Somehow in men’s minds the paraphernalia of religion get to be more important than the faith itself. It is one of the enduring problems of religious life, how it is that we get far more caught up and invested in the trappings of religion than in the faith itself.
In your average church, you cannot get people interested in talking about the core issues of the faith; you cannot work up much of a sweat by asking someone what theory of the atonement he espouses or how Isaiah 7: 14 is to be interpreted or if she can explain how intercessory prayer works. In your average church, there is a little embarrassment, in the first place, that we really haven’t thought much about these rather far-off, esoteric issues; but beyond that, well, we just reserve our energies for the important stuff, the emotional stuff:
Like what color the carpet should be
Like whether songs I like to sing have come up often enough
Like whether somebody sat in my pew, the place I always sit
Like whether my class, my group, my family, my whatever, got recognized.
Those are the places where energy gets burned; those are the issues that heat up the thermometer and punch up the decibels.
Somehow in men’s minds the paraphernalia of religion, the trappings of church, get to be more important than the faith itself. The container is valued more than the contents.
The legends of King Arthur, passed on from the centuries even before the Middle Ages in Britain, are in no small measure preoccupied with the quest of the Holy Grail. The Holy Grail, if you will recall, according to the legend, was that cup which had been used by our Lord at the Last Supper, then had passed on into the hands of Joseph of Arimathea. Joseph, standing near the Cross, had supposedly captured a cupful of the precious blood of Christ in this cup and then, unlikely as it may seem, had brought it to Britain and to the place now called Glastonbury Abbey.
Now remember, all of this is the stuff of legend and myth, and I trust none of us here gives any credence to it; it’s just not history as you and I would think of historical fact. But what intrigues me is that over the years the myth of Christ’s cup grew and grew and took on a kind of mystical significance, so that by the time the legends of King Arthur were told and retold, the quest for the Holy Grail, the quest for this cup, this vessel, had become a picture for the whole human pilgrimage.
If a young man can but find the Holy Grail, in the legends of King Arthur, then he will have found his life’s meaning. If a young man, a dashing Sir Galahad, can but keep his heart pure, then maybe some day he will be ushered into the presence of the Holy Grail, and thus be at the pinnacle of his powers.
This little cup, this ancient vessel, in the legend, becomes a symbol for the aspirations of every man; it becomes the picture of the ideal of all humanity; it becomes a mark of the search for something pure and yet tangible, something spiritual and yet physical, something we can possess and yet which possesses and drives us. The Holy Grail
But do you know what? The archaeologists tell us that the closest thing they have ever found to this elusive Holy Grail is not a cup, but rather a cup holder... not a vessel itself, but an elaborately worked and finely crafted silver filigree, designed so that you can place a cup inside it. And this, we think, was the Holy Grail; this the object of all the romance and legend and pursuit of the age of chivalry -- not the cup itself, but something to hold the cup, and certainly not the contents of the cup, which had long since disappeared.
What an irony! That the symbol of all that human striving, all those years of longing and questing, should turn out not to be the real thing, but something made to hold the real thing, and, irony upon ironies, that even if the real vessel had been found, it would have still not have been the authentic object of men’s searches, for the treasure, the blood of Christ, was no longer there.
In other words, they had spent their energies looking for a vessel to contain a vessel to contain the treasure. So somehow it is that the mind of man runs to the paraphernalia and the trappings rather than the real thing.
I see this ordination service as the outward shell, the holder made for the cup. We have invested and are investing a great deal of energy in this occasion. We have cooked and cleaned, we have prepared and gotten all robed up, we have practiced our songs and some of you have driven many miles to get here.
But in the end, this service of ordination is an outer covering to hold another vessel, and not even that vessel is the real thing, the real object of our desires. We are here to seek and to find something else deeper.
Let me make clear what I am saying by asking the apostle Paul to speak. In the second letter to the church at Corinth, Paul is dealing with a group of folks for whom some of the trappings of religion were awfully important, struggling with a church for which the business of churchiness was terribly significant. He reminded them of what they really ought to be looking for:
II Corinthians 4:5-12, 16-18 "We have this treasure in earthen vessels."
We certainly do. Earthen vessels, common clay pots, old beat-up tubs and misshapen buckets! I begin today with reminding you how earthen we really are.
Just look at us: ministers, deacons, Christian leaders, every one of us a common clay pot and an earthen vessel. Why, not one of us would anybody look at twice and think about taking home, even at a bargain price.
Not one of us would anybody want to put on a museum shelf behind safety glass on display. There is nothing special about any of us, nothing extraordinary, nothing to suggest that we contain anything unusual.
The treasure of the Gospel, folks, has been entrusted to earthen vessels. Just ordinary people who are always in imminent danger of forgetting how earthen they are.
We in the ministry are earthen vessels. That is to say, we dare not claim to be any different from anyone else. We are subject to temptations, we are prone to self-justification, we are me-centered, like anyone else. Maybe even more so, for the Scripture says, "To whom much is given, of him shall much be required." Maybe we are even more subject to the failures and the frailty of this world than other people.
But Paul puts his finger on the heart of the earthenness issue right here in this passage, when he says that we have been given our treasure in these earthen, sinfully unclean, broken-down vessels for a reason. And the reason is to demonstrate to all the world that transcendent power, authentic power, comes not from us, but from God alone. The transcendent power belongs to God and not to us.
Paul, I say, puts his finger on the core issue because he identifies that issue as power. We want power. We want authority. We want to look good. The reason those medieval craftsmen built a silver holder for the original earthen vessel the Lord used was because it didn’t look good enough to them. They couldn’t accept the earthen vessel the way it was; they had to pretty it up. They had to make it look good.
And that is our temptation too. That is where our earthenness gets to us. We forget how earthen we are and we put on the trappings of religion, the paraphernalia of power, and forget that the power is God’s, not our own.
I cannot speak too forcefully about this issue. I have seen a score and more of careers ruined and churches torn up by ministers who forgot their earthenness and wanted to play the power games.
Mark my words, when you hear a preacher telling you that you should follow him, just because he said so, and he is God’s ordained man, then you have in your midst someone who has forgotten his earthenness.
The minister who tells you just to follow him, because he has on that robe and carries that Bible and sports that Reverend title has bought into the power game and has forgotten his earthenness.
Over and over I have seen this power game ruin capable preachers; usually, I have noticed, the ones who imagine that their pulpit prowess is the greatest since Paul and whose preaching productivity they suppose outstrips Peter. There is something so heady and so intoxicating about standing in this kind of place, Bible in hand, a couple of hundred hungry souls in front of you, a choir and organ throbbing behind you, that if you are not careful you will begin to believe your reviews. And it is deadly.
Remember how earthen you are. I tell you, every Sunday morning, I march to this back door to greet the people. Supposedly the purpose is to make them feel welcomed, and to catch their heartbeat, maybe. But you and I know what that’s really all about, don’t we? We know what that game is. That’s all about hearing them tell me what a wonderful message that was, and how they can live another week, now, just because of what I did. And I don’t really want them to tell me how earthen I am.
"Pastor, that was a wonderful message." And my mouth is saying, "Oh, you’re so kind" while my brain is saying, "Go on, go on, you perceptive person."
"Pastor, I think that was the best one yet." The mouth says, "Oh, do you really think so?" And the brain says, "What was wrong with last week?"
One Sunday I had preached at another church; it was Mother’s Day, and people bring all kinds of expectations to Mother’s Day, I guess. But one man strode up to me while I was basking in some compliment or another, and he burst my bubble in a hurry: "Preacher", he said, "that was without a doubt the single worst Mother’s Day message I have ever heard." Ouch, oooh; and then he went on to explain, "I went to all the trouble to get my aged mother from her home and bring her over here, for that."
Well, I bled for a month. Didn’t want to see that guy, didn’t want to preach, didn’t even want to go to church. But thank God for him; you know why? He brought me back in to touch with my earthenness. We have this treasure in earthen vessels, common clay pots, and that is to keep on reminding us that the transcendent power, the real power, is not ours, but God’s.
Remember how earthen you are.
II
But at the same time, take good care of the earthen vessel. It’s the only one you’ve got. Remember that you are earthen and common clay and subject to stress and strain. Take good care of it, because the wonderful thing is that our God is always coming in this kind of guise. Our God is Immanuel, he is word made flesh, and always comes in this kind of earthen vessel, so take good care of it.
It has been well said that when our God wanted to address his world in a definitive way, he did not chisel out more stone tablets -- we had already broken those; and he did not write more scriptures -- we have already plenty of those. But when our God wanted to address his world in a definitive way, he sent a human being. He came in the person of Jesus of Nazareth -- authentically and richly human.
Remember your earthenness, yes, but take good care of it, because this is the way our God chooses to speak to his world.
In the Book of Daniel there is an intriguing image; it is the image of an iron statue, made for strength and sturdiness, but with feet of clay. Daniel tells the king that this image means that it is altogether possible that the kingdom may look strong and powerful, but if the feet of the iron figure are made of brittle clay, it will fall. This Biblical image has become for us a synonym of moral failure and of inappropriate foundations.
And so, yes, remember how earthen you are, but take care lest the clay pot also have clay feet. Take care lest the foundations not be strong enough. Take care of yourself, lest the feet of clay be too brittle and not hold you up.
You see, I come back to where Paul is on this: the power issue. I have seen that those who have forgotten that they are earthen vessels and have arrogated power to themselves; I have seen that they have failed to take care of the foundations, they have fallen over feet of clay.
I can tell you stories all day of ministers who have not tended the foundations of their marriages, that most basic relationship, and have found themselves in alluring arms on some cold night, pretending that they, powerful men that they are, are above all that morality stuff. But the feet of clay have crumbled under them.
I can tell you of a hundred and more ministers who got so caught up in the money game that it destroyed them ... preachers who will tell you they will not come and preach for you for less than a thousand dollars, pastors who will do your wedding, yes, but for a $500 fee, servants of the church who wait around on their anniversary day for the purse and the keys to the new car, and why wasn’t it a Mercedes this year, just another Oldsmobile?
0h, minister brothers and sisters, tend to the earthenness of your vessel, take care of it, remember what it is, and that it may have feet of clay which will crumble and fall and great will be the fall thereof!
And you, people of God, take care of your earthen vessels appropriately. You do not help them by feeding their egos. You do not serve them well by pandering to their proclivities. You do not help them by pretending that the earthen vessel is a crystal goblet, when the truth is, he may be a cracked pot. Be authentic with them. Take care of these earthen vessels.
III
But above all, remember that what we contain is a treasure. We may be earthen, common, ordinary, clay pots. And these clay pots may be set down on feet and foundations of the basest and most brittle clay. But still and all, what we contain is a treasure. A treasure to be guarded, protected, cherished, and above all, a treasure to be shared.
Now Brother Dixon is a bank examiner. More than most of us he knows what is involved in making certain of a treasure. He knows how shoddy practices and inept management can whittle away at assets. He knows how bad judgment and risky policies can take the accumulated savings of many people and just wipe them out overnight. He knows what a treasure is and what is involved in keeping it.
The problem is that, Brother Troy, so many of the folks you’ve had to work with have devalued that treasure because it wasn’t their own. It belonged to somebody else, and that made it easy to play fast and loose with it. If the banker is not really risking his own money, but is just monkeying around with the depositors’ savings, well, maybe, if he is not prudent, he just forgets that it is treasure.
It just becomes Monopoly money, play money, and not a real treasure. When I was a kid, my best friend and I used to play Monopoly for hours on end. We would play so long that my friend’s grandmother claimed we ought to change the name of the game to Monotony! But the reason it took us so long -- I mean for day after day -- is that when one of us would get into debt, we would just cancel the debt and dip into the Monopoly bank and keep on playing. It was play money; it didn’t mean a thing! We didn’t own it.
But the money the bankers you regulate use is real money, even though they may treat it as if it were Monopoly money. And they are at their peril and put others in peril because they do not own that treasure themselves.
You and I have a real treasure. A real treasure. Just because it is hidden in a common clay pot does not diminish its value. Even if the common clay pot is standing on feet of clay and tumbles and falls, that treasure is real. But it will never be real enough until it is our own; it will be frittered away if we do not value its message as a message for us, our own treasure.
For the treasure you and I have custody of is the power of God unto salvation, to everyone who believes. And we must be first among the believers: our own treasure.
For the treasure you and I have in our hands is the word that God so loved the world that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life, and we must be among the whosoever.
For the priceless treasure in our trust is the incredible notion that God of Gods, light of light, creator of all that is, has poured himself into one solitary life, one earthen vessel, named Jesus Christ, and has chosen us in Him, has chosen me, and you, and you, and in a unique and wonderful way Troy Dixon. But Troy Dixon must treasure that himself as must I and you and you.
This countless, priceless treasure we have in our minds and in our hearts: what is it? It is certainly not the outer trappings of religion and ceremony and pomp and pageantry.
Nor is it this earthen vessel we call the minister, however fine he may be.
The treasure of the Kingdom is the good news of a redeeming Christ, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant: an earthen vessel, if you like ".. being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself -- no power games with him -- and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him -- not his preachers, not his ministers -- but God has highly exalted him and given him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."
My dear fellow earthen vessel, share with me and your brothers and sisters here your earthenness, and take care with us lest the feet of clay crumble; but above all, rejoice in this treasure. Let this be your prayer: "Have thine own way, Lord, have thine own way; thou are the potter, I am the clay. Mold me and make me after thy will, while I am waiting, yielded and still."
