[This sermon was delivered by The Rev. Barry W. Chance (© 2024) on January 28, 2024, at the Downtown Presbyterian Church on the occasion of my installation as their pastor.]
For the first fifteen years of my ministry, I did a lot of work with people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. In my first congregation, I was the pastor to twenty-five adults with some kind of disability and led a Bible study with them each week. I wound up serving on the board—as the president of the board of an international non-profit that published that Bible study curriculum in English and Spanish with employees in the United States, Columbia, and Canada and served as a theological author and editor for them or a few years after I rotated off the board. I served on the board of Evergreen Life Services, a Presbyter-related non-profit that provides services to 1,300 individuals and their families in seven states including here in the Nashville area. That is actually what first brought me to your fine city and as an aside, I’d be glad to talk to any of you about how you can get involved in this important mission of the Church of Jesus Christ.
Now I say all of that not to brag and tell you how important or virtuous I am. Rather, I tell it to you so that I can also tell you how it almost didn’t happen. You see, I came to that ministry entirely by providence. It certainly wasn’t my own doing. While I was engaged in that ministry people would often ask me what brought me to it. Now, for many people doing this work, they can tell the story of a sibling, a cousin, an uncle, or a neighbor with a disability who opened their eyes and hearts to this work. I have no such story. Indeed, until I became the pastor of that congregation I had hardly known or interacted with anyone from that community. Indeed, the closest I came to being prepared for this work was in seminary where the member of the church where I regularly attended a Taizé service told me that she had a ministry at a group home near the seminary and asked if I would be interested in helping to which I said: “No, I don’t think that’s my call!”
And that is how the call of God often comes into our lives! We imagine that we are the potter—in control of our lives and the shape that they will take. But we are not the potter—not the masters of the universe—not the shapers of our own destiny. We are the clay and God often has other plans for our lives as is at work shaping and molding us for those purposes. Sometimes re-shaping, re-forming, and re-inventing us for a new chapter of our lives that we would never have imagined.
Now I am a person who likes to be in control. I have a colleague who harasses me about that fact and how if I end up on a committee you can probably start counting the days before I wind up chairing it. In fact, a number of years ago he and I were talking about my son’s Cub Scout Pack and he said, “I’m going to put a reminder on my calendar to ask you in six months if you’re the Cubmaster yet.” I called him four months later and told him he could delete that reminder because it happened ahead of schedule.
I am a person who likes to be in control which is why I have to preach this sermon to myself sometimes, “I am not the potter; I am the clay.” Say that with me…
“I am not the potter; I am the clay.”
But then what? Remembering that we are the clay means that the task of ministry is not so much to plan for what we will be but to imagine and open ourselves up to the cosmos of possibilities that God has in store for us. It means being pliable—moldable—flexible—to how God might be shaping us in ways that we could never imagine. It means rooting ourselves in prayer, and study, and worship, and meditation, and service so that we might embrace the mystery of what we are becoming as we are shaped and formed by the One who shaped and formed all things into being.
As we do, let us remember that we are clay and that once formed—once hardened—once fired—clay comes brittle—fragile—breakable. The Apostle Paul tells the Church in Corinth that this is a feature not a flaw in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He tells them, he tells us, that the Good News of what God is doing in the world is like treasure in clay jars—something valuable, priceless—carried and protected in something ordinary—in earthen vessels which are fragile and easily break under pressure. Paul tells us that this is part of the point—for God’s Love was known in the world through another earthen vessel that bore the scars and hurts and tears of that pressure—Jesus Christ whom we worship and adore. The Way of Christ in the world is the way of the vulnerable and so, by definition, it can only be carried in clay jars, in cracked pots that are who will demonstrate that same kind of vulnerable love to the world. Paul tells us that this is a feature of the Gospel of Jesus Christ—it is carried by imperfect people (and he knew a thing or two about being imperfect) so that it may be clear that it is not about them—but about God who shaped, molded, and sent them.
Today in this congregation we install new leaders to guide us in the Way of Christ. Imperfect people who will sometimes crack under pressure and make mistakes. Let us remember that this is a feature, not a flaw—for it helps us, it helps them, remember this fundamental truth:
They are not the potter; they are the clay!
For it helps us point towards a greater reality of what the Church of Jesus Christ is—it is made up of Cracked Pots (and a few Crackpots too!). It is made up of imperfect people, of sinners, of people who have been wounded and people have wounded others—of people who have dedicated themselves to following the Way of Jesus Christ—the Way of Vulnerable Love in the world it and its members and its leaders are flawed—are scarred—and with those flaws, with those scars, we point towards a greater reality.
That is what I tried to explain to my friend Helen many years ago. Helen’s parents were mission workers in Central America in the 80s and 90s so she had grown up both very sheltered in a Christian Bubble of sorts but also very worldly living in the midst of the violence and dirty wars of that era. She came to the United States to go to college and struggled to find a church where she felt like she could stay for any amount of time. She would start worshipping at one drawn by their prophetic witness against the death penalty but then would overhear two members gossiping about another in the narthex. So, she moved to another church where she was drawn to their meditation groups and contemplative service but then left it when she discovered that one of the elders was going through a divorce and there were accusations of infidelity. This continued as she went from congregation to congregation always in search of perfection.
She and I had many conversations about how such a place does not exist—about how that is not even the point of the Church of Jesus Christ because Christ was fragile, human, and vulnerable – so too are we who follow him.
We live in an age where many have rejected the Church because of its imperfection. "They don't practice what they preach,” they say, “They're a bunch of crooked people that go around talking to other people about how to straighten up."
To them, I say: Exactly–you get it—we can only talk about what we know.
When that accusation is made like it is a bad thing, it tells me that the speaker fundamentally misunderstands the nature of the Church.
We can't really blame them though–for we as Church-people have done our fair share of misunderstanding as well. We have sought perfection and tried to mask our own flaws. We have not shared the grace that we have received. We have called others to confess while not confessing the hurts that we have wrought in the world (and the Church has much to confess). When we have done that, we have told the world that we think that we are the potter instead of the clay.
The question is this: Are we…
A Menagerie of the Righteous or a Refuge for the Lost?
A Hospital for Sinners or a Memorial for Saints?
A Display Case of the Flawless or the Irregulars Rack at the Outlet Store?
A Museum of the Faithful or the Salvage Bin of the Fallen?
The potter or the clay?
The way in which we answer that question matters for it fundamentally defines who we are.
Say it with me one more time, “I am not the potter, I am the clay.”
That is Good News, for it means that you are not Christ—you are not expected the redeem the world. And yet, the Resurrected Christ lives in you—the life-giving power of God not just for you but for you to share. Lest you ever think that you are worthless. You are not. For God has deposited in you great treasure–God is invested in you.
We are clay pots, the Good News is that God gives us permission to be who we are–broken and beaten down.
We are clay pots, and when we admit and demonstrate our brokenness, we proclaim that the Church is a place for broken people.
We are clay pots. When we admit and demonstrate our brokenness, we proclaim to all those who doubt God's love and our love…
That God is in your corner
And that, as the Church, we are in your corner too.
We are clay pots, and the Good News, says Paul, is that out of our cracks, God's glory shines.
We are clay pots, and the good news is that stored in these broken, leaky buckets is Christ, waiting to RISE and for that, thanks be to God!
For the first fifteen years of my ministry, I did a lot of work with people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. In my first congregation, I was the pastor to twenty-five adults with some kind of disability and led a Bible study with them each week. I wound up serving on the board—as the president of the board of an international non-profit that published that Bible study curriculum in English and Spanish with employees in the United States, Columbia, and Canada and served as a theological author and editor for them or a few years after I rotated off the board. I served on the board of Evergreen Life Services, a Presbyter-related non-profit that provides services to 1,300 individuals and their families in seven states including here in the Nashville area. That is actually what first brought me to your fine city and as an aside, I’d be glad to talk to any of you about how you can get involved in this important mission of the Church of Jesus Christ.
Now I say all of that not to brag and tell you how important or virtuous I am. Rather, I tell it to you so that I can also tell you how it almost didn’t happen. You see, I came to that ministry entirely by providence. It certainly wasn’t my own doing. While I was engaged in that ministry people would often ask me what brought me to it. Now, for many people doing this work, they can tell the story of a sibling, a cousin, an uncle, or a neighbor with a disability who opened their eyes and hearts to this work. I have no such story. Indeed, until I became the pastor of that congregation I had hardly known or interacted with anyone from that community. Indeed, the closest I came to being prepared for this work was in seminary where the member of the church where I regularly attended a Taizé service told me that she had a ministry at a group home near the seminary and asked if I would be interested in helping to which I said: “No, I don’t think that’s my call!”
And that is how the call of God often comes into our lives! We imagine that we are the potter—in control of our lives and the shape that they will take. But we are not the potter—not the masters of the universe—not the shapers of our own destiny. We are the clay and God often has other plans for our lives as is at work shaping and molding us for those purposes. Sometimes re-shaping, re-forming, and re-inventing us for a new chapter of our lives that we would never have imagined.
Now I am a person who likes to be in control. I have a colleague who harasses me about that fact and how if I end up on a committee you can probably start counting the days before I wind up chairing it. In fact, a number of years ago he and I were talking about my son’s Cub Scout Pack and he said, “I’m going to put a reminder on my calendar to ask you in six months if you’re the Cubmaster yet.” I called him four months later and told him he could delete that reminder because it happened ahead of schedule.
I am a person who likes to be in control which is why I have to preach this sermon to myself sometimes, “I am not the potter; I am the clay.” Say that with me…
“I am not the potter; I am the clay.”
But then what? Remembering that we are the clay means that the task of ministry is not so much to plan for what we will be but to imagine and open ourselves up to the cosmos of possibilities that God has in store for us. It means being pliable—moldable—flexible—to how God might be shaping us in ways that we could never imagine. It means rooting ourselves in prayer, and study, and worship, and meditation, and service so that we might embrace the mystery of what we are becoming as we are shaped and formed by the One who shaped and formed all things into being.
As we do, let us remember that we are clay and that once formed—once hardened—once fired—clay comes brittle—fragile—breakable. The Apostle Paul tells the Church in Corinth that this is a feature not a flaw in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He tells them, he tells us, that the Good News of what God is doing in the world is like treasure in clay jars—something valuable, priceless—carried and protected in something ordinary—in earthen vessels which are fragile and easily break under pressure. Paul tells us that this is part of the point—for God’s Love was known in the world through another earthen vessel that bore the scars and hurts and tears of that pressure—Jesus Christ whom we worship and adore. The Way of Christ in the world is the way of the vulnerable and so, by definition, it can only be carried in clay jars, in cracked pots that are who will demonstrate that same kind of vulnerable love to the world. Paul tells us that this is a feature of the Gospel of Jesus Christ—it is carried by imperfect people (and he knew a thing or two about being imperfect) so that it may be clear that it is not about them—but about God who shaped, molded, and sent them.
Today in this congregation we install new leaders to guide us in the Way of Christ. Imperfect people who will sometimes crack under pressure and make mistakes. Let us remember that this is a feature, not a flaw—for it helps us, it helps them, remember this fundamental truth:
They are not the potter; they are the clay!
For it helps us point towards a greater reality of what the Church of Jesus Christ is—it is made up of Cracked Pots (and a few Crackpots too!). It is made up of imperfect people, of sinners, of people who have been wounded and people have wounded others—of people who have dedicated themselves to following the Way of Jesus Christ—the Way of Vulnerable Love in the world it and its members and its leaders are flawed—are scarred—and with those flaws, with those scars, we point towards a greater reality.
That is what I tried to explain to my friend Helen many years ago. Helen’s parents were mission workers in Central America in the 80s and 90s so she had grown up both very sheltered in a Christian Bubble of sorts but also very worldly living in the midst of the violence and dirty wars of that era. She came to the United States to go to college and struggled to find a church where she felt like she could stay for any amount of time. She would start worshipping at one drawn by their prophetic witness against the death penalty but then would overhear two members gossiping about another in the narthex. So, she moved to another church where she was drawn to their meditation groups and contemplative service but then left it when she discovered that one of the elders was going through a divorce and there were accusations of infidelity. This continued as she went from congregation to congregation always in search of perfection.
She and I had many conversations about how such a place does not exist—about how that is not even the point of the Church of Jesus Christ because Christ was fragile, human, and vulnerable – so too are we who follow him.
We live in an age where many have rejected the Church because of its imperfection. "They don't practice what they preach,” they say, “They're a bunch of crooked people that go around talking to other people about how to straighten up."
To them, I say: Exactly–you get it—we can only talk about what we know.
When that accusation is made like it is a bad thing, it tells me that the speaker fundamentally misunderstands the nature of the Church.
We can't really blame them though–for we as Church-people have done our fair share of misunderstanding as well. We have sought perfection and tried to mask our own flaws. We have not shared the grace that we have received. We have called others to confess while not confessing the hurts that we have wrought in the world (and the Church has much to confess). When we have done that, we have told the world that we think that we are the potter instead of the clay.
The question is this: Are we…
A Menagerie of the Righteous or a Refuge for the Lost?
A Hospital for Sinners or a Memorial for Saints?
A Display Case of the Flawless or the Irregulars Rack at the Outlet Store?
A Museum of the Faithful or the Salvage Bin of the Fallen?
The potter or the clay?
The way in which we answer that question matters for it fundamentally defines who we are.
Say it with me one more time, “I am not the potter, I am the clay.”
That is Good News, for it means that you are not Christ—you are not expected the redeem the world. And yet, the Resurrected Christ lives in you—the life-giving power of God not just for you but for you to share. Lest you ever think that you are worthless. You are not. For God has deposited in you great treasure–God is invested in you.
We are clay pots, the Good News is that God gives us permission to be who we are–broken and beaten down.
We are clay pots, and when we admit and demonstrate our brokenness, we proclaim that the Church is a place for broken people.
We are clay pots. When we admit and demonstrate our brokenness, we proclaim to all those who doubt God's love and our love…
That God is in your corner
And that, as the Church, we are in your corner too.
We are clay pots, and the Good News, says Paul, is that out of our cracks, God's glory shines.
We are clay pots, and the good news is that stored in these broken, leaky buckets is Christ, waiting to RISE and for that, thanks be to God!
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