Seeing as God sees

Readings for this week September 8th 2019 (proper 23) Pentecost 13 are taken from the following selection :

Jeremiah 18:1-11 and Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18  Philemon 1-25 Luke 14:25-33

The potter at the wheel

is a very evocative image,

more so to those who would have witnessed it (like Jesus)

in their own backyards.

They would have seen

the craftsman start to make the pot

and then decide

"This is not quite right"

and squash it all down

and start again. 
I remember many years ago going to Bendigo Pottery
the thing that most amazed me 
was not the fine pottery in the top-end Showroom
which is indeed wonderful
but the Seconds Showroom 
which seemed to  go on for miles
(this was the stuff that was not good enough of course they are playing their market a bit )

I certainly found their, considerably cheaper seconds, 
to be excellent
Better than what I can find at Target or KMart.

Often the amateur

looks on with amazement 
as the potter smashes it down 
or chucks it away;

wondering why the work has begun again.

To us it looks OK

to the artist, the craftsman, the master

they see something

that needs more and more and,
yet more work

So, this is a quite a useful image

for you and me

of the way God sees us.

We may think we are OK

or that there is not much that can be done

but God views us rather differently than we view ourselves. 
It is not that God looks at us
and thinks we are a mess;
but rather that God looks at us
and sees more than we see 
God sees that we are good
that we are worthy of love.
As popular commentators have crudely put it
"God doesn't make trash!"
I am not,
you are ,
Garbage!

So Paul revisits quite a lot of his old friendships,

and relationships

...like this one with Onesimus

and finds with maturer and deeper reflection

that things change.
He says to Philemon
"You know you and I used to think of him as USELESS "
The name
Ονησιμος ('onesimos' actually means useful, profitable or beneficial in Greek)
but they had smugly ( as arrogant young men do) nicknamed him 
Useless

Paul was not always given to kind reflections,

but he does not stand still 
"God does not make trash!"

and there is a sense

in which Paul becomes more compassionate,

more charitable 
dare we say
more Christlike

as he grows older.

So might this happen to all of us!

THIS WEEK

• Take a few moments to ask God if you are seeing your life as God sees it.
• Is there something about your life that you are just not understanding?
• Do you have a relationship with another person that needs to be re-evaluated in a more positive light? Are there things that need to be begun again?
• And remember, sometimes what looks or feels like destruction is a new beginning