So, she came into the coffee shop every single day, even on the weekends. She was amazingly subdued and very quiet, unlike Angry Mike, the guy who gave her a ride to work during the week. She would sit in the corner with her seeing eye dog, Tanner, and drink her coffee and eat her cinnamon bagel with peanut butter.
Sandy was blind, but she was not born that way. Yes she had the cane, the dog, occasionally needed guidance. But she was ok with it. Because she had memories of things, how they looked. She knew colors. And she knew shapes. And this is what made her life special.
Because when Sandy wasn't working in her state social service office, she was a potter. She and I shared a studio space. I roasted coffee there, and she did her pottery. And what she did was beautiful. Now she mostly did the traditional plates and bowls and vases.
But she also did sculptures. Tiny figurines that looked like delicate little fairies and imps and trolls. And little people, going about work, holding hands, kissing, living life in their tiny frozen forms.
She once made me a set of monks in cowls, all standing around chanting the Daily Office. They are the most beautiful small things I own.
I would sit and watch her work, softly humming along with some New Age or Celtic instrumental stuff. And even though she was blind, when she worked, she would close her eyes tight, as if she was forcing every scintilla of attention and talent into her fingers.
Sometimes she made a mistake, like Jeremiah's potter in our reading today. She might start with a plate, but according to her, the clay would fight her. “It wasn't supposed to be a plate,' she would say. “So I waited until it let me know what it was supposed to be.” But she understood relationships because she understood clay.
She understood that sometimes the best of relationships can go wrong. And you have to leave the relationship behind or find a way to rework it. And she pointed to the pile of shards in a trash can, the remnants of dreams that just didn't pan out.
She said that all the shards were the times when she got her priorities wrong, when she stopped listening to the clay and to her soul and, instead, sat down to do what SHE wanted to do. And she, in her blindness, saw Jesus more than I ever could.
Our Gospel reading today is rough on the surface. Strong words! Tough talk! Hard sayings! Demanding conditions! What do we do with them? Can you imagine welcoming a stranger to church saying, "Come this Sunday and we'll tell you how hard it is to join our church"? "First, you've got to hate your family.
Then, you must carry a cross like a condemned criminal. Along with that, we expect you to give up everything you have worked hard to have. Do these things and you can call yourself a member of our fellowship." Yet, that is the essence of what Jesus says discipleship requires. Discipleship is demanding.
The first thing that Jesus says here is, "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters-yes, even his own life-he cannot be my disciple."
Now before we wig out, our English reading of this is a bit hasty. The word "Hate" that Jesus uses here is a comparative verb. It actually means to, "love much less than." Jesus is saying that the love for God and for our neighbor is so demanding, so consuming, that it makes even the love we have for our own family looks almost like hatred in comparison.
And if God and His kingdom are given the proper all-consuming love Christ expects then the highest and best of all my other loves – even my love for myself – will seem to be in a far-distant second place.
But even so, this is still tough. Discipleship, for Jesus, is so much more than filling out a pledge card or sitting in our “reserved” pew, or working at the food pantry or teaching Sunday School. It's more than saying our prayers at night, visiting friends in distress. It's more bumper sticker messages, and cute saccharine-y Facebook memes of kittens saying, “God loves MEW.”
Jesus is saying that this is risky stuff, following him.
My granddaddy had a brother, Jack, who was an auctioneer. As a kid, I remember him telling me something along the lines of, “Whatever you do, don't scratch your nose at the wrong time, son! A whole lot of people have gone home with something they didn't want to buy because they go an itchy nose."
Those words have never left me. I've attended a number of auctions in my lifetime, and I must confess that I try to keep my hands in my pockets as much as possible. I find myself thinking, "One false move can get you in a lot of trouble!"
This is good advice for auctions, but bad advice for following Jesus. I think Jesus is wanting us to get our hands out of our pockets and take those big risks. To take those hands and arms and use them recklessly, holding people who need holding, protecting, loving. Linking arms with those who are standing alone against injustice and oppression. Hands wide open in giving and generosity.
Hands closing around that cross and carrying it as Jesus carried it, even when those hands get bloody with splinters.
Because true discipleship is not easy. But true discipleship is the greatest love we can experience. Because discipleship for Jesus is as close to God as we will ever get in this risky life. Open hands and open hearts. It doesn't get any riskier than that.
When Sandy opened her arms at the potter's wheel, she opened her heart, too. She let her love of God flow through her and into that lumpy, ugly clay. And it became some of the most beautiful pieces of potter that I'd ever seen – and which she never would.
One day, I was in the back of the building we shared, bringing in a new load of coffee beans. I noticed her storage room was ajar, so, curious, I poked my nose in. There were several industrial garbage bags sitting in one corner.
When I peeked in, I saw all the shards that she had kept. Even when the clay had turned against her, when she and it didn't see eye-to-eye, she still kept the pieces. They were part of her, too. Somehow, that was beautiful to me. As beautiful as the masterpieces she had on the shelves of her studio.
I wondered about that. And I wonder about it today. When we take the risk of discipleship, when we put it all on the line, we occasionally shatter. We break – maybe our spirit – maybe our heart. And maybe, God keeps those pieces in a place of love, waiting for a new kingdom to rework them somehow. I don't know.
But I know this. One evening Sandy and I were alone in the studio. She was working the clay on her wheel, humming to her music, waiting to see what the Spirit would bring out of that lump. And I was looking through her pieces, each of them filled with so much love and beauty.
And I asked, “Sandy, there is so much work here. So many amazing pieces. Do you have a favorite?”
And she stopped, looked up with those beautiful blue, sightless eyes, then back down, and as she gently laid her hand on the clay she said, “God is always surprising me. So, I guess my favorite piece is always my next one.” Then she went back to work, humming and molding and letting the Spirit of the potter pour out.
Amen.