Jars of Clay; Earthen Vessels, Cracked Pots

"We Have This Treasure in Earthen Vessels"

Now this is a handy quote, coming, as you well know, from the good Apostle’s pen. (More accurately, from the old squinter’s amanuensis’ quill.) The idea is that the deposit of eternal life through Jesus is, though priceless, secured only in fragile human hearts. Not exactly Fort Knox! In fact, our lives are so insecure in the face of life’s Hard Knocks that it takes the watch care of angels and the Holy Spirit himself to push back the Law of Spiritual Entropy that would let the treasure leak out in a trice. In my case, the jar of clay is likely a mere cracked pot. (No sniggers, please!)

Here in India I find extra time for meditation and prayer—is this an Ashram? You see, my one daily duty here is to make my bed—if I care to (which I do). It takes all of 35 seconds. Other than that, a hot breakfast is set before me a 7 a.m. and a hot lunch at 1 p.m., finished off by a hot supper around 6:30. Laundry? Just toss it in the basket and it comes back a day or so later, having been washed and then dried on the sunny line out back of the guesthouse.

I’ve been reading mornings from Hebrews chapters four and five about Jesus as High Priest. An office he could no more arrogate to himself than could the Jewish High Priests of old. It was a position awarded him by the will of the Father. Even though his was not a position in the Aaronic priesthood of Israel, where the High Priest went once yearly into the Super Holy Place (scary it was, too!) to offer atonement for the sins of the People, Jesus still had to prove faithful in his duties. This he did not by offering animal sacrifices (which could never atone for sin anyway, merely pointing to the Suffering Servant) but offering his own life as the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. He is of the order of Mechizedek (King of Righteousness), that mysterious figure in Genesis who hinted of an eternal being, since he came from nowhere and disappeared into history as ephemerally. Thus Melchi-zedek is a type of the Eternal Righteous One. And get this: Abraham, the greatest figure in Jewish salvation history, paid this King of Salem a tithe of all his booty. This shows that there is a man greater than even Abraham—unthinkable though this was to Jews. So the writer supports the claim that Jesus Christ is the only true redeemer of sinners—those of us who are mere jars of clay, yea cracked pots.

Now why this Bible lecture, when these blogs are supposed to be a barrel of laughs?

Because in the context of India one can feel and touch the scope of our place in the world.

I see each morning a star high in the eastern sky as first light breaks. Early this week it was nestled close to the moon—much like the Muslims picture it in their icon. (They follow a lunar month, you know, and that’s why the holy month of Ramadan can come at any season of the year over time.) By yesterday the moon was a barely visible sliver far to the east of the star. Today it was too faint to show at all. But dawn soon comes and the sun rises behind the mountains, its brilliance hiding the moon, the stars, and the lights of the city on the mountain top a few miles above the campus. At the same time I hear blasts of fireworks celebrating a Hindu holiday as well as the blare of chants and music coming from the little Hindu puja shrines. A neighbor family living in the shadow of the college’s walls lights incense, puts out some food and worships one of the Hindu pantheon. I see the man squatting on the floor before the colorful photos of his god, bowing and swaying with the music praising Shiva or Kali, most likely. And the huts of the laborers camped next to the business building going up near the college have a spark of fire throwing shadows of the devotees beginning their day. And I think how in the two or three states of India's 28 that stretch from here south and then east to the plains, are home to over 400 million Hindus, not to mention the two billion souls in China and India and all the scattered races of our species clinging to life as best they can over the face of the earth.

This all gives me a sensation of the worldview a Christian embraces. We know we are on a tiny planet sweeping around a so-so sun lost in the billion stars of our galaxy, which in turn is merely one of billions of galaxies in the infinity of space.

Yet God knows we are here and actually cares about the jars and pots limping around Earth’s crust, fit only for the landfill. While God’s throne is in Heaven—far beyond all space and time I imagine—he has chosen to build his “Presidential Library” on this planet, where he will immortalize his administration’s accomplishments and display his kingly exploits. Of all the real estate out there, our Creator has chosen to call this home-away-from-home. You see His Son came to live here when He was in training to become the eternal High Priest, embedding himself with the clay vessels he intends to restore to usefulness and even to glory. When he is done, this will not be museum with Madame Trusseau's convincing look-alikes. It will be a living museum with reclaimed vessels proclaiming daily the praises of the one who came to rescue them from the incinerator to which they were headed. As Galatians puts it, “you are His masterpiece….”

So as I walk in the cool breezes of first light, with an eye on the moon and stars, I am stung by the realization that where we live Jesus still calls his “home-away-from-home.” I wouldn’t call it a vacation home—no way. It was more a place where he went to submit to the School of Obedience, the boot camp where he would go through something more rigorous than that of the Green Berets or Navy Seals. All of that necessary so he would not fail in his rescue effort.

And he knows my name! I live in a place dear to him. Fond to his boyhood memories. Location of his Greatest Feat of All Time.

So I care not whether you call me a jar of clay or a cracked pot—I’m in. That’s all that counts. He is not ashamed to count me among his band of brothers.

So while I am about to go to my assigned teaching duties here today, I have my plan. Three class hours. First I’ll lecture on family ethics. Then Shivraj Mahendra will come in the second session to talk about ethical issues in India (he has just published a book on the problem of pornography and sexual exploitation here), leaving the third hour for a look ahead to the term paper and the final exam next week. I’m really glad for Shivraj relieving me, since today is the day when my close cousin Paul Carlson will be buried in Cohasset and I am grieving my distance from this family event.

“My plan for the day….” I’ve been told God gets a good laugh when we tell him our plans!

After chapel, Anita, Shivraj’s wife tells me he is ill and won’t be able to come. O no! OK—I’ll ask Dr. Cherian to take a session—he knows just about everything going on in this country. Uh-oh! His secretary says he is in his own classes. Suddenly this cracked pot has all the water for the day trickling onto the ground.

Now what? I have no time to bone up on my notes from lectures heard other years on the "Indian context." I am a bit down inside. I have covered all the other material in the course. I’m just a hopeless potsherd sitting here baking in the merciless sun with an inner voice (is it Ellie’s or Eric’s) jeering “I told you before you cannot expect to wing your way through things!”

“But God….!”

This is one of my favorite phrases sprinkled through Scripture! When the Hobbitses all seem doomed, when the Lion lays slain on the bloody altar of Narnia, when the bars of steel are closing their deathly jaws on those who are unprepared, then out of nowhere comes the rescue.

Professor Francis, who is also teaching ethics to another class, comes to ask if he can be of help, as he heard I was looking for a lifeline. We decide to combine our classes in the conference room. He looks forward to my perspective; I look for him to make sense out of what church leaders face in India today. For two hours we improvise a discussion on topics spontaneously suggested by the 40 in the class. Result? Fantastic! Probably the best class I’ve been part of here at NTC. The students are engaged and after thank us both for a memorable experience.

To me it proves one of my life mottos: Why prepare when you can improvise? Why sweat it when God has a plan? (Ellie and Eric, you can stop rolling your eyes—please!)

And the bonus? No one can take any credit but Him—the one who calls this place a soon-to-be-renovated home and proudly calls us his brothers and sisters.

Jars of clay? Cracked Pot?

Who cares?

He came to us. And the rest—every day—is HIStory.