Jars of Clay

sermon by Torin Eikler
Youth Sunday
2 Corinthians 4:6-10,16-18

I really like Tuperware. I grew up with the stuff, and I have fond memories of juice popsicles on plastic sticks shared by children whose mothers were having some kind of party – if you can call sitting around looking at Tuperware a “party.” My mother still has some of the pieces of the Tuperware lunch box that I carried to school. It was about so big and so deep and there was a container for my sandwich, one for my fruit, one for my vegetable sticks, and a cup for my juice. It all fit just so, and there was a snapping handle that also served to ensure the lid didn’t come off. Most days, I wished that it was one of the metal ones with Batman or Superman on it, but it was much more useful. I would love to send Sebastian to school with his sandwich, veggies, dessert, and juice all in their own special containers so nothing gets squashed or spilled, and as for the teasing it might invite, hey it builds character … right?


While I’m pretty sure that you all know what Tuperware is even if you aren’t familiar with the pieces I described, I’m certain that Paul had no inkling that anything like it would ever be commonplace. Even if it he had imagined a lunchbox of his own, though, I think he would have stayed with the clay jar imagery. They don’t seal with that comforting thump. They don’t stack well in the refrigerator, and they are a lot heavier. But, they a much better representation of human beings – which is what Paul was inferring when he said, “we have this treasure in clay jars.”

How so? I’m glad you asked…. While we can’t survive for long in the microwave and we can’t provide a measure of refrigeration when stacked the right way, we are very much like clay jars in two important ways. We are vessels that carry something essential – “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” And, we are quite capable of breaking. In fact, we are – most of us – a bit more fragile than a clay jar.

We hear harsh words being spread by the rumor mill, and a little crack forms in the hard shell we have made for ourselves. We fail to live up to the expectations (our own or someone else’s), and our edges get chipped. We hurt someone close to us, and the damage spreads. Each day we collect a dozen new cracks and chips. Each evening we patch them up the best we can so that nobody else will see our flaws.

But it doesn’t ever last, and when our brokenness is put on display, we apologize…, we run…, we throw a quick patch on to cover our shame until we can deal with it all by ourselves. We call it weakness, and we do everything we can to hide it from the world. Our fear of discovery is so strong at times that we even avoid or ignore the pain and brokenness of others lest it trigger something similar in us.

That is taking brokenness to a whole new level. It’s making an idol of sorts out of appearances. We let others go uncomforted for fear that the force of their suffering might be enough to break open the façade we have carefully cobbled together. You know what I mean … how we pretend we don’t see the person crying or raging right in front of us. We say that we are doing it so that we don’t embarrass them, but we really just don’t know what to do. It seems too simple or too hard to reach out with a word or a hand and offer comfort. When we do that, when we ignore the suffering of others that way, we squelch the light of Christ that is our treasure, but it doesn’t have to be that way.

I don’t mean to imply that there is a way we can be un-broken. It doesn’t work that way. Even the glory of God in the face of Jesus cannot change that …, but it can go us one better than simply un-broken. It can make us whole – that light that shines within us.

The love of God in Christ is sticky enough to hold us together. It is strong enough to withstand the shock of insult and failure without collapsing under the weight. It is supple enough to bend and stretch with the needs of daily life. And, it is eternal and abundant so that we need not fear being left to our own devices once again.

All this and more …. The Spirit of Christ can transform us into beacons. It works to do it all the time, pushing at the cracks and imperfections we have accumulated over the years, and if we stop covering them up, all those gaps we have become windows. And, the light of God’s love living within us seeps through the gaps, shines through the holes, and makes us a light on the hill guiding travelers to safety and rest.

We are all broken people - clay jars covered by the marks of life. And, that is exactly why yet God chooses to make us the vessels of divine love and grace. Filled with a treasure so valuable and so abundant that we cannot afford to hold it in, hoarding it like gold or food or whatever you love to stockpile, our weakness becomes our greatest strength – our greatest gift to the world – the light of the knowledge of God’s glory in the face of Christ.

Don’t hide it. Let it shine!