Jeremiah 18:1-11 – 7/1/2026
Can I not do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done? says the Lord. Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.
Jeremiah 18:6 (NRSVue)
Jeremiah’s words of prophecy indicate a God of will, a God who chooses, and a God who dispenses judgment at will. The picture of the potter molding clay indicates a God who manipulates situations, things, and people according to that will. Whatever happens to the people of Judah, as well any other nation, is the will of God. Their ultimate fate is as much up to God as the shape of the final clay product is up to the potter.
Israel has been evil, and God will punish them according to that evil, unless they repent and turn from those evil ways. The nature of those sins, idolatry, greed, and injustice to others is despised in God’s eyes, and so God will give the people who have abandoned the good over to their enemies. This particular piece of Scripture is clear, God judges, and the outcomes of events are in accordance with the will and judgment of God.
One of the foundational insights that guides my reading of Scripture is that Scripture as a whole often does not speak with one voice. On many topics, while particular books, pericopes, or verses may have a clear, unambiguous meaning, there is often different perspective and even contradiction across the entire canon. The topic of today’s reading, that God shapes the destinies of people like a potter shapes the clay is one such perspective that is not unanimous across Scripture. Scripture as a whole does not clearly teach that God is in charge of people’s destinies as judgment, even though Jeremiah clearly teaches this in the prophecies in his book. Take for example, the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus says that God makes the rain to fall on the righteous alike (Matthew 5:45) where rain stands in for any number of blessings that are distributed to all without respect to God’s judgment at all. Even more clearly, Ecclesiastes says:
The same fate comes to all, to the righteous and the wicked, to the good and the evil, to the clean and the unclean, to those who sacrifice and those who do not sacrifice. As are the good, so are the sinners; those who swear are like those who shun an oath. This is an evil in all that happens under the sun, that the same fate comes to everyone.
Ecclesiastes 9:2-3 (NRSVue)
What then are we to do with this lack of clarity and unanimity about the willful judgment of God across Scripture? Jeremiah and Ecclesiastes come to radically different perspectives. What can we conclude? One possibility is an attempt to harmonize the two accounts, but this is impossible without prioritizing one text over another and comes at the risk of missing the insight one of the texts has to offer. Instead, we should admit that we as finite humans with limited perspectives cannot know if there is a willful judge who brings about judgment with the intention of a potter shaping the clay. Since we cannot know, we should appreciate both perspectives, the one in Ecclesiastes and the one in Jeremiah, as ones that we can learn from.
A polyvocal scripture leaves room for disagreement and a multitude of perspectives. Forcing scripture to say one thing when it says many does not save the text unless all that is to be saved is a dead encyclopedia instead of a living word that brings insight and wisdom to our lives.
Reflections of a Dionysian Lutheran, comments on the daily readings of the Revised Common Lectionary by Justin Marquis
Dionysus on a Bike 
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