As you know I often like to start these sermons with a joke – but today I don't need to think up my own, because we have one of only two jokes that I am aware of in the New Testament in our epistle reading – now I shouldn't build this one up too much, because although it is the better of the two, it is not necessarily what you'd call a ripsnorter. But some context will help set it up.

Philemon is the shortest book in the Bible, a brief letter sent by Paul to a man called Philemon. Philemon was the owner of a slave called Onesimus and Onesimus had run away and come to join Paul while the apostle was under house arrest.

Of course that was a grave crime in that day, one for which Onesimus could have been executed, but Paul, who did not believe in slavery except in the sense that we are all slaves of Christ, sends Onesimus back to Philemon with a letter that appeals not only for mercy, but mirroring the Prodigal Son, asks the former master to take his slave back as a son, a free man, a full member of his household, because they are equal in the Lord. So where's the joke? Well to soften Philemon up a bit, Paul includes a series of puns on the slaves name. Onesimus means 'profitable' or 'useful' or 'beneficial' that sort of thing, so Paul says formerly he was useless, now he is useful, let me have this benefit.

In modern terms you could get the same effect if the slave shared my name and on sending Rich back you said, formerly you had no Riches, now you indeed he is Rich – let us share in his Richness.

I said it wasn't a great joke but Paul is making the effort.

But being useful, of benefit, being rich towards God, is the theme of our readings today – and they are hard readings and readings for hard times. In the gospel, Jesus acknowledges the costs of following him, costs that we tend to spiritualise into various lifestyle sacrifices but that for the first disciples were daily, deadly and physical dangers, costly prices that would be paid, and it was only fair to warn them – following me gets difficult – the way gets tough and troublesome – life can be hard.

The picture is not much rosier in the prophecy of Jeremiah – very little in Jeremiah is rosy, he is one of the most miserable prophets in scripture – but again, given the hard realities he faced, watching his society crumble and eventually fall to a rival power who conquers the land and enslaves his people, it is hardly surprising that he is not a barrel of laughs.

And yet, dark as the book that bears his name is, it is still shot through with slivers of hope, of encouragement, of inspiration. Hard times yes, but the words are not always hard.

The image of the potter and the clay has always amused me because the Dean of the Cathedral is called Chris Potter so as his staff we used to rib him mercilessly with these verse, he would ask for something to be done and we would say, Yes Mr Dean, you are the Potter and we are only the clay, it will be as you say. We were almost as funny as St Paul when it came to name related puns you see.

But today, as Jeremiah watches a potter shaping the clay at his wheel, what he sees is not amusing, because he he sees the clay become misshapen and broken in the potter's hands. And yet the craftsman is still working on it, and fashions it swiftly into a new vessel with his skilled fingers. And Jeremiah realises that the clay is not useful in and of itself, but is useful only in its responsiveness in the potters hands, to his caress.

Now there are questions that Jeremiah does not ask of the potter, that we may feel like asking from our standpoint in another time and place. Most pressing is, if the clay is indeed held in the hands of the skilled master craftsman, how did it come to spoil, how did it go wrong, break under the touch of those fingers? For Jeremiah this spoiling was the judgement of God, those darkest of all words from him “I am the potter shaping evil against you”. And while all of us would acknowledge that sometimes that there may appear to be some design in these things – sometimes we reap what we sow, very often the evil that is shaped against us cannot have come from the hands of God, even from Jeremiah's God, who despite the judgement and wrath was still a God of mercy and justice.

But ultimately this message is not addressed to the potter, it is addressed to the clay – it is addressed to our helplessness to control the events we see around us and the things that befall us and befall those that we love, in this sense we are simply the clay, moulded as the potter chooses, but it is a call also to be responsive to those events. To be maleable, to be reformed. And it offers a sliver of hope, of soft words in hard times – I can reform you, smooth away the lines, mend the cracks, give new shape to what was broken, says the potter to the clay.

These things have been expressed in the following story.

There once was a potter. He was Master of His craft. He made the most beautiful vases and most usable drinking cups. He shaped the clay with skilled hands. In the blink of an eye a common serving bowl could be transformed into something grand and glorious.

One day the Master left the workshop for a few moments

That's when something peculiar began to take shape in the Master Potter's shop.

A drinking cup was concerned that the Master Potter may return at any moment and remake it into a less noticeable vessel. Timidly, the vessel ventured closer to the Potter's Kiln.

This event was not left unnoticed by the other pottery, still warmed by the touch of the Potter.

Soon a vase finds the flame an irresistible attraction. "A vase captures the scent of a thousand flowers and provides beauty for the Master's table." It began, "I must hurry if I am to be assured a place of honor at the Master's table." And with that, the little vase lost sight of the Potter's wheel.

This was followed by a bowl and a decorative serving vessel.

Soon every vessel but one became the vessel they had been temporarily shaped into as the flames of the kiln fire hardened them to the Master's touch.

When the Master returned He was saddened to find only one lump of clay remained from the work He had begun. One by one the self-satisfied vessels emerged from the kiln thrilled that they had become what they had always hoped to be.

The Master Potter rose and took the first vessel and traced the lines that had been lumpen clay not so long ago. Then He did a most peculiar thing - He picked up the last remaining vessel on His wheel and dropped it to the ground.

All the other vessels looked on as the bowl became misshapen and seemed beyond repair.

They were suddenly very glad that they had taken it upon themselves to finish the work of the Potter themselves.

With great sadness the Potter took the first vessel He had only recently received and dropped it to the ground as well

The vessel became useless shards on the floor as the other vessels looked on in horror.

The Master Potter gently retrieved the lump of squashed clay and placed it firmly back on His wheel and an even greater vessel emerged.

He then picked up some of the broken pieces of the baked pottery and placed them on the wheel.

It became apparent that there was little that could be done with that vessel.

The Master Potter needed His clay to be pliable. The stubborn refusal of the hardened vessels to submit to His hand made it unfit for his purposes.

Then the Potter spoke..

Don't I have the right to fashion this clay as I see fit? I make one vessel for practical use and another for its simple beauty. Some may be used for simple chores while others may grace the head table of a banquet hall. How is it possible for the clay to decide what I will do with it. Clay is simply clay, it only becomes something as it yields to My touch and design. Yet, today we have seen what happens when the clay decides what is best. Please tell me if you can, what use can I find for this vessel now?

And yet, see what I have made of the vessel that did not set itself hard against me.

We are the clay, and he is Potter, and we all are the work of his hands.

Nothing in this says that the clay has to like what is happening to it, is required to like the forces that are pulling and stretching it where ever they will. But we do have a choice. We can become hardened, fixed, embittered, resistant to the change which has come upon us. And like the fired vessels become brittle and fragile and unable to change. Or we can be willing to bend, without breaking, and like the unfired clay remain responsive, open to the possibilities of a new beginning, a new creation, of moving beyond the place in which we feel spoiled and broken and return to the potters wheel and allow ourselves to be reshaped, gathering the broken pieces into everything we can still be.