March 11, 2010 – Wisdom 15-16

The metaphor of the potter and the clay is one that is used to show that God created us and when something messes up in the making, we can be reshaped and when we are what He wants us to be, we are put into the fire to make us either become a good piece of useful pottery or shatter because the fire creates breaks in our imperfections.

That metaphor meant much more to them than it does to us because we don’t see a lot of potters anymore.  But here we see the same occupation being used to show the foolishness of making our own gods.  They worshipped things that they made with the same material that they made a pot out of earlier that day.  They could not move, breath, or help, yet these pieces were worshipped as gods. 

Think about that when you think about the great value we give our material things.  Things that we use and make.  Things that cannot do anything on their own, yet we let them control our lives as if they do have some force or power.  We let these inanimate objects influence almost every action in our lives.  It is a great thing to look at the potter and ask why we believes we can make a god out of clay.  The reading also talks about the evil that is in this person’s heart in order to do this so that he can have others worship his creation.  Be mindful of that when we start to change our actions in order to gain some material thing.  And pray for those that spend their lives trying to get people to worship material things in order to make their money.