 I’m going to share my annual
State of the Church sermon. On Tuesday November 13 we are going to meet with
the Washington Interfaith Network with the mayor to hear his plan for
supportive housing for the homeless of our city. Tuesday
evenings our ESL teachers will teach day laborers and restaurant workers
English. Our Sunday School teachers will continue to teach our children the
faith. We will keep witnessing to God’s vision of a welcoming and inclusive
church and a just society. And in
the midst of it, in the midst of us being normal old Methodists, normal old
Christians, the transcendent Potter will be quietly at work, shaping lives,
shaping community, shaping a world, shaping our tomorrows. www.foundryumc.org |
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