Isaiah 6: 2-8 & 2
Corinthians 4: 5-12
18th Sunday after Pentecost/ 22nd
September 2013
In Paul’s time the city
of Corinth was known for its pottery. By
Paul’s time the industry was already centuries old with a reputation for exquisite
pottery. Strategically located on the isthmus between the Peloponnese and
Attica, with easy access to the Adriatic in the west and the Aegean in the
east, Corinth was a major city in the Roman Empire, situated on a major
east-west trade route, which allowed Corinthian pottery to end up all over the
Empire. Most of the surviving vessels produced in Corinth have been found in
lower Italy and Sicily.
Paul
knew about the Corinthian ceramic industry.
His “treasure in clay jars” statement here in 2 Corinthians 4 alludes to
this. This was more than just a
convenient metaphor. When the church gathered in Corinth and heard his letter
read during worship, that allusion to clay jars probably jumped off the page
for them. It hit home. We hear “clay jars” and perhaps think of simple,
ordinary terracotta pots or containers.
But that’s not the kind of pottery produced in Corinth. The city was known for developing what is
known as the black-figure technique, which emerged around 700 BC, when pottery
vases with figures and scenes painted on them were replacing costly metal
tableware. The black-figure technique allowed the ceramic pieces to retain that
look, metallic and shiny. Then they were
painted, often with red or white paint. This style became very popular. Over
the centuries Corinthian ceramics were known for their colorful ornamentation
and beauty. It dominated the Mediterranean market for centuries. In this sense,
for the Corinthians, there was certainly treasure in clay jars, at least in the
making of clay jars.
That
said, throughout the ancient world pottery was ubiquitous. Everyone but the
very rich used common clay vessels for everyday use and storage. The members of First Church, Corinth would
have had many jars and pots in their homes.
Today, if you walk around Corinth (or any ancient archeological site)
you can find broken pieces of pottery everywhere. I have a bag of pottery shards that I picked
up over the years from Turkey and Greece and Israel. As we know, fired clay can be very fragile,
but it’s also extremely durable. In
Paul’s time, a well-made pot could keep things safe because they were nearly
watertight and resisted decay and corrosion. Many clay pots more than 5,000
years old have been found discovered nearly intact. In 1947 a shepherd boy wandered into a cave
overlooking the Dead Sea and discovered large clay containers with a treasure
inside: scrolls that were more than 2,000 years old—one of the greatest
archeological finds ever. It’s a
discovery that has transformed the way we understand First Century Judaism and
the emergence of Christianity. Those
scrolls survived, in part, because they were stored in clay jars.
Fragile,
yet durable and resilient. Just like you
and me. Clay jars. Human beings.
God
has placed a treasure, Paul writes, in clay jars.
God
has placed a treasure in human beings.
God
has placed a treasure in you and me.
Now
it’s easy to hear this text, especially verse 7, “…we have this treasure in
clay jars, so that it may be clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God
and does not come from us,” and come away feeling that the container, you and
me as human beings have no inherent value relative to the treasure, that we’re
fragile and valueless as broken pottery shards.
I think that’s projecting too much into the text and might say more about
us, how we view ourselves, than what Paul is really saying here.
What
is Paul saying to the church? That we
have a story to share, a promise to extend, a message to proclaim which is
God’s good news in Jesus Christ. The
story, the promise, the message, the Word that we proclaim and preach and share
and embody with our lives is Jesus Christ and what he has done for us and what
he continues to do through us. The
message, the story we offer the world is not
the Church, but Jesus Christ, “the glory of Christ,” as Paul says, “who is the
image of God” (2 Cor. 4:4). “For we do
not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your
slaves for Jesus’ sake.”
And
the reason why the Church has a story, a promise, a message to proclaim—and the
only way the Church can really tell the story or offer the promise or proclaim
the message—is because the light of Christ is shining in our hearts. And the light shines within us because it’s
being reflected back to us from the light of God shining through Jesus, the
image of God. Listen again to Paul’s words: “For it is the God who said, ‘Let
light shine out of darkness,’ who has shone in our hearts”—for what purpose?—“to give the light of the knowledge of the glory
of God”—where?—“in the face of Jesus
Christ.”
And
this is the treasure: the light of
God shining in our hearts. It’s the good
news, the gospel, the glory of Christ, the image of God, is illuminating our
hearts, enlightening our inner lives, God shining through the center of our lives. This is the treasure—this knowledge, this
truth, the reality that this is so. In
the next chapter Paul puts it a different way, “in Christ, God was reconciling
the world to himself” (2 Cor. 5:19a).
This message, this reality, is
the treasure. The treasure is not religious beliefs, dogmas, or
creeds; the treasure is not
Christianity; and the treasure is certainly not
the Church as an institution. The
treasure is God, the light of God, the presence of God, the love of God within
us. This treasure is God and with God comes God’s power—the power and energy of
light itself, the light that illumines the darkness, the power and energy of
love that forgives and restores human life, that shatters the chains that bind
us and breaks open the tombs that entrap us, the power of God who gives us a
new day, a new horizon, a tomorrow.
And
God risks placing this treasure in the human heart, which is fragile, yes
durable and resilient, yet very fragile and easily broken. It’s the fragility and brokenness of the human
heart, often hurting and struggling to survive, that often grasps after
whatever power it can get its hand on, in order to be strong or to survive—including
the power of God. Even though God knows
the wayward tendencies of the human condition, God still entrusts God’s power
to us, God has confidence in us, God hasn’t given up on us. Yet, there’s still
something within us that confuses or conflates being God and being human. We shouldn’t be surprised by this. The story
of the Garden, of being banished “east of Eden” (Genesis 4:16) is never far
from the human condition. It appears to
be our permanent address. We live “east
of Eden.”
Paul reminds us that
while the power of God has been entrusted to us, we must not confuse the
container with the content. Treasure is
placed in clay jars “so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power
belongs to God and does not come from us.”
When we forget this, we fall all over again. Don’t fuse or confuse the container with the
content.
And, yet, in the long
history of the Church this is precisely what happens time and again: confusion and inflation. It happens in the lives of individuals who
think they are God’s gift to the universe, that they hold power by some kind of
divine right to rule over lesser mortals, they assume too much power and don’t
know how to fuse power with love. With
inflated egos these individuals wreck havoc upon the world.
This confusion and
inflation also occurs in the institutional expressions of the Church. There
have been far too many times when the Church has confused the container and the
content, when the Church has assumed too much authority and power, when the
Church viewed itself as the treasure it contained, instead of the container
pouring out the power of God’s love to redeem the world. We can see this in the abuses of the Church
leading up to the Protestant Reformation. Despite the Reformation, this is
still an issue for both Roman Catholic and Protestant Churches, indeed all
Churches, whenever they view themselves as the end-all and be-all of the
gospel, at times taking priority over Christ. The Mainline Protestant Church, in decline since the 1960s, self-satisfied
with its cultural hegemony, membership rolls, and influence, might be guilty of
confusing the Church with the gospel. In
our age, so many people are leaving the Church and giving up on Christianity
altogether because they’re beginning to see that the container and the content
are not the same. From the outside, they
have looked at us and watched the way we carry on, seeing only jars of clay,
without a glimpse of the treasure; or others spent time among us and left
because they discovered the treasure that we’re supposed to contain is missing,
some communities lost it a long time ago.
People in our day are looking for treasure—real treasure. Have we become
too preoccupied with the container? Are
they finding only a container?
It’s natural to confuse
the two, content and container. On the
top of one of my bookshelves in the Church House is a blue, clay jar made by
Presbyterian potters in Nairobi, Kenya. I keep it there to remind me that
there’s a difference between the two. I
need to remember this (every pastor does).
We all need to remember this, because it’s so easy to forget. When we do, we suffer for it and the Church
suffers for it and the power and glory, the treasure of the gospel gets lost.
This text has a special
meaning for me. This passage from 2
Corinthians was read at my ordination, which took place 23 years ago tomorrow.
It’s stayed with me as a companion and guide over these years. It’s a powerful metaphor for what ministry,
for what being a Christian is all about.
However,
I noticed something new this week. Yes,
there’s the danger of conflation, of confusing the container and the content. This is something we must be continually
cautious about. But there’s a problem if
we go too far the other way, separating the two too much. I remember feeling at
my ordination that this power to proclaim the message does not come from me
(and it doesn’t). I’m just a container and the container is expendable (which
is true), I’m just a means to an end.
It’s not about me—and it isn’t about me.
I went into a kind of either-or default mode—either God or me; either
treasure or container. I assumed which
was favored.
But
I heard or perceived or realized something else going on in this text (and I
alluded to it earlier in the sermon). There’s a tendency for verse 7 to stand
on it’s own. But I wanted to see how it
connects with what follows. Verse 8 reads,
“We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed…” Linking the two, there was
something about thinking of clay jars, fragile, broken shards and these words
“not crushed.” “Afflicted…but not
crushed.” What accounts for this
claim? “Afflicted..but not crushed.”
Yes,
we need to remember that the extraordinary power belongs to God and not to us,
the treasure of the gospel is God’s, it does not belong to us, we didn’t create
it or craft it. This treasure, this
power belongs to God. But perhaps we miss
hearing what Paul is saying here by worrying too much about confusion and
inflation. In other words, fearful of
assuming too much for ourselves, we over compensate by focusing only upon God,
the treasure, forgetting that the clay jars are also valuable. Paul turns to the clay jars analogy to remind
them who has the power, but he also turns to this analogy to illustrate his
earlier point that “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.” This
is the key verse.
In
other words, the message that Catonsville Presbyterian Church or any church
offers the world is that the power of God, this treasure is doing something to us, clay though we may be. There is a
power at work within us. By virtue of your baptism, the power is
there. In fact, this extraordinary power—again, that does not belong to us—is
alive within us and working through us and allowing us to do far more than we
could ever possibly imagine, allowing us to love more deeply than we could ever
possibly imagine, enabling us to do more, give more, risk more, accomplish
more, forgive more, serve more, endure more than we could ever think
possible. Because, you see, “we are
afflicted” but because God’s power is at work in us, “not crushed.” “Perplexed,” but because God’s power is at
work in us, “not forsaken.” “Struck
down,” but because God’s power is at work in us, “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.” Jesus’ life and death, life from death, the power
of God’s redeeming love, is at work in us.
There is power here, dunamis,
in Greek—from which we get the words dynamite
and dynamic—a dynamic power at
work in us—that’s the treasure—more than we can possibly imagine! And, to be honest, the thought of this
probably scares the heck out of us—or, scares the heaven out of us—as it
should. But just because we shudder at
the thought, like Isaiah did (Isaiah 6:2-8), doesn’t mean it’s not true. It is true and we’re asked as a people, as a
Church, to share it, to use it, to live from it, to risk with it.
This,
I believe, is God’s calling for the Church of Jesus Christ, for this particular
church: to bear the life-giving power of
God, revealed in the face of Jesus Christ, to one another and to the world, to
make the treasure visible, through us, in us. May it
be so!
