Like a moth into a flame

Jeremiah 18:1-11 and Luke 14:25-33

        We all die. Some people die long protracted deaths. Some people die in the blink of an eye like a moth seeking the flame that bursts into a flash of light and is gone. With certain conditions, I oddly enough would argue to be the moth.

         I have spoken in the past about people that have so fixed their minds that their bodies may wind up living to 90 but their minds really died many, many years earlier. You might call these people crotchety. They cease to have the ability to adjust, learn or grow. This is a slow protracted death. It is not unlike a potter who makes a vessel that is set to dry, to crack and become fragile, easily broken.

         What we really need to do is constantly die, to grow, to change. We need to be a constantly remolded by our potter and we must be willing to be molded. When we cease to be open to that remolding, we become hard, cracked and die that slow protracted death.  So we need to remain malleable to God's hands. We need to be reshaped as we live, dying in the blink of an eye to our old selves, renewing life, growing and changing. The metaphor of a potter and clay is so beautiful in terms of our lives in the hands of the true potter, God.

             I am not one to promote reckless behaviour like the moth that extinguishes its life in an instant. I respect life and see the beauty all around us. We must however realize that perhaps one constant of life is change and we should embrace it as a gift from God, the potter. We should be willing die over and over again. In so doing we actually do create a brighter light of life and love of our own,  a relatively faint glow reminiscent of the supreme light. Hopefully, prayerfully, when our life truly does come to any end, we will have been molded into something resembling the true light of Christ, having been fully human and as close to the divine as we can be.

The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD:

"Come, go down to the potter's house, and there I will let you hear my words."

So I went down to the potter's house, and there he was working at his wheel.

The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter's hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as seemed good to him.

Then the word of the LORD came to me:

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.

At one moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it,

but if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will change my mind about the disaster that I intended to bring on it.

And at another moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it,

but if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will change my mind about the good that I had intended to do to it.

Now, therefore, say to the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: Thus says the LORD: Look, I am a potter shaping evil against you and devising a plan against you. Turn now, all of you from your evil way, and amend your ways and your doings.

Luke 14:25-33

Now large crowds were traveling with him; and he turned and said to them,

"Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.

Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it?

Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, saying, 'This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.'

Or what king, going out to wage war against another king, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand?

If he cannot, then, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for the terms of peace.

So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.