A Crack Pot Or A Cracked Pot

While being a crackpot, at least in that sense isn’t such a good thing, I think being a cracked pot might not be so bad. Earlier I said, “A cracked pot probably isn’t good for very much. It isn’t going to hold any water, or most anything else for that matter, at least not for very long.” That statement isn’t entirely true. The truth is, I think, we are all cracked pots. God created all of us to be whole and complete. But, I don’t care who you are, even the most faithful among us go through times of doubt. Even the best among us, at times turn and serve other gods and the world starts to beat on us a bit.

I love the image Paul uses in 2 Corinthians where he talks about the treasure we carry in clay pots. Paul is using the image of the clay pot as an analogy for the human body. We walk around in this clay pot. As we go through life our clay pot gets beaten on, sometimes by others but also sometimes we beat up ourselves. Then instead of being a clay pot that looks like this, perfect and pristine, without a flaw to be seen anywhere, we end up looking a little more like this other clay pot, beaten, broken, and cracked. Maybe to some we might even seem worthless. The world might deem us as unable to hold water. We are, after all, broken, battered, beaten, incomplete and cracked. We are less than whole.

But guess what, there is good news, God isn’t finished with us yet. Though God was angry with the Israelites in our lesson, when we read the whole story, the story beyond Jeremiah, it doesn’t take long to understand that God just might like us cracked pots. God loves and redeems what the world likes to call useless. God has something for both crackpots and cracked pots.

There is an old wisdom story from India I ran across years ago that illustrates God’s love for cracked pots like all of us.

A water bearer in India had two large pots, one hung on each end of a pole, which she carried across her neck. One of the pots had a crack in it while the other pot was pristine and perfect. The pristine pot always delivered a full portion of water at the end of the long walk from the stream to the mistress's house. The same wasn’t true for the cracked pot as it arrived only half full.

For a full two years this went on daily, with the bearer delivering only one and a half pots full of water to her master's house. The perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments, perfectly completing the job each day for which it was made.

But the poor cracked pot was totally ashamed of its own imperfections. This pot was miserable that it was able to accomplish only half of what it had been made to do. After two years of what it perceived to be a bitter failure, it spoke to the water bearer one day at the stream as the water bearer filled her pots on her daily errand: "I am ashamed of myself, and I want to apologize to you."

Why?" asked the bearer. "What you have to be ashamed of?"

"I have been able, for these past two years, to deliver only half my load because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your mistress's house. Because of my flaws, you have to do all of this work, and you don't get full value from your efforts," the pot said.