Second Presbyterian Church

Roanoke, VA

April 20, 2008

Being Clay Jars

II Corinthians 4:5-12

Nancy M. Morris

2 Corinthians 4:5-12 (NRSV)
For we do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus' sake. For it is the God who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; perscuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you.

I’ve always been fascinated with the idea of traveling through time. I think it comes from watching a cinema classic as a child. The movie was The Time Machine and it was based on the science fiction story by H.G. Wells. I was probably somewhere around eight at the time, so many of the implications of the film were lost on me. But watching the inventor, who just happens to be named George, sit in his machine as he travels rapidly into the future fascinated me. The scene outside his window flickers with excitement from season to season, along with the fashions in the shop window just across the way. That movie inspired my devotion to the sci fi television show Time Tunnel. And when a movie remake of the original story premiered almost 20 years later, this one called Time after Time, I was once again hooked. I suppose many of us are. How else can you explain Back to the Future, Back to the Future Part 2, and Back to the Future Part 3?

Imagine with me for a moment. If time travel was real and you had only one chance for a journey, where would you like to go? Would you travel forward into the unknown or backward into history? Would you place yourself as an eye witness at a pivotal, world changing event or seek some calmer moment?

At the risk of sounding overly pious, but we are in church, is there a biblical character or story that would be worth the investment of your only opportunity? If you could, would you – risk knowing the historic truth that is? If that choice is difficult for you, let me help you. I’ll narrow the choice down. If you could meet – in the flesh – Paul or Jesus, whom would you choose?

I have to admit a bit of a quandary over that choice myself. Imagine meeting Jesus. If I could choose, I think I might consider watching the miracle of the loaves and fishes unfold. Of course, in my mind I see John’s version because it includes a child. I might also consider taking in a healing. The lowering of the paralyzed man through the roof by a team of friends would do well. Then again, imagine how enticing it would be to invite yourself into a private conversation between Jesus and the disciples. I think I’d choose a moment that we don’t have recorded in any of the Gospels, though eavesdropping on what happens in John chapters 13-17 might simply be irresistible. What a wonder it would be to watch and listen as love, passion, and devotion are being shared.

But then, there is much to be gained by experiencing Paul. His presence looms over the centuries of Church life like a gift - or a curse - depending on your perspective. Without his knowledge or permission, his words have been used to justify both slavery and genocide. As a woman seeking to follow a call to leadership in the Church, I had to come to terms with a few of his words as well. Even today, we struggle to understand his words as they teach us of human relationships. How refreshing and freeing it might be to ask the man himself; to seek his direct wisdom and counsel for our day just as he was so free to share it in his own.

So who will it be – Paul or Jesus? I’m not going to declare myself just yet. I leave the question with you to ponder. But this bit of information might help you decide. When it comes right down to it, we know far more about the human Paul than we do the human Jesus. We have at least seven letters that everyone agrees are authentically Paul. They give us his own words with bits and pieces of his own story. We also have a later and more theological presentation of his life in the book of Acts. This isn’t the place to debate the historicity of details, but we can’t ignore the stories of an expanding Gospel being embraced throughout the corners of the Roman world. Nor would we want to miss out on the stories of Paul’s confrontations and catastrophes; his boldness in the marketplace and his narrow, life threatening escapes over city walls.

If we know more about Paul than any other person in the New Testament, it’s also fair to say that we know more about Paul’s ongoing relationship to the believers in Corinth than we do any of his other communities. Too often I think Paul’s brilliance with rhetoric gets in the way of our seeing Paul, for at his heart, Paul was a pastor. We see that aspect of Paul most clearly in his relationship to these feisty Corinthians. In most other instances, Paul’s letters record only one half of one exchange between Paul and a community of believers. As for Corinth, contained within two biblical books, we have no fewer than three letters from Paul to Corinth and a fairly good idea of what was in two more. Scholars have pieced together a good understanding of the lively relationship between parishioners and pastor. It was a relationship that for Paul went from founding father to one estranged in exile.

In order to understand the story, recall with me just a bit about the amazing city of Corinth.

Corinth was one of the great cities of the Roman Empire. It was a port city where goods and people traveled freely. Such cities attract all ethnic groups and economic classes along with every form of religious expression known among the cults and temples of the ancient world. To put it bluntly: Corinth was “sin city.”

Paul enjoyed a challenge, and crafting a community of the faithful in the city of Corinth that would be dedicated to the worship of one God whose grace and truth had been revealed by a crucified and living Lord was quite a challenge. Paul’s first sojourn in Corinth lasted 18 months. He thought he left them in pretty good shape. But not long after his departure, it seems that the community began to break up into rival factions each competing for power and prestige. Some believed themselves to be in possession of the higher gifts of the spirit and didn’t hesitate to say so. The wealthy were enjoying their easier life style. They would arrive early for the communal meals, proceed to eat all the food, and didn’t seem to mind that their working class brothers and sisters went hungry. In other words, the ethos of Corinth was thriving even among those who claimed Christ as Lord.

At this point, the believers in Corinth were like children, delighting in a new gift that they didn’t completely understand. Paul, the patient teacher and parent, offered instruction. We find those instructions in what we call First Corinthians. By the time we get to Second Corinthians, however, the children had grown into adolescents, testing their limits, confronting their parental authority, and listening to other voices who pulled them away from Paul’s faithful foundation.

Paul called the other voices “super apostles.” They arrived in Corinth after Paul and they frankly didn’t like him. They challenged his authority and his status as an apostle. He doesn’t have the proper credentials, they said. He sounds great on paper, but in person, he’s a weakling. He refuses money in support of his ministry, so how could this laborer be worthy of our hire. He’s always getting into trouble. To put it bluntly, they said, he’s “short, weak, insecure, and tactless.”

The intensity of the confrontation, the triangulation of pastor, community, and usurpers, deepened over time. By the final four chapters of Second Corinthians, which scholars believe was a distinctly separate letter, the intensity had reached a fever pitch. The issue wasn’t simply who’s in charge at Corinth. It went to the heart of Gospel truth.

“We have this treasure in clay jars,” Paul tells the Corinthians. This treasure? The light of God’s saving grace as seen in Christ Jesus, the light of creation and new creation, and light that transformed Paul’s life when it came upon him on the Damascus road, and the light that was meant to transform our lives.

Clay jars? Fragile and dispensable containers, simple, unadorned, easily broken vessels for holding what is truly of worth. Why clay? Because the power of transformation comes from God and not from us, so that the power of God to redeem can shine through even our fragility, even our brokenness.

An Indian fable is told about a water bearer. The water bearer carried two large pots on a yoke across his shoulders, up the hill to his master’s house each day. One had a crack and leaked out half its water before arriving at the house. The other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water after the long walk from the river.

Finally, after years of arriving half empty and feeling guilty, the cracked pot apologized to the water bearer. It was miserable. “I’m sorry that I couldn’t accomplish what the perfect pot did.”

The water bearer said, “What do you have to apologize for?”

“After all this time, I still only delivered half my load of water. I made more work for you because of my flaw.”

The water bearer smiled and told the pot, “Take note of all the lovely flowers growing on the side of the path where I carried you. The flowers grew so lovely because of the water you leaked. There are no flowers on the perfect pot’s side.”

We have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.

The Corinthian community was broken. They were literally fractured, fighting among themselves and with their spiritual father Paul. They hurt each other by neglect. They hurt each other by intent. But if it had not been for their brokenness, where would we have heard:

For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, ²⁴ and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me."

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!

Did the Corinthian congregation survive? We don’t know for certain, but letters written a generation after Paul indicate that the Corinthian believers were still known for their brokenness and bickering. Sometimes our cracked pots leak water that blossoms into flowers; sometimes the water simply flows on hardened ground.

Not much has changed since Paul’s day. We still live in a world that despises weakness as much as it worships power. We still bear within us the brokenness of that world. We still strive to make it in the face of those who deem us unworthy. We still try to hold it together through adversity and challenge. We still hold divine treasure in clay jars, however fragile they may be. And we still claim the power of that divine treasure to make all things new.

Perhaps that is why I just might choose Paul for my adventure in time travel. He was a human pastor passionately in love with his people despite all the pain they caused him. He knew in his mind and in his gut that at the heart of our faith lies a cross. And he knew that in the brokenness, shame, failure, and woundedness of that cross the light and power of God’s salvation shine.

We have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.

Cracked, clay pots always need refilling, so they can refresh themselves; so they can refresh a thirsty world. They need not look far, for at the heart of our faith lies a font that pours forth life giving water. It is water that claims us, names us, fills us, and restores us. It is the place around which we gather in all our brokenness knowing we are claimed by a God who understands the power of brokenness to both heal and to redeem. You may bring your clay pot to this treasure any time you wish, any time you need.

THANKS BE TO GOD.