October 13, 2013 Plain
Jars of Treasure
2
Corinthians 4:7-12—Paul writes that our
very human lives are containers for the Divine in our world
But we have this treasure in clay pots so that the
awesome power belongs to God and doesn’t come from us. We are experiencing all
kinds of trouble, but we aren’t crushed. We are confused, but we aren’t
depressed. We are harassed, but we aren’t abandoned. We are knocked down, but
we aren’t knocked out. We always carry Jesus’ death around in our bodies so
that Jesus’ life can also be seen in our bodies. We who are alive are always
being handed over to death for Jesus’ sake so that Jesus’ life can also be seen
in our bodies that are dying. So death is at work in us, but life is at work in
you.
Sometimes it is the not so special that is the perfect
way that God becomes known. Seas don’t have to part, mountains don’t have to
smoke, winged angels don’t have to appear. Just very ordinary human lives, just
like plain old clay jars, are all that God’s spirit needs to bring love into
the world. What changes might we make if we believe that we are carrying God
into the world?
Jars come in all
shapes and sizes and serve all kinds of purposes. There are glass jars, plastic
ones, tall, short, wide mouth and narrow, jelly jars, mason jars, pickle jars,
pottery jars, and cookie jars. What they all have in common is that they are
containers.
Human beings come
in all shapes and sizes as well, and biblically we, too, are containers. In
both the first and second chapters of Genesis (two very different stories of
Creation) humans are depicted as containers of God’s Spirit. In the first
Creation story, we are told that we are made in God’s image. That word “image”
is the same word that the bible uses for a graven image or idol. The belief was
that a divine spirit inhabited that image or idol. To say that we are God’s
image implies that we are the image that God inhabits. Likewise, in the 2nd
chapter (the Adam and Eve story), the human being is shaped of mud or clay but
does not have life until God breathes the Divine Spirit into its nostrils. And
so in Paul’s second letter to the church in Corinth, he says we are plain jars
that hold the treasure of God’s presence. Paul grooves on this oxymoron. We are
ordinary clay and divine light. We are death and life. We are human and we are
Christ.
This is the heart
of the Benedictine sense of hospitality that I’ve been talking about: we each
of us show something of Christ to each other. That hospitality is challenging
when we are asked to see the glory of Christ contained in every plain old human
jar: gay, straight, whole, infirm, young, old, brilliant, Down’s Syndrome,
liberal, Tea-Partier, pacifist, NRA life member, Joan Baez and Ted Nugent.
This also
challenges the Church’s traditional understanding of mission. Mission used to
be that we good Christians would go to some strange land and people to show
them Christ and teach them how to live as good, civilized Christians. But the
container idea begs us to look and see what others may have to show and teach
us about Christ, whether or not they use that name.
We are plain jars
holding divine treasure, and therefore we can be “Jars of Change.” What are we
showing other people about God? I once attended a breakfast where the program
was a slide show from a mission team who went to Africa to help some people
that they had previously worked with. The previous trip they had built a church
for the village, but had not been able to put the roof on. The location was so
remote that they had to pack in all tools, materials, generators and supplies.
They showed us pictures of the conditions in the village. There was the cooking
hut with a dirt floor and chickens wandering through. They showed the women of
the village toting water from a remarkable distance. They showed the pot where
everybody scraped their scraps from supper which would become the soup for
lunch the next day. Then they showed us pictures of their work. They showed the
guys putting up rafters and sheeting. The last pictures were of the people
sitting on simple benches worshiping in their newly finished church. I
understand the group’s priority to give the villagers a nice place to worship,
but I wonder why they never thought about putting a floor in the cooking hut or
helping to dig a well closer to the village. They had a nice church, but the
quality of their life was not improved at all. What kind of change is that?
Water is a symbol
of the Spirit and water is an essential element of life. Our Jars of Change can
carry water, either as symbol or element or both. The CROP Walk was initially
set as the average distance that people had to walk for clean water. We can use
our jars, our lives and our giving to show the world a God who cares how people
live and that their basic needs are met.
