Three Pictures and a Point

A Reflection on the First Reading for February 27th, 2022:
Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

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​Sirach
27.4-7

When a sieve is shaken, the refuse appears; so do one’s faults when one speaks. The kiln tests the potter’s vessels; so the test of the just person is in tribulation.

Its fruit discloses the cultivation of a tree; so a person’s speech discloses the cultivation of the mind. Do not praise someone before they speak, for this is the way people are tested.
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A sieve. A kiln. A pair of pruning shears.
And my words.


I have a whole stack of sieves in my pot-and-pan drawer, all nesting together waiting to do a job. I pull out one that fits the bowl I’ve chosen to catch what comes through. The stoneground flour looks fine as it sits in the sieve, but hidden amongst the powder is particulate. Only one thing is missing. Agitation. As I shake my sieve, a separation happens and I can see what I don’t want in my bread laying revealed on top of the mesh.


A conversation with you can be a stirring of my mind, dredging up what I’ve buried. It reveals what I might have missed, what I might be hiding from myself even, let alone you. The grace, the gold in this opportunity is that when these faults are laid bare, there’s a chance to get rid of them. Put you, and I, and Jesus in a conversation and anything might happen.


The centred lump of porcelain seems almost still as the wheel spins under my cupped hands that pressed it into place. My thumbs find the middle and create an opening. The gentle pressure of fingers on the inner wall and knuckles on the outer start to draw the clay up. Graceful and perfect in appearance it goes in the kiln, and comes out in a hundred pieces. I had not spent enough time wedging, the hard muscular work of slamming, pulling, and pushing the clay, that comes before the wheel. Air bubbles had created havens for locked moisture. The heat of the kiln found them out in myriad micro explosions.


I thought those things didn’t matter. They are buried well under the cover of a seemingly smooth life. Then in the heat of a hard conversation, the irritations I haven’t dealt with become anger, and I explode. Making a mess all over you and I. The grace, the gold in the detritus comes only if I can stop defending my sin and choose deference instead. Humble submission and respect. I hand over the swept-up shards to Jesus, and He hands me back a fresh lump of clay.


Looking at my garden in August, one thing is clear. I can’t fake fertilizer or a timely visit with the pruning shears. The die was cast when I chose to crawl among the raspberry canes with pruning shears in my pocket in the thin sun between the cold April rains. And before that, in the choice not to gather the storm-brought seaweed that washes up on my shore in grey November, laying it in the dirt to feed the soil for seeds in May.


I have a fondness for happenstance, and  Jesus calls me to cultivate. If I’m counting on managing my mouth in the moment, I’ve missed the point of maximum impact. The grace, the gold comes long before you and I talk. What and Who we’ve put into ourselves will carry the day.


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Noreen Smith

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