My congregation purchases communion ware from a local potter. One day I stopped into the potter’s shop. I noticed several bowls with holes in them: berry bowls. The holes are there so the air can circulate and keep the berries plump and fresh. Through those holes you can see the berries.
Looking at the berry bowl, I thought about how God is inside each of us and shines through the holes in our lives: “We have this treasure in clay jars so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and not to us” (2 Corinthians 4:7).
The potter also had an “oops” shelf of pottery. Each piece had minor defects but was still usable. Like the pottery, each of us has flaws, yet God’s extraordinary power dwells in us. This is not unlike the Japanese art form called wabisabi where broken pottery is pieced back together with molten gold. Its imperfections become the focal point of beauty. I imagine God the potter, piecing us back together with the grace of forgiveness and reconciliation and then filling us with the power of love.
This message is excerpted from the Bible study “Treasure in clay jars” by Angela Shannon in the June 2016 Gather magazine.
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