About the Hymn
One persistent judgment against Christians is that we are hypocrites—that we judge others though we are imperfect ourselves.
Paul sets this straight in 2 Corinthians 4:5-12. We Christians are not perfect, nor do we pretend to be. We are only clay jars. Not gold or silver or alabaster. Just clay. Kitchen pitchers that can adequately hold water and pour it into other vessels. More utilitarian than beautiful, and really not that great at being utilitarian either, because we so easily crack and break into pieces.
Yet in us—frail and flawed mortals that we are—God has placed a treasure: unbounded grace, unending glory. We are lit from within with the glow of the gospel. That gospel—the good news that we are known and loved and rescued—changes our lives.
When we act as witnesses of that light, when we share the treasure of the gospel in all we do and say, then other people’s lives change too.
But we can’t possibly take the credit. It is God’s power alone that works that life transformation, that rescue, that transfer of the glow from our hearts to others’ hearts. It is only God. It must be God, for we Christians are just jars of clay.
The hymn should be performed at a reflective ♩= ca. 88.
Text
1. Though we are only jars of clay,
mere mortals, frail and flawed,
we carry in us gospel grace,
a treasure from our God.
2. This gospel penetrates the heart
and changes people’s lives.
A light to guide us in the dark—
so is the love of Christ.
3. God, make us bold to witness now
in all we do and say,
and work through us with your great pow’r,
though we’re just jars of clay.
© 2018 Laurie F. Gauger
Lectionary Reading
Year B, Ninth Sunday after the Epiphany: 2 Corinthians 4:5–12
Year B, Season after Pentecost, Proper 4(9): 2 Corinthians 4:5–12
For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.
But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.
Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™
