Homily | July 30, 2026 | Holiness Means Letting God Start Again | (Episode 214)

Have you ever watched a master potter at work, someone who works with clay?

It's pretty mesmerizing.

He takes what looks like nothing more than a lump of wet clay, places it on the wheel, and then with incredible patience begins to shape it.

His hands press, pull, smooth, and reshape.

Slowly something beautiful begins to emerge.

But then something unexpected happens.

The vessel collapses.

Maybe there was an air pocket, maybe the walls became too thin.

Maybe the shape wasn't right.

So what does a potter do?

Well, he doesn't throw the clay away.

He simply starts again.

That's the image God gives us today in the first reading from Jeremiah.

He says, Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hands.

But notice something beautiful, God isn't working with finished products.

He's working with unfinished people.

That's every single one of us.

Sometimes we imagine holiness means never making mistakes.

Well the saints would tell you otherwise.

Holiness isn't about never failing.

It's about never refusing the potter's hands.

Think about Simon Peter.

One moment he's professing that Jesus is the Christ.

The very next moment Jesus is saying, Get behind me, Satan.

Later he promises he'll never abandon the Lord.

Just a few hours later he denies him three times.

If anyone looked like a cracked vessel, well, it was Peter.

And yet Jesus didn't throw him away.

He reshaped him.

The same fisherman who failed became the rock on which Christ built his church.

God specializes in beginning again.

That's why the church gives us confession.

The confessional is the potter's workshop.

We bring him the broken pieces of our lives, and instead of discarding them, he reshapes us with his mercy.

But there's another side of today's reading.

Clay has to remain soft.

Because once clay hardens, it's very difficult to reshape.

That's the same, that's the truth with spirituality.

Every time we refuse God's grace, every time we justify our sins, every time we make compromises, every time we ignore his voice, our hearts become harder and harder.

Not all at once, but little by little.

That's why Scripture so often says, If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.

God can do extraordinary things with a humble heart, but he cannot force an unwilling one.

Now, if we turn to the gospel, Jesus speaks about a fishing neg, gathering fish of every kind.

At first everything is gathered together.

Only later comes the separation.

Again, here Jesus is reminding us that there will be a judgment.

The point isn't to make us afraid.

It's to remind us that our lives are moving towards a destination.

One day each of us will stand before the Lord.

Death is the great equalizer.

But on that day, the question won't be whether we were successful.

It won't be whether we had any fancy titles or whether you were wealthy and had a lot of influence, even if you even being admired.

No, the question will be very simple.

Did I allow God to shape me into the person He created me to be?

At the end of the gospel, Jesus asks his disciples, Do you understand all these things?

The answer, yes.

I always smile when I read that.

Because if you keep reading the gospel, it's obvious they didn't understand everything.

And neither do we.

Why?

Because the Christian life isn't about having all the answers, it's about trusting the one whose hands never stop working.

So today, maybe the Lord is pressing gently on areas of your life that you may resist.

Maybe he's asking you to forgive.

Maybe he's showing you some very hard truths.

Maybe he's asking you to pray more faithfully, to return a confession, to let go of resentment, to really look at those sins you keep falling into, to trust him with a future you can't yet see.

Don't resist the potter's hands, because the hands that shape us are the same hands that were stretched out on the cross.

Those nails pierced his hands, knowing exactly what they were doing.

And they are not finished with you yet.

The Lord is desiring to shape you into the disciple that he's calling you to be.

Amen.