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Here's the sermon that I shared this morning at St Margaret Bowers Gifford and St Chad's Vange:
St Paul told the Christians in Corinth that they had the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ in their hearts, but that this treasure was in clay jars, so that it might be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and did not come from them (2 Corinthians 4. 6 - 12).
If the clay jar, the container of the light, were to be perfectly formed, then the light inside would not be seen from the outside. The light of Christ would effectively be hidden as people would look at our perfect life and not Christ, because they would only see us.
Instead, St Paul says, because we are not perfect and have difficulties and flaws, we are like cracked clay jars, meaning that it is then clear that where we act or speak with love and compassion, this is because of Christ in us, rather than being something which is innate to us or simply our decision alone. He used this image of light in containers seen through cracks, or thin translucent clay, to assure the Corinthian Christians that they had the light of God in their lives, despite the fallibility and frailty of those lives.
The artist Anna Sikorska helped the congregation at St Martin-in-the-Fields reflect on these themes through ‘Light the Well’, a community art project which she is undertook together with the congregation, wider community and artists and craftspeoples group. Her installation was set in the Light Well of St Martin’s during November and December 2017 (see images above). It was the culmination of a community art project in which individuals from across St Martin’s – church congregation, Chinese community, clergy, staff and members of the International Group – gathered together over time and tables of clay to carefully form the porcelain lanterns which filled the Light Well. Each porcelain lantern was filled with light from a simple string of lamps.
Conversations around the tables when making the lanterns touched on ‘cracked pots’, the continental tradition of ‘St Martin’s day’ paper lanterns, networks of sea buoys, St Paul describing light inside clay vessels, the fragility of our lives and bodies, ‘broken but not crushed’ and Leonard Cohen’s lines: ‘Forget your perfect offering / There is a crack in everything / That’s how the light gets in.’
The project involved a large number of porcelain lanterns (glazed ceramic globes) made by laying strips of porcelain onto a round support. The size, surface decoration and character of each lantern differed, although the base material - and overall look - was consistent white ceramic, roughly made.
Porcelain clay glows with a transparency individual to itself but those who made lanterns realised that, in order to be as translucent as possible, the strips of porcelain needed to be as thin as possible. Once made, they were fired and the lanterns were then suitable for being outside. They developed cracks in the firing, through which the light inside was seen. In the Light Well at St Martin’s, these lanterns were joined together with cord covering the stone floor in a random constellation. The cord also connected a light bulb within each lantern, so each one shone from within.
These cracked translucent lanterns lit from within were a visible realisation of St Paul’s image of light in clay jars. By linking the lanterns together, this installation also highlighted another aspect of this passage.
St Paul writes that ‘We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies.’ He writes of us in the plural. We are afflicted, but not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. It is as we come together to engage with affliction, perplexity, forsakenness, and being struck down that we carry in our body the death of Jesus and show the life of Jesus. It is as we come together, linked, like the lanterns, by the light of Christ that we become the Body of Christ.
So, in this passage, St Paul suggests that there are fractures and flaws running through each of our lives and that these imperfections actually enable the light within to be seen more clearly. As a result, he suggests that our vulnerabilities are the most precious aspect of our lives; of more significance than a confident pride in ourselves that will not acknowledge weakness.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote that to ‘be a Christian does not mean to be religious in a particular way, to make something of oneself ... on the basis of some method or other, but to be ... the [person] that Christ creates in us. It is not the religious act that makes the Christian, but participation in the sufferings of God in the secular life …
following Christ results in the liberation of the self to exist for and with others .. "The Christian ... must drink the earthly cup to the dregs, and only in his doing so is the crucified and risen Lord with him, and he crucified and risen with Christ." Bonhoeffer could thus say that Christ takes hold of Christians at the centre of their lives, while at the same time recognizing that it also Christ who launches Christians into a world of suffering and difference. Hurled into the midst of this world, Christians are not to assume a sense of privilege but are to relinquish privilege for the sake of others …
To be claimed by others is … to participate in the vulnerable God's existence for us. In contrast to a "religion" that can only offer smug reassurance, bourgeois comfort, and pious quietism, the "new life" to which Jesus calls his followers is fraught with risk.
Bonhoeffer … claimed that God is revealed in the world precisely in those places that the world is most prone to ignore: in suffering, rejection, and scorn. The God of Jesus Christ takes these anathemas, makes them God's own, and invites all disciples to participate in them.’
(https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Religionless+Christianity+and+vulnerable+discipleship%3A+The+interfaith...-a098313403)
Bonhoeffer was saying and seeing what St Paul says and sees in today’s Epistle; each of us are like cracked or translucent clay jars because of our flaws and vulnerabilities. It is through these lines of stress – the suffering, rejection and scorn with which we engage - that the light of Christ is seen. It is as we join together in living for the sake of others – linked together as the lanterns were linked in the Light the Well installation – that we become the Body of Christ and reveal him most fully in the world. In this way, the Light the Well community art project and installation showed what it means to be the Body of Christ – the Church – in the world today. May we also see that for ourselves today. Amen.
Lord Jesus, in your face we see the light of the knowledge of the glory of God. Your light in our lives is like a flame inside a cracked clay jar, with your light seen through the lines of stress and tension that characterise our lives. As flawed people in a fragile world, we recognise that there is a crack in everything. We recognise, too, that it is through the cracks in our existence that your light gets in and shines out. We share in the vulnerability and suffering that was your experience of death in order that your life is also seen as being our strength in weakness. May we not be crushed, driven to despair, forsaken or destroyed, but in the stresses and tensions of our lives know your power loving and sustaining us. May we no longer strive after perfect offerings and pray instead that every heart to love with come, but as a refugee. Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.
Lord Jesus, in this wilderness before the promised land, we pray for all who are dispossessed and homeless. In their wilderness wanderings may they seek rest not only in a material land of promise but also in the one who left all he had to serve humanity, die and be raised to glory. In the tension of the now and the not yet, we pray for all who have asked for healing or release and to whom it has not been granted. In the depths of their loss may they encounter one whose preaching released long dead imprisoned souls. In these times between times, may we fully utilise the gifts of your Spirit - gifts of community and relationship, gifts of forgiveness and life-giving – to imagine new possibilities in the midst of the old problems of our world. Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.
Lord Jesus, who in suffering and then death was made nothing, we bring to you those who are experiencing loss through suffering and bereavement. We ask that nothing and no-one will trivialise their loss and that in the heart of their loss they will experience rebirth and resurrection. Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.
Lord Jesus, you are the light of the world and the light in our darkness. May your light be a flame to build warmth in our hearts towards family, neighbours and all those we meet. We place in your care all those we come to remember today. Give us, we pray, comfort in our anxiety and fear, courage and strength in our suffering, patience and compassion in our caring, consolation in our grieving. But above all, give us hope now and always. Lord, in your strength and vulnerability, hear our prayer.
Lord Jesus, through your rising from the grave, you broke the power of the grave, you broke the power of death and condemned death itself to die. As we celebrate this great triumph may we also make it a model for our living. Help us to identify in our lives all that should rightly die - redundant relationships, tired habits, fruitless longings. Resurrect in our lives faith, hope and love as surely as you raised Jesus Christ from the grave. Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.
Lord, may your light enlighten us in our decisions and be a fire to purify us from all pride and selfishness. Set our hearts on fire with love for you, so that we may love you with all our heart, with all our mind, with all our soul, and with all our strength, and our neighbours as ourselves. So that by keeping your commandments we may glorify you, the giver of all good gifts. Lord, in your strength and vulnerability, hear our prayer.
Blessing
Enlightenment in our decisions, purification from pride and selfishness, strength in weakness, God’s power loving and sustaining us. May those blessings of almighty God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, rest upon you and remain with you always. Amen.
If the clay jar, the container of the light, were to be perfectly formed, then the light inside would not be seen from the outside. The light of Christ would effectively be hidden as people would look at our perfect life and not Christ, because they would only see us.
Instead, St Paul says, because we are not perfect and have difficulties and flaws, we are like cracked clay jars, meaning that it is then clear that where we act or speak with love and compassion, this is because of Christ in us, rather than being something which is innate to us or simply our decision alone. He used this image of light in containers seen through cracks, or thin translucent clay, to assure the Corinthian Christians that they had the light of God in their lives, despite the fallibility and frailty of those lives.
The artist Anna Sikorska helped the congregation at St Martin-in-the-Fields reflect on these themes through ‘Light the Well’, a community art project which she is undertook together with the congregation, wider community and artists and craftspeoples group. Her installation was set in the Light Well of St Martin’s during November and December 2017 (see images above). It was the culmination of a community art project in which individuals from across St Martin’s – church congregation, Chinese community, clergy, staff and members of the International Group – gathered together over time and tables of clay to carefully form the porcelain lanterns which filled the Light Well. Each porcelain lantern was filled with light from a simple string of lamps.
Conversations around the tables when making the lanterns touched on ‘cracked pots’, the continental tradition of ‘St Martin’s day’ paper lanterns, networks of sea buoys, St Paul describing light inside clay vessels, the fragility of our lives and bodies, ‘broken but not crushed’ and Leonard Cohen’s lines: ‘Forget your perfect offering / There is a crack in everything / That’s how the light gets in.’
The project involved a large number of porcelain lanterns (glazed ceramic globes) made by laying strips of porcelain onto a round support. The size, surface decoration and character of each lantern differed, although the base material - and overall look - was consistent white ceramic, roughly made.
Porcelain clay glows with a transparency individual to itself but those who made lanterns realised that, in order to be as translucent as possible, the strips of porcelain needed to be as thin as possible. Once made, they were fired and the lanterns were then suitable for being outside. They developed cracks in the firing, through which the light inside was seen. In the Light Well at St Martin’s, these lanterns were joined together with cord covering the stone floor in a random constellation. The cord also connected a light bulb within each lantern, so each one shone from within.
These cracked translucent lanterns lit from within were a visible realisation of St Paul’s image of light in clay jars. By linking the lanterns together, this installation also highlighted another aspect of this passage.
St Paul writes that ‘We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies.’ He writes of us in the plural. We are afflicted, but not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. It is as we come together to engage with affliction, perplexity, forsakenness, and being struck down that we carry in our body the death of Jesus and show the life of Jesus. It is as we come together, linked, like the lanterns, by the light of Christ that we become the Body of Christ.
So, in this passage, St Paul suggests that there are fractures and flaws running through each of our lives and that these imperfections actually enable the light within to be seen more clearly. As a result, he suggests that our vulnerabilities are the most precious aspect of our lives; of more significance than a confident pride in ourselves that will not acknowledge weakness.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote that to ‘be a Christian does not mean to be religious in a particular way, to make something of oneself ... on the basis of some method or other, but to be ... the [person] that Christ creates in us. It is not the religious act that makes the Christian, but participation in the sufferings of God in the secular life …
following Christ results in the liberation of the self to exist for and with others .. "The Christian ... must drink the earthly cup to the dregs, and only in his doing so is the crucified and risen Lord with him, and he crucified and risen with Christ." Bonhoeffer could thus say that Christ takes hold of Christians at the centre of their lives, while at the same time recognizing that it also Christ who launches Christians into a world of suffering and difference. Hurled into the midst of this world, Christians are not to assume a sense of privilege but are to relinquish privilege for the sake of others …
To be claimed by others is … to participate in the vulnerable God's existence for us. In contrast to a "religion" that can only offer smug reassurance, bourgeois comfort, and pious quietism, the "new life" to which Jesus calls his followers is fraught with risk.
Bonhoeffer … claimed that God is revealed in the world precisely in those places that the world is most prone to ignore: in suffering, rejection, and scorn. The God of Jesus Christ takes these anathemas, makes them God's own, and invites all disciples to participate in them.’
(https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Religionless+Christianity+and+vulnerable+discipleship%3A+The+interfaith...-a098313403)
Bonhoeffer was saying and seeing what St Paul says and sees in today’s Epistle; each of us are like cracked or translucent clay jars because of our flaws and vulnerabilities. It is through these lines of stress – the suffering, rejection and scorn with which we engage - that the light of Christ is seen. It is as we join together in living for the sake of others – linked together as the lanterns were linked in the Light the Well installation – that we become the Body of Christ and reveal him most fully in the world. In this way, the Light the Well community art project and installation showed what it means to be the Body of Christ – the Church – in the world today. May we also see that for ourselves today. Amen.
Lord Jesus, in your face we see the light of the knowledge of the glory of God. Your light in our lives is like a flame inside a cracked clay jar, with your light seen through the lines of stress and tension that characterise our lives. As flawed people in a fragile world, we recognise that there is a crack in everything. We recognise, too, that it is through the cracks in our existence that your light gets in and shines out. We share in the vulnerability and suffering that was your experience of death in order that your life is also seen as being our strength in weakness. May we not be crushed, driven to despair, forsaken or destroyed, but in the stresses and tensions of our lives know your power loving and sustaining us. May we no longer strive after perfect offerings and pray instead that every heart to love with come, but as a refugee. Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.
Lord Jesus, in this wilderness before the promised land, we pray for all who are dispossessed and homeless. In their wilderness wanderings may they seek rest not only in a material land of promise but also in the one who left all he had to serve humanity, die and be raised to glory. In the tension of the now and the not yet, we pray for all who have asked for healing or release and to whom it has not been granted. In the depths of their loss may they encounter one whose preaching released long dead imprisoned souls. In these times between times, may we fully utilise the gifts of your Spirit - gifts of community and relationship, gifts of forgiveness and life-giving – to imagine new possibilities in the midst of the old problems of our world. Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.
Lord Jesus, who in suffering and then death was made nothing, we bring to you those who are experiencing loss through suffering and bereavement. We ask that nothing and no-one will trivialise their loss and that in the heart of their loss they will experience rebirth and resurrection. Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.
Lord Jesus, you are the light of the world and the light in our darkness. May your light be a flame to build warmth in our hearts towards family, neighbours and all those we meet. We place in your care all those we come to remember today. Give us, we pray, comfort in our anxiety and fear, courage and strength in our suffering, patience and compassion in our caring, consolation in our grieving. But above all, give us hope now and always. Lord, in your strength and vulnerability, hear our prayer.
Lord Jesus, through your rising from the grave, you broke the power of the grave, you broke the power of death and condemned death itself to die. As we celebrate this great triumph may we also make it a model for our living. Help us to identify in our lives all that should rightly die - redundant relationships, tired habits, fruitless longings. Resurrect in our lives faith, hope and love as surely as you raised Jesus Christ from the grave. Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.
Lord, may your light enlighten us in our decisions and be a fire to purify us from all pride and selfishness. Set our hearts on fire with love for you, so that we may love you with all our heart, with all our mind, with all our soul, and with all our strength, and our neighbours as ourselves. So that by keeping your commandments we may glorify you, the giver of all good gifts. Lord, in your strength and vulnerability, hear our prayer.
Blessing
Enlightenment in our decisions, purification from pride and selfishness, strength in weakness, God’s power loving and sustaining us. May those blessings of almighty God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, rest upon you and remain with you always. Amen.
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Leonard Cohen - Anthem.
