2 Corinthians 4:7-12
7 But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. 8 We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; 10 always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. 11 For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh. 12 So death is at work in us, but life in you.
If you have every eaten at a restaurant, at some point you have had bad service. Perhaps through circumstances out of their control, the server was poor in attention to your needs, but also just because of ineptitude, the server was quite inadequate in service to you as the customer. They never took your order, the food was cold, the food was wrong, you never received silverware, etc. We all have had a bad experience with poor service.
But we have also had poor service when it comes to church leaders. Whether the Minister, or the church board, or your deacon, or even just another person sitting in the pew, we all have a bad experience with someone in church. Perhaps the Minister was impatient with us when we asked for some information or advice. Perhaps the Pastor was not even available to talk, or even willing to return a phone call or email. Perhaps the Teaching Elder was unhelpful when he or she offered advice. Whether the poor experience was having no answers, no solutions, no growth, or transformation, or having plenty of criticisms, judgments and complaining. We all have had a bad experience with poor church leaders.
The results from this poor service are the same in the restaurant world; we stop coming back. In our being offended, we disconnect from the congregation and from the leadership. We transfer our membership elsewhere, we resign our commission, and/or we stop attending church believing the whole endeavor to be hypocritical nonsense. But this is not the first time and place for a congregation or people to be offended or in conflict with church leadership. The Corinthians had a problem with Paul and Paul had a problem with the Corinthians. Many in the Corinthian congregation thought Paul had issues and they had bad experiences under his leadership and were really interested in replacing him with one more to their liking. Thus, we have the Second Letter to the Corinthians. Paul trying to reconcile with the Corinthians and some of the Corinthians being offended by Paul.
Paul has many points, but one of the most important for our situations where we also have poor leadership, is that we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. Every church leader, the good and bad, are the clay jars and the Gospel of God is the treasure. Clay jars are fragile and breakable, so too are church leaders. None are the treasure; they only are the vessels for the treasure. None are the message, but only the messengers. Paul’s point is that no church leader is Jesus Christ, the church leader’s calling is to point to Jesus Christ. Perhaps then our expectations are too high for the church leaders, when we simply expect them to be Jesus Christ instead of merely a human disciple and witness of Jesus Christ. This doesn’t mean that Church Leaders can’t and shouldn’t be better, it means they are not yet perfect. Treasure in clay jars, not the treasure themselves.
I make no attempt to justify the poor decisions and poor attempts at leadership of church leaders and of myself. But our calling is not to be the treasure, the church already has that in Jesus Christ. Our calling is to be faithful clay jars amid our situations, as best we can, with what we have, with our strengths and our weaknesses. That means we are going to break, and we are going to fail. We will lose our self-control, we will not have the answers, and we will have moments of being Pharisees instead of being apostles. But what else can we really be, but the clay jars we are in this moment and in this place with our weaknesses, with our issues, and with our limitations? We are the clay jars.
Perhaps then the real point Paul is trying to make is that our faith should be in the treasure and not the clay vessels. Christ Jesus and He alone should be the object of the Church’s faith and Christ alone. Will he ever be impatient even when the Minister is brash? Will he ever be unwise and unknowledgeable even when the Pastor is clueless? Will he ever be Pharisaical even when the Teaching Elder judges guilty? If this is who He is and what He does, then the object of our faith can only be Christ and no other, including Christ’s ministers and leaders. Christ is the treasure.
Does this mean then that we don’t need church or any leaders of any churches? It means no such thing. It means that our covenantal lives together are under the Lordship and Grace of Jesus Christ. But because we are under Christ, we are also under the ones appointed by Christ to bear responsibilities for others. But their responsibility is never to be Christ, but to serve under Christ. We will always be clay jars, but we always graciously bear the treasure also. We can trust church leaders but only because we trust in Christ. And if we have no faith in church leaders, we might also not have faith in Christ who appointed them in the first place.
My friends, I have no doubt that you have had a bad experience with some church leader, and it might even be me. I have no wish to justify our poor decisions, and our poor leadership. I only wish to remind you that we all are also clay jars, just like you. This means our calling was never to be your Jesus, our calling was to be a human witness to the already perfect Jesus. You can put your trust in him, and we can live our lives together under his rule. But you can trust Jesus’ ministers not because they are perfect, but because we have this treasure in clay jars. Even when we stink at our callings, and we do and we will, the object of our faith and our Master is really Christ and never the Church leader. But we can follow our church leaders because Christ is the treasure within His leaders, cracks and all. Amen.
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