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mentioned last week that this is the third church where I have served as pastor. I confess that I rather enjoy the start up period in a new church– not that I have any plans to leave anytime soon and start over someplace else! But it is sort of like falling in love again– everything is bright and fresh, the good will of the congregation is at an all-time high, people are willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. For a while, it feels like you can do no wrong. There comes a time in every pastor’s tenure, however, when the honeymoon is over. Members of the congregation suddenly realize you have feet of clay. You are not always in a good mood. You have shortcomings that go along with your gifts. You are not equally competent in all areas of congregational life. And in my case in particular, try as I might, sometimes, well– I can act like a jerk. (Just ask Cheryl and the girls. They will tell you.)

       Of course, pastors learn the same thing about the congregation. The other day Ashley was speaking with her husband Bob about a particularly troublesome conversation she had had with a church member. Bob, who is a clinical social worker, said he thought the person was “O-D-D.” Thinking it was some new clinical term, she asked, O-D-D? What does that mean? Is it like ADHD? No, said Bob. O-D-D. “Odd.” Well, I thought, that diagnoses half the members of this congregation!

       There is another phase, however, that comes after the honeymoon-is-over phase and this is the phase that I think we have begun to enter in the past couple of years. It’s the kind of place you hopefully get to with a loved one after several years of marriage. You recognize each other’s faults, shortcomings, warts and moles, and you still see the good in them. You still love each other, warts and all.

S o here’s the thing about the Apostle Paul. Reading his letters, you are clear about a couple of things. He had unsurpassed commitment. He had a first rate theological mind. He was a master of rhetoric. But you get the impression that, face to face, he could be somewhat overbearing. He must have been rather difficult to work with. Reading between the lines, you get the impression that he was his own worst enemy. Yet despite all that, Paul practically singlehandedly carried the gospel into the gentile world. With all of Paul’s faults and shortcomings, the Christian church would not exist today were it not for Paul’s efforts.

       So, he writes, “We have this treasure in clay jars.” This is how it works. The light of the Gospel is carried into the world by flawed, fallible, vulnerable, imperfect human beings. We act, even on our best days, with mixed motives. We sometimes betray our own highest ideals. We often don’t walk the walk as well as we talk the talk. Nevertheless, this is who God uses to bring the Gospel into the world. It has never been any other way.

       Paul insists on this because he and the Corinthians have had a tough time with each other. His last trip, apparently, didn’t go so well. Sometime between his last visit and writing this letter, he wrote them another letter “out of much distress and anguish of heart and with many tears.” That letter seems to have helped, but there are still problems between them. Their human vulnerability and imperfections keep getting in the way. Nevertheless, Paul argues, this very vulnerability is a part of God’s plan. “We have this treasure in clay jars,” Paul writes, “so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.”

       Once again, I would like to dip in to Eugene Peterson’s wonderful translation of Paul’s words:

       Remember, our Message is not about ourselves; we’re proclaiming Jesus Christ, the Master. All we are is messengers, errand runners from Jesus for you. It started when God said, “Light up the darkness!” and our lives filled up with light as we saw and understood God in the face of Christ, all bright and beautiful. If you only look at us, you might well miss the brightness. We carry this precious Message around in the unadorned clay pots of our ordinary lives. That’s to prevent anyone from confusing God’s incomparable power with us. As it is, there’s not much chance of that. You know for yourselves that we’re not much to look at. We’ve been surrounded and battered by troubles, but we’re not demoralized; we’re not sure what to do, but we know that God knows what to do; we’ve been spiritually terrorized, but God hasn’t left our side; we’ve been thrown down, but we haven’t broken. What they did to Jesus, they do to us—trial and torture, mockery and murder; what Jesus did among them, he does in us—he lives! Our lives are at constant risk for Jesus’ sake, which makes Jesus’ life all the more evident in us. While we’re going through the worst, you’re getting in on the best!

S o how is it that, time and again, the most painful conversations Ashley and I have with members of the congregation have to do with people feeling unworthy, unable, incompetent to really be used by God in their own lives? Most of us have an easier time accepting human vulnerability in others than we do in ourselves. We have an easier time seeing how God is at work in the lives of those around us than in seeing how God is at work in our own lives. We somehow imagine that the other people in the pew next to us have things together in a way that eludes us, while our own lives are just one big shameful mess. We believe it when Paul says that God works through ordinary people, we just don’t believe it is true about us. Look around! Aren’t I right? You think you are the only one here this morning who feels that way! More people than you know, sitting right next to you, are as filled with self-doubt as you are– including those up front who are leading worship!

       Yet this is who God has called. Not in spite of, but because of. Our faults, our gifts, our fears, our successes, our failures, our hopes and dreams, all are part of who we are, and God uses all of it for God’s purposes, if we open our lives to God’s call. Part of what it means to be in community with one another is that we help each other discover our gifts and our call. The promise of Christian community is that God has given each of us a gift, and no one is left out because they are not worthy. In fact, those parts of your life that you think disqualify you may just be your most important qualification. Good Lord, look at Paul! He was a murderer! He persecuted the church! You couldn’t have picked a more unlikely vehicle to carry the gospel into the gentile world. Yet this is who God called. As Darryl Guder puts it, “We are unlikely vessels for God’s witness on earth, but that unlikeliness is the very cause of our life of thanksgiving to God for the gift of God’s great treasure.”

       So in this, Paul is not just deflecting attention away from his own shortcomings by saying this is all a part of God’s plan. He is holding up the blemished clay pot of his own life for all to see and saying, God is using me. And God can use you too. For at the end of the day, this is not about us, but about God, and the world God so loves. We serve God better when we come to terms with our own vulnerabilities, our own shadow-side, our own sinfulness– to use a solid, if underused, theological term– than when we pretend to ourselves or to others that God is using us because of our merits. Truth be told, if you get to know us, most of us are a little O-D-D. Yet in these earthen vessels God conveys great treasure.

       I would like to close today with a body prayer. Some of you love them, some of you hate them! I like them because they help ideas move from our head into our gut. Will you stand, if you are able, and join with me, if you are willing?

       You created the stars

              and the whirling planets.

       You created the earth

              and all the life that fills it.

       You created me to create.

       But I do not understand,

       And I feel unable.

       O Lord of all Creation,

              stir me to create with you.                  ✞

© 2007 Jeffrey K. Krehbiel