Nearly 20 years ago, I went to live in Israel for 5 weeks, as a volunteer on an archaeological dig that was sponsored by Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. My Hebrew professor at United Seminary in Dayton is good friends with the director of that dig; and he encouraged me to join the group. It was a wonderful experience! During those 5 weeks, I learned all sorts of things about archaeology. I was assigned to dig in an area that dated to about 1500 B.C. That’s long ago in the Bronze Age, about 3500 years ago.
Despite what you see in the Indiana Jones movies, what you
find on a dig isn’t usually very glamorous. Archaeologists don’t often find
gold jewelry, silver scrolls, or pagan idols with emeralds for eyes. No, most
of what we found during our five weeks was broken pieces of pottery. And that’s
what most archaeologists find when they go digging in the Middle East: lots and
lots of broken pottery. There’s a good reason for that. In Bible times, metal
cooking pots, cut glass serving dishes, and Corelle dinnerware didn’t exist.
Instead, clay pottery was used for almost everything. Water was carried in
pottery jugs, food was cooked on pottery bowls, and dinner was eaten on pottery
plates. And when grain was set aside at the end of the harvest, it was stored
in big pottery containers. Clay pottery was cheap and easy to obtain. Every family
had a selection of clay jars for their household use.
The only problem with clay pottery is that it was easily
broken. And once it was broken, it was pretty much useless. Broken clay jars
were tossed outside – or thrown into a garbage pit if a family was fortunate
enough to have one. A broken jar was just like an old cell phone is today. It’s
really not much good except to be thrown away. So it’s surprising that Paul
should call the members of his congregation “clay jars” (2 Corinthians 4:1,
5-12). Clay jars were destined for the garbage dump after their useful but
short life spans. Is that who we are? Are we just clay jars that are destined
to be broken and then thrown away? Some people might say that we are. After all,
we’re a lot like those clay jars that Paul talked about. We human beings are
common, just like clay jars. How many of us are there on planet Earth at last
count? Something like 7 billion of us! We’re a dime a dozen! We’re very easily
broken, too. If any part of us doesn’t work right, our whole body suffers. And
it’s not just our bodies that break. Our minds and our souls are fragile, too. And
we’re never too far from the clay that we came from. Ash Wednesday will remind
us of that at the end of February. We came from clay and we’ll go back to that
clay when our lives are over.
There’s a big difference, though, between us and those fragile
clay jars that the ancient Israelites used for so many things. The Spirit of
God fills us up; and that treasure that stays within us no matter how broken we
are! Paul says as much: “We are hard-pressed on every side, but not crushed;
perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but
not destroyed.” The treasure that fills us is more valuable than food or water
or even stored grain. It’s the power of God that keeps us going even when we
feel like we’re broken beyond repair. It’s resurrection power that keeps us
hoping, even in the most difficult of circumstances. It’s the power of peace
and hope and love that God wants us to share with the whole world!
Our model for being filled with that power is none other
than Jesus himself. That’s what Paul means when he says, “We always carry
around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed
in our body.” The reality is that we are human, just like Jesus was. And just
like Jesus, we will die a physical death one day. Even though we don’t like to
admit, our bodies are all in the process of moving towards the grave. The older
we get, the more obvious that is. Our sight gets dim. I’m told that everyone
develops cataracts after a certain age. As we get older, our hearing starts to
fail, too; and we need to wear hearing aids. Our muscles aren’t as strong as
they once were; and arthritis makes us creaky (and cranky). But beyond the
difficulties that go along with physical aging, we carry all kind of other problems
around with us; and these problems can begin long before we get old. Don’t
believe me? Take a look at Jesus’ disciples! Peter was a blowhard and a
hothead. He was the one who boasted that he would never, ever deny Jesus!
Remember how that turned out? Thomas didn’t believe that Jesus had risen from
the dead until he saw the evidence for himself. What did he say? “Unless I see
the wounds in his hands and put my hand into his side, I won’t believe it!” Even
Paul himself was so mistaken about Jesus that he began his career by
persecuting the early church and hauling Christians off to prison! Arrogant,
doubtful, quick to anger, sure that they were always right: those were Jesus’
disciples. Does it sound familiar? It should. We’re broken pots, just like they
were. But despite all that, Paul says, we are filled with life – the life that
comes from the mighty power of Jesus’ resurrection. We are like little paper
cups that contain the power of a nuclear reactor! We may look ordinary and
frail; but we are the channels of resurrection power that Jesus promises to the
whole world through the Holy Spirit. It doesn’t matter to Jesus that we’re
broken! It matters to Jesus that we let him use us, whatever his purposes are.
About 80 years ago, some pieces of broken pottery were
unearthed at an archaeological site in Israel. They had writing on them –
writing that turned out to be letters from one Judean commander to another
during the time of King Zedekiah. They are windows into a time that we didn’t
know much about before. Although they’re just broken pieces of clay jars, they
are priceless. Rejoice, fellow clay jars! We’re priceless, too! With the power
of Jesus filling us, we offer the grace of God to people who never knew about
it before. We may be so broken that we can’t hold water; but with Jesus filling
us, we can do amazing things. We can offer a listening ear and a word of
encouragement to the lonely and afraid. We can sit with the suffering and show
them the compassion that God has shown to us. We can bring love to the unloved and
offer hope to the hopeless. Isn’t that amazing! All that from clay jars! Friends,
we may be broken, but we’re not worthless! God has chosen us as containers for
the Spirit that hovered over the waters at creation, and that still empowers us
and guides us. What can we broken clay jars say, but “Thanks be to God!”
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