But we have this treasure in clay jars… (II Corinthians 4:7)
The King James Version says earthen vessels, slightly more dignified. These were in Greek the ostrakinoi skeuē, the commonest, cheapest, clay
pots used for storing grain mainly – liquids, I am not sure. It’s from ostrakinoi
we get the English “ostracise” – the ancient Athenian democracy had a useful
procedure which might well be reinstated here… once a year the people could
vote on which prominent public nuisance they wanted expelled from the city for
10 years… and you voted on shards of ostrakinoi,
potsherds, pieces of exactly these broken clay pots which were lying all around.
Well then, according to Paul, God entrusts this treasure --
God’s love and truth, justice and mercy -- to us, so we are holding it, as it
were, in these common clay jars of our bodies and our minds, our thoughts, our
behaviour and our relationships. All are
fallible, all are fragile, all are in some ways broken, abused, exploited… We scarcely need to be reminded how
vulnerable our bodies are. Yet they are
heroic. In no way is Paul wanting to denigrate our bodies, but simply to point
out how shaky they can be, sliding down the path of entropy, monitored
dutifully by your GP. I came across a
curious poem by a minor English poet rejoicing in the name Cosmo
Monkhouse. In 1901 Cosmo realised he was
dying, and he wrote a poem to his body: So we must part, my body, you and I… Two lines read:
And
now, with all your faults, ‘twere hard to find
A slave more willing or a friend more true.
But it’s not our bodies only. The common clay pot to which God entrusts
love and truth is also our hearts and minds, and all we make of the world
around us, and how we affect other people.
You have only to look at the church to realise what a dog’s breakfast we
can make in some quarters of simplicity and a gospel of love and mercy – or
listen to the NZ Parliament debating amendments to their opening prayer.
The gospel, God’s truth in Jesus, is incarnated in us, for
better, for worse. I think it was Julian
of Norwich who said, In us he is
perfectly at home.[1] In John’s Gospel we find, he abides in us.[2] Paul writes also: Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being
renewed day by day.[3] The point of our prayer, and more broadly of
any contemplative life, is that we make space, daily and hourly, in all our
imperfection, and amid the detritus of our failures, for the gentle, humble
Spirit of the Risen Christ, making all things new.
[1] I
cannot reference this quotation, but it’s there somewhere in A Book of Showings. Indeed, this mutual abiding is a major theme
for Julian.
[2]
John 15:4ff
[3] II
Corinthians 4:16
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