A Crozier Story [Proper 18C - Jeremiah 18:1-11]

 The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson

Jeremiah 18:1-11

 

A Crozier Story

St. John’s, Johnstown

 

The prophet Jeremiah went down to the potter’s house.  And in the house he found, no surprise, a potter.  The potter was working at his wheel, spinning clay into earthen vessels.  Or at least trying to turn clay into earthen vessels.  Sometimes the clay did not quite cooperate.  And so Jeremiah watched as the potter took a deep breath, slowed the wheel, wrapped some messy fingers around the awkward lump, and started again.  Until that lump of clay became what the potter dreamed it would be.

 

Tuesday is the two-year anniversary of my election as your bishop.  Election day was a wild day.  The family woke up early – because mountain time zone – unsure if everything or nothing in our lives would change.  A few hours later, it was everything.  The election thrust us, suddenly, into a season of total transition. 

 

One of the many transitions was vocational.  After seventeen and a half years of a being a priest, and over twenty years of parish ministry, I was starting a new job – in middle age.  This work is, of course, still in the Episcopal Church, and it is still ordained ministry, but also it is very different from any ministry I have ever done.  Instead of a church, I have 105 churches.  Instead of a town, I have 20,000 square miles of New York.  Instead of a parish office, I have three offices – one in Albany, one in Greenwich, and one that is parked just outside.

 

The election even meant a new wardrobe.  As a Bishop, I dress in purple shirts; I wear a big cross around my neck; I have a shiny ring with the diocesan seal carved into its Herkimer diamond; I have a crazy, pointy hat – actually three of them, for different seasons and occasions.

 

And I carry a big stick – a stick that is very special to me, because it was made by my dad.  My dad is a carpenter.  And like the potter, he makes things.  Instead of clay, my dad uses wood.

 

Not long after the election, I called my dad with a very special request.  I wanted him to make me a Christmas present.  And not just any Christmas present: I wanted him to make me a crozier – that is what the Bishop stick is called.

 

Well, crozier is a strange name.  It was not a word I knew growing up in a Pentecostal church.  And so when I called my dad and asked him if he would make me a crozier, he answered, “Yeah, sure…what is a crozier?”

 

Fortunately, one can find just about anything on the internet – including pictures of croziers.  But a lot of those pictures were more intimidating than they were helpful.  My dad anxiously scrolled through picture after picture of the most elaborate croziers in the world.  Croziers made of precious metals – gold and silver.  Croziers covered in expensive jewels – rubies and emeralds.  Croziers worth as much as a house.  I think my dad pretty quickly regretted his yes.

 

I assured him that I was looking for something far simpler – no gold, no jewels.  But I did want something more special than the elaborate croziers on the internet, something rarer than even a precious stone: I wanted a one-of-a-kind wooden crozier, one created by my dad.

 

And so my dad needed to find some wood.  Like any artist, my dad wanted every aspect of his creation to have a deeper meaning.  And so, he drove from Texas to Ohio, to my grandparents’ farm.  And there he looked through piles of wood that my grandpa had harvested and prepared from the trees on the farm, the farm where my mother grew up.  My dad selected some beautiful black walnut – a tree native to my home state.

 

He had the wood, but still lacked the tool.  My dad needed a lathe and a lathe was one of the few tools he did not own.  And so he found a used lathe for sale and bought it, so that he could get started on making a crozier for his son.  But the lathe did not work.  And so he figured out how to fix the lathe.  And then he had to learn how to use it because he had never used a lathe before. 

 

When I made that phone call, I had no idea how much time and effort would be required.  Neither did I know how much stress the creation process would cause my dad.  After it was finished, he told me that he worried about the crozier every day of the laborious process.  He was worried that it just wouldn’t be good enough.

 

But while the worry was there, so was the Holy Spirit.  My dad got glimpses along the way.  My crozier is made of three pieces so that I can take it apart and fit it into the case he also made, and then into my car.  And so my dad bought these copper sleeves to cover where the sections come together.  Only later, when he was assembling the crozier, did he realize that my initials (JW) are engraving in the copper.    

 

My crozier isn’t just a crozier; it is a labor of love.  So much time and so much care went into its creation.  Every little detail required attention and intention: the hand-carved Trinity symbols, the arduous three-fold process of staining, sealing, sanding, and smoothing, the Roman numeral ten in the crook, to signify that the one holding it is the tenth Bishop of Albany. 

 

And you can’t see it now, because the finished product is so beautiful, but sometimes the wood would not cooperate and my dad would have to fill a crack or smooth away a rough edge or solve an unexpected problem.  And that, I am sure was frustrating and only added to his stress.  But he never gave up; he didn’t walk away.  Like the potter at the wheel, he stayed with his creation.  Until it became what he dreamed it would be.  And when it was finished, my dad said to me, “It was like it was already out there, just waiting to be discovered.”

 

And that is what amazes me about the potter in the book of Jeremiah: he stayed with it until it became what he dreamed it would be.  The Bible passage says, “Whenever a piece of pottery turned out imperfect, the potter would take the clay and make it into something else.”  He could have walked away from that uncooperative lump of clay, but he didn’t.

 

These creators, the potter and my dad, take after the Creator in that way.  God puts so much love and care into us, into each and every person.  We are God’s labor of love.  And that, I’m sure, can at times be exhausting, uncooperative lumps of clay that we are.  But God never walks away.  God stays with us.  And when we make a mess of things, and sometimes we do, God wraps some messy fingers around the awkward lump and starts again.  Keeps working on us until the lump of clay becomes exactly what God dreamed it would be.