Fall is here!  Oh, the calendar and warm temperatures might try and convince us otherwise, but we all know better.  The sun sets earlier each night.  Many summer flowers have seen their better day and mums have been out in stores for several weeks. Football season has begun.  School is well underway.  Church school classes, choirs and other activities have resumed their regular schedules. 

Since classes at most churches tend to follow a traditional academic year calendar, today was the first day for those classes to meet.  It's good to see so many of you here!  I hope you are planning to take full advantage of the many opportunities for growing in faith that are being offered - Sunday morning classes - for all ages, Bible Studies, a new prayer group, youth activities, several choirs, as well as special activities.

You may not know that a about a year and a half ago, the committee responsible for providing those classes for all of us changed its name from "Christian Education" to "Christian Formation."  This change reflected an important shift in understanding about the purpose of church school - for children, youth and adults.

For many years, most churches operated under the assumption that if we simply poured in enough information, then we were doing all we needed to do. That's understandable if Christian faith is being developed in every aspect of one's life, as it was when many of us were growing up.  Yet, living, as we do now, in a culture in which most people do not have even the "basics" of Christian faith, this no longer makes sense. 

Anthony Robinson puts it this way, " The new use of the old word ‘formation' is a way of acknowledging that, in this new time, being and becoming Christian is more than an exercise in accumulating information.  It is the shaping - the formation - of a particular kind of person." (Transforming Congregational Culture, p. 56)  In other words, if we want our children - or ourselves - to be Christian, then we will need to create opportunities to experience and be shaped by the living Christ.  We need to be formed in faith.

To be sure, we don't check our minds at the door.  But for you and I to be disciples of Jesus is more than an intellectual exercise - as our gospel lesson so dramatically pointed out.  It calls for every part of us - mind, heart, body and soul - to be involved. Those of us who heard Tony Campolo speak earlier this week heard the message loud and clear: being Christian is not about believing certain things.  It's about welcoming Christ into our lives.  When that happens, things change.

Our reading this morning from the prophet Jeremiah gives us the wonderful metaphor of God as the potter - which comes from a root word that means to form or shape.  You may recall that Jeremiah appeared on the scene during some of the darkest days of Judah's history.  Jeremiah's chief concern was the renewal of the people of God.  They had forgotten their basic identity as children of God.  They had taken to worshiping other gods.  They had neglected their obligation to the poor and oppressed.  They needed to change their ways - to be re-formed.  So Jeremiah takes the people to task.  God sends Jeremiah down to the potter's house - a familiar scene in his day, since every town had a potter.  The potter is busy working at his wheel. 

Now I had thought of trying to bring a potter in today - but this is not something you just casually round up!  Not to mention that the mess that would be made of clay and water would not be a small matter, either.  So you'll have to use your imagination.

How many of you have seen a potter at work at the wheel?  Are any of you potters? It's a fascinating process.   Amazingly, save for the occasional use of electrically powered pottery wheels, the process today of creating a pot is much the same as it would have been in Jeremiah's day.  The potter begins with clay and kneads it until all the air bubbles have been worked out.  If bubbles are left in, the pot will shatter in the heat of the kiln.  Once the air bubbles have been kneaded away, the potter throws the lump of clay onto the wheel and carefully forms an item for use - a pot, a bowl, a jar - one at a time.  The clay is slapped, wetted down, gently handled, carefully shaped, with just enough pressure from both inside and out until it is ready to be fired. It's hard work - requiring attention, strength and skill.

If you watch a potter at work, you can see how focused the potter must be to the task at hand.   A good potter is passionate about the job, and cares enormously about the outcome.  The potter is deeply invested in the creation of the pot, and knows it inside and out -its characteristics, its strengths and weaknesses. Just as we sang earlier from Psalm 139, "O Lord, you have searched me and known me... you are acquainted with all my ways."  Like the potter, God has that kind of investment in us - both individually and as God's people together. 

This is not a mechanized process, so pots don't always turn out right. Not infrequently, the potter will notice a flaw, or will not be satisfied with the shape the pot is taking.  Here's where it gets interesting. The potter cares enough about the pot to want it to be the best it can be. Notice what the potter does. The potter doesn't throw the pot away.  Instead, the pot is reformed. 

Some of you know that I'm a big baseball fan - it's hard not to be this year!  Yet even with the kind of year Cleveland is having, there are times in any game when you wish a particular player could have a "do-over" - when Borowski could throw a different pitch, or when Hafner or Sizemore could get another swing, when Peralta could make another stab at catching a hard hit grounder, or Martinez could make another throw to second.  But baseball isn't like that.  Once a pitch is thrown, a swing taken, a fielding play missed - there aren't second chances.  Even if the umpire totally blows a call, no instant replay changes the outcome. The game simply goes on.

But when Jeremiah watches the potter at work, he sees something quite different than the finality of the "you're out!" approach.  When there is a mistake or weakness in the pot, there is a "do-over."  The potter slices the pot off of the wheel, picks it up and slams it back down again, where another attempt will be made at forming a useful vessel.  This happens as many times as necessary until the potter is satisfied with the result.  There is no limit on the number of times a potter can throw that clay back on to the wheel and give it another go. In our throw-away society, it's reassuring to know that God has no intention of throwing us away, but is always seeking to make us into the useful vessels we were intended to be - vessels who remember who made them, who care for the poor, who aren't distracted by the idols of money or success.

We are called to be formed in faith - made into the kinds of people who are useful in God's world.  The good news - the great news - is that even when we blow it - and if you're like me, that happens all the time -God still keeps working with us, reshaping us, bringing out a new possibility.  The clay is not thrown out - and neither are we.

But there is a catch:  the only way for that reshaping to occur is if we stay connected to the potter.  Once the clay is dried, and leaves the potters hands, the opportunity for re-formation is gone.  (If you leave play doh sitting out what happens?)  That may seem obvious, but think about it:  if we are disconnected from God, there is no way for God to work in our lives.  If we want our children, our grandchildren, or ourselves to be formed in faith, it won't happen apart from being in the presence of God.  To be sure, God is always there, but we are really good at turning our backs on God.

How do we know that we are staying within the potter's hands?  I would be the first to admit that there are many ways and places that we can know and experience God's love and guidance.  Certainly God is an intimate God, who comes to us personally, in a million places and experiences.  I don't believe that church is the only place where we can meet God face to face.

But where else can we share those experiences of God and be enriched by the experiences of others if not within the community of faith?   Where else can we seek to make sense of those experiences and figure out how and where God may be leading us?   I would suggest that the church, flawed and imperfect as it is, is the best possible place for throwing the clay of our lives back down on the potter's wheel and allowing God to mold us, to shape us, to help us be the people we were created to be:  whole and useful in bringing the reign of God on earth.

Do you remember the bumper sticker, "Please be patient, God is not finished with me yet"?  What a great acknowledgement that not one of us is a finished product.  In reality, each of us, whatever our age, stand in need of reshaping or re-forming.  Worship, church school (not just for kids!), Bible Study, prayer, fellowship, mission - these are the most basic tools in the potter's hands for forming us into faithful disciples, those who make the love of Christ real in our world.

If you watch a potter working on a wheel, sometimes you'll begin to see the pot listing to the side, leaning precariously.  That means that the pot is not centered - so the spinning of the wheel makes it fall over.  How easy it is for our lives to fall over, if you will, to get off-center, to get off track.

If we stay in the potter's hands, we may take on many different shapes, but our core will be soundly with God.  You can generally tell what is at the center of someone's life by where they spend their time, how they spend their money, how they treat other people.

If you are seeking to maintain and strengthen a relationship, you make time for it.  You make it a priority.  To be formed in faith means staying connected to the one who seeks to form us.

The toughest part for many of us will be that if we stay connected to the potter, if we remain in the potter's hands, we won't be the same.  We'll be changed.  Most potters will tell you that the process of creating pottery involves an interaction between the potter and the clay.  To some extent the clay determines what will be made of it.  We have choices.  God does not coerce our behavior, but with strong, loving hands, seeks to shape us into unique, useful vessels, loved beyond message.

Every time we are thrown back on the wheel, our shape may change.  We may think we would make a terrific mug, and find ourselves a bowl instead.  We may have liked our old shape better (I know those of us of a certain age would gladly take back the bodies of our youth!).  But God is shaping us to be what God and the world most need right now.  Who knows?  Tomorrow we may be shaped into something different!  Are we willing to be formed into the shape God would choose for us?

Each of us comes with a mark that says, "Handmade by God."  May we remain within the Potter's hands and let God re-form us every day.