The Treasure in Clay Jars

Scripture Lessons: 2 Corinthians 4: 5-12 and 1 Samuel 3: 1-10 Sermon Title: This Treasure in Clay Jars Preached on June 3, 2018 This account I’ve just read, of the young prophet Samuel, is one of the most influential stories ever told. Even if this was the first time that you’ve heard 1st Samuel chapter 3 read, I’m sure it’s not the first time you’ve heard this story. As is true in all its retellings, in 1st Samuel there’s a boy, a virtual orphan, who was left at the Temple by his mother who loved him but couldn’t keep him. So, she left him at the Temple and as she did she sang a song about the mighty hand of God who will bring justice. We suspect that he remembered the song, that he sang it to himself, because it lived on. Its themes are all over Mary’s Magnificat that she sang while she was pregnant with Jesus. But, the song Samuel’s mother sang that Samuel remembered, while powerful and memorable it couldn’t protect him from everything even if it warmed his heart on cold dark nights. The boy, Samuel, was raised by an old man named Eli who had two wicked sons. They took what they wanted, as though everything were theirs. You can imagine it. It was the definition of unfair. As Eli’s sons ate what they wanted, even eating the meat that was to be offered to God in sacrifice, you can picture young Samuel sweeping the floor and saving the crumbs. He wore only a linen tunic his mother made for him. He slept, not in a bedroom, but on the Temple’s cold floor. You know this story. You know it, because it’s not at all different from the story of another orphan, left on the doorstep of the home of a Mr. and Mrs. Dursley who lived on Privet Drive. They had a son, Dudley, who had more birthday presents than he could count on both hands, a second bedroom to store all that his parents gave him, but where did little Harry sleep? He slept cramped in the closet under the stairs just as Samuel slept on the bare Temple floor. You know this story. It’s like that of James, whose parents died in an automobile accident involving an escaped rhinoceros. He was sent to live with these two horrible aunts, and while he knew the sea was nearby, he was confined to his yard where an ancient peach tree eked out its meager existence. But the tree, like James, it didn’t die or give up – no, but it struggled. However, despite the struggle, in time, that measly tree grew a peach so large that James crawled up into it and lived out as great an adventure as you can imagine. You see – you know this story. You love it, because it embodies hope, and so, you want it to be true, but if you know the story well then you know that the one who has the hardest time believing this story could ever be true is the little boy who finds himself right in the middle of it all. From 1st Samuel we read: At that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his room; the lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was. Then the Lord called, “Samuel! Samuel!” and he said, “Here I am!” but ran to Eli, and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” But [Eli] said, “I did not call; lie down again.” Now why did the boy Samuel assume that this voice calling him was Eli, his old guardian, and not God? That’s like asking, why wasn’t Harry Potter patiently awaiting his acceptance letter to Hogwarts School or why wasn’t James checking the old tree daily, waiting for his escape peach to grow. Like both Harry and James, Samuel assumed that it was the old man who was calling him because he had long ago learned his place in this world – long ago he had learned that while some people are destined for greatness, others are destined to sweep the floors. While some people are born into privilege, it is the lot of others to accept the scraps. That while God calls some people, that while God has something to say to some people, that while God has important work for some people, young Samuel had been taught by the bullies of the world that scrawny boys like him are wise to accept their meager lot. It’s a shame, isn’t it? How many people, young and old, accept the lie the world tells as the truth, but some are blessed to be woken up. That’s what happened in the Sword and the Stone. That great Disney movie where a young boy named Arthur, he can’t fill up his hand-me-down robes, he can barely carry the sword of the knight he serves as page, so it’s no surprise that this young boy – you remember, they call him Wart, and Wart forgot the knight’s sword back at the inn. Only in desperation does he pull the sword from the stone, a legendary feat that only the chosen king was prophesied to be able to do. When Wart finds out what it means that he’s pulled the sword from the stone – that he’s the one destined to be king of England, he’s the most surprised of anybody. Why? Because the world has given him his name and his lot – he’s accepted both, because those who sleep under the stairs can’t help but assume they deserve it. On the one hand, there are some people who are born on third base and assume they’ve hit a triple, but others make their bed in the ash heap and assume they too should go out with the trash, because the way we are talked to, the way we are addressed, the way we are treated, it all informs who we believe we are. Did you know that they called her Cinderella because, without a proper blanket, she made her bed in the smoldering coals, and the cinders burnt holes in her dress? But there’s more to life than the house of an evil step sister and her spoiled daughters. There’s more to your identity than the hard words you’ve been told, for as hard as they may try, their words can’t define everything or everyone, and it is God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness.” So: The Lord called Samuel again, a third time. And he got up and went to Eli, and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” Then Eli perceived that the Lord was calling the boy. Therefore Eli said to Samuel, “Go, lie down; and if the Lord calls you, you shall say, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’” So Samuel went and lay down in his place. Now the Lord came and stood there, calling as before, “Samuel! Samuel!” And Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.” Can you imagine? Can you imagine what this scrawny, beaten down boy must have felt in that moment? Perhaps he felt like the little boy on your bulletin cover. Playing marbles in the dust, only to look up and see that he’s on the moon. It reminds me of Dr. Sam Matthews, who just retired from 1st Methodist Church. He was pastor there for the last 15 years, and despite all the conflict that marked the beginning of his ministry there, today 1st Methodist is the largest church in Marietta. He took me out to lunch once and he told me that sometimes people will ask him if he ever dreamed he’d be the pastor of such a large Marietta church, and he said, “When I was growing up I couldn’t imagine myself serving any church. Not one of the small country churches I grew up going to and certainly never would I have dared imagine serving this one.” You can’t help but imagine the same kind of thoughts were in the minds of those disciples who brought the message to the first Christians in Corinth, for there in 2nd Corinthians we read: We have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. Now Samuel already knew that, because it is easy for the Samuel’s, the Harry Potter’s, the James’, and the Cinderella’s to remember that their treasure is a gift. But those evil step sisters – they speak from entitlement, greed, and envy and rather than fan the flame, they try to put it out. Like Scout’s teacher, Miss Caroline, in To Kill a Mockingbird. She was from Winston County in North Alabama and she looked down her nose at her pitiful 1st grade students, especially the one who had no need for her Winston County charity. Scout told it like this: As I read the alphabet a faint line appeared between her eyebrows, and after making me read most of My First Reader and the stock-market quotations from the Mobile Register aloud, she discovered that I was literate and looked at me with more than faint distaste. This teacher reminds me of the man who sat with his back towards the preacher at the royal wedding two weeks ago. Because the sermon didn’t come from him he couldn’t even turn his head, though those were mighty words proclaimed by Bishop Michael Curry. The opposite of that man’s demeanor was that of Andrew McIntosh last Sunday as Joe Brice preached at the 8:30 service. As Joe went on about the buzzard that hit his trailer, and the kindness of a mechanic, you should have seen Andrew listening. It was as though Andrew were thinking: “I know this guy lives in Paulding County, but he has something to say!” Now that that’s the truth. And we are all such clay jars. Inside our mortal flesh is treasure, and the reason we tell this story again and again – this story of Samuel, the boy prophet, called by God, is because it is our story too. Like him we have known those who see only the clay jar, overlooking the treasure, but not so with God. So while all the wicked step brothers and step sisters believe that the world is their oyster and they’re free to take whatever they want, remember that whether you believe you deserve nothing or everything you’re wrong – because we aren’t extraordinarily special or extraordinarily plain – we are clay jars containing a treasure. We are disciples entrusted with good news. We are slaves who serve the master. We are guests at the table of the king. We are mortal flesh, blades of grass, but within us burns a light, though it is not ours. Like Paul and the disciples in Corinth, regardless of what we have heard from those who have pushed us down, we must live knowing that within our clay jar, our feeble frame, is a treasure that can change lives and set the world on fire. Amen.