Dear Fellow Earthenware Jars:

In 2 Corinthians 4, the Apostle Paul wrote about the irony that God has entrusted the eternal gospel of grace to be carried in fragile, dust-resourced human bodies. In verse 7 he wrote, “…[W]e have this treasure in earthen vessels [clay jars], so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.” I love thinking of our physical vessels as mere ‘clay jars’, earthy, common, fragile. In his 1961 book, Treasure in Earthen Vessels: The Church as a Human Community, James Gustafson applied Paul’s metaphor to the whole church, reminding the reader that the institution is not holy, but its message is. Paul wrote his words as comfort, reminding the faithful that they should find no surprise in human frailty or mortality; we are but earthenware. The rich value is found not in the materiality of we are, but in the good news we are gifted to carry.

We live in an age of institution bashing. Despisers are quick to point out every hypocritical flaw. Perhaps because the church has taken itself far too