Treasure in Clay Jars: a sermon for the First Sunday after Trinity, 2024
Deuteronomy 5. 12-15; 2 Corinthians 4. 5-12; Mark 2.23-3.6
‘We have this treasure in clay jars…’
In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
ܞ
As you probably know, I am a sucker for traditional Romanian handicrafts. A finely embroidered camașă; icons on glass; carved wooden crosses; woven Oltenian floral rugs. I’m not so keen on those little straw hats – the clop – which are worn much too small to do anything! But – the clop aside – I am a great admirer of these peasant crafts. And, of course, no mention of Romanian handicrafts would be complete without saying something about pottery! There is a rich regional variety in decoration and design, which stretches back into the mists of time. More than five thousand years ago, the people of the so-called Cucuteni civilisation were making beautifully-decorated ceramics centred in a village near modern Iași. My favourite style of Romanian pottery – and I appreciate this is subjective! – comes from the village of Corund in eastern Transylvania. Clare painted the paschal candle with a Corund-style cross this year.
About five minutes’ walk from our apartment there is a shop in a block of flats called, ‘invie tradiția’ (revive the tradition) that sells handicrafts on a sort of co-operative model in partnership with local artisans. It is not all that expensive – particularly as far as its pottery is concerned – which from my point of view is a good thing because often I find I am going in to replace something! A small cup, a plate or a bowl. As you can imagine in a house with three kids, stuff gets broken! Of course, I should probably buy a set of plastic cups or more robust china – but I think there is something very beautiful about this traditional pottery. Even with the chipped glaze on my halba de bere or the butter dish, these objects still have a kind of beauty in their imperfection and fragility. This pottery did not need to be decorated at all, and yet, amidst all the harshness of rural life over the centuries, people still took the time, and love, and care to make something beautiful. I think that says something very profound about the human spirit, and its search for beauty and goodness even in difficult circumstances.
But like traditional pottery, we too are fragile, chipped and cracked. And it is this to which Paul alludes in our Epistle this morning: ‘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.’ In the Second Letter to the Corinthians, Paul writes to the Corinthian church to encourage them and to tell them that endurance through suffering is made possible through the grace of God, united to Jesus and through the transformation of the Spirit. The extraordinary power that brings life and salvation does not come to the believers at Corinth through Paul’s example and preaching (the clay jar), but through the death – and new life – of Jesus Christ.
The greatest and most spiritual treasures come to us in surprising, and fallible, packaging. We see this in our other readings this morning. Deuteronomy gives us the instruction to observe the sabbath, the day of rest from our labour. ‘The seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work…’ The command to rest echoes God’s resting at creation – but it is also a sign of the freedom that comes from God. ‘Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand…’ The sabbath is a sign of liberation, a reminder that the people of God are no longer slaves but can rest from labour. And in all our labour, this moment of rest teaches us that we are not dependent on the works of our own hands, but on the goodness and mercy of God.
But this great spiritual treasure is also carried in a clay jar, because – like clay – we human beings are creatures of earth and cannot bear pure heavenly gifts! This is what we see in our Gospel reading. We have two incidents, early in St Mark’s Gospel, where Jesus is confronted over his observance of the sabbath. In the first, Jesus’ disciples pluck grain from the cornfields from hunger, which the Pharisees maintain is a kind of labour, and unlawful. Secondly, Jesus heals a man with a withered hand on the sabbath, and again, this act of healing is seen as work. But both times he is confronted, Jesus responds. ‘The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath.’ ‘Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to kill?’ Jesus tells the Pharisees that they have forgotten what is important! It is not the clay jar – the outward observance – that matters but the heavenly treasure, the spiritual gift.
Jesus’ lesson from Scripture – the story of David in the Temple - and the miraculous healing on the sabbath are intended to call the Pharisees back to what should be paramount – the freedom and new life of the people of God.
We see this too in the life of the church. The church itself is a clay jar - fragile, chipped around the rim, misshapen - in fact, quite ugly from some angles! But the church carries within her indescribable treasure. We can get wrapped up in our Synods and committees, politics, our personal vendettas. Small things can take on almost dogmatic significance. And yet for all her failings and imperfections –which are, after all, the failings and imperfections of each of us, of each one of her members – the church bears the image of God, and more than enough grace to make ordinary people like you and me into saints; more than enough grace to bring us into the Kingdom.
In our worship today, may we be renewed in faith, hope and love, transforming our frail nature, and giving thanks that ‘this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.’ And as we come to the altar, and receive again the treasure of Christ’s presence in the clay jar of bread and wine, may our hearts shine, in all the darkness of our lives, with the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
Amen.