Pastor Nelson Bonilla: 9-7-25 “Redemption Is Always Possible”  

Today’s sermon is an extension of last Sunday. Last Sunday, I spoke about becoming what we worship; my sermon was about being shaped by those idols we follow. Today the prophet continues with the same message of shaping.

Jeremiah went to the potter’s house. He saw the clay spinning on the wheel and the clay spoiled. The pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands. And the prophet noticed that the potter did not throw it away. It takes it again in his hands, and he reshapes it. And then, God asked a question full of grace and hope: “Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?” declares the Lord. “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel.”

	Brothers and sisters, last Sunday we heard the prophet Jeremiah cry out with God’s heartbroken words: “They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and dug out cisterns—broken cisterns that can hold no water.” God’s people stopped worshiping their true God and allowed themselves to be shaped by empty idol and, false gods. During this spiritual chaos, God spoke to Jeremiah and asked to go to the potter’s house. There he sees clay spinning on the wheel, and God says: “Just like clay in the potter’s hands, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.”

The false idols from chapter 2 could not reshape or fix the broken Israel, because they were false and worthless and Israel remained without hope, broken and thirsty, because they were trying to get water from a broken cistern. However, in chapter 18, God, the one they abandoned, using a Potter, gives Israel hope: He does not discard spoiled clay; He reshapes it. He does not discard worthless people; he reshapes them and make them whole again because He is whole. 

Jeremiah’s message for Israel and us is both warning and hopeful, broken cisterns cannot satisfy. But Potter’s hands can restore. God reminds Israel and us today that our future is not fixed, it does not depend on what we did. It depends on our response to his grace, to the invitation to jump on his wheel and allow his hand to shape our present and future. If we repent, He can reshape us.

I have shared with you before that the lectionary gives us three scriptures for each Sunday. We read only one. One of the other scriptures for this Sunday is Philemon 1. This story of Philemon and Onesimus brings Jeremiah’s message of transformation closer to us. In the powerful letter of Philemon we meet Onesimus, Philemon’s runaway slave. Paul says that once this slave was considered “useless,” but while Paul was in jail, he presented the Gospel to Onesimus, he became his spiritual son and was remade by Christ into “useful” for the kingdom. Onesimus’ very name means “useful.” This broken slave, worthless in society’s eyes by the grace of God became once again useful.

Onesimus—a runaway slave, a man who -as Israel- had failed his master was transformed, reshaped by the grace of God. When he returns to his master, he did it, not as a slave, but as a brother in Christ. The potter’s hands continue reshaping and what his grace did with Israel and Onesimus, he can do it with us today.
Jeremiah 18 shows that God reshapes what is broken. He never gives up on us, his grace is always available. All we have to do is place our lives on the Potter’s wheel and allow his hands to redo us again according to our creator’s image.

The short letter of Philemon reveals that God’s grace transforms not only our lives, but also our relationships. Paul is asking Philemon the master who without a doubt was angry with the runaway slave and had power to punish him even with death, to receive Onesimus as a brother and not only Philemon, but the church that meets at his home. 

Together, these two scriptures teach us that redemption is always possible, but it requires surrender, forgiveness, and love.