Committed Critic

Sunday morning I preached on the Magnificat, the poem Mary recites shortly after learning she’ll become mother of the Son of God. The passage reflects Mary’s celebration that she, a peasant girl, is to be blessed with such an honor (Lk 1:46-55):

My soul magnifies the Lord
And my spirit exults in God my Savior,
For he has looked upon the humility of his slave-girl.

Look: from now on all generations will regard me as blessed
Because the Mighty One has done great things for me;
Holy is his name,
And his mercy is from generation to generation
for those who fear him.

He has done a mighty deed by his arm;
He has scattered the haughty in the thought of their heart;
He has pulled down the powerful from thrones,
And has exalted the humble.
The hungry he has filled with good things,
And the wealthy he has sent away empty.
He has helped Israel his servant,
Remembering mercy,
just as he announced to our fathers,
To Abraham and to his seed
Forever and ever.

I’ve been talking with my fiancee Beth (who’s Roman Catholic) about Mary as a model of spirituality, so I wanted to reflect on how we’re supposed to read toward that end.

One point I decided to press is that when we use Mary as a model for our spiritual lives, we should also consider another model alongside her: Paul. This might seem odd, and I could imagine Catholics and feminists being irritated that I brought Paul into the discussion. The two figures are quite different, in particular that Mary was a peasant girl and Paul was an educated Pharisee. But since a lot of us are more like him than like her, I think we could be misled by focusing on Mary’s example in Luke without considering Paul as another angle on Christian spirituality.

A key theme of the Magnificat, especially as it relates to Mary, is God’s lowering of the mighty and exaltation of the humble and lowly. Mary reflects this humility, both in her attitude and in her station in life. The danger for us is that we’ll try to imitate the first half of her example (the attitude) even though the second half (our station in life) is wildly different than hers. That is to say, if we put all our emphasis on Mary, we’re liable to think that God is satisfied if we simply change our attitude. I think that’s a half-truth that ignores what Luke really has to say about Jesus.

When you read the teachings of John and Jesus in Luke, it’s clear that the call to repentance goes well beyond changing one’s attitude. Jesus has a few things to say about how we feel about money, for example, but more often he gives specific instructions for us simply to give money away. The reason this is important is that it allows us to actually participate in the kind of reversal that the Magnificat proclaims. The reason we should take it literally is because it’s exactly what Paul does, giving up status for the sake of the gospel.

Probably the most famous passage where Paul addresses his loss of status is 2 Cor 12:7b-10:

So that I wouldn’t become arrogant, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to strike me so that I wouldn’t become arrogant. I begged the Lord three times about this, that he would take it away from me, but he said to me, “My grace is enough for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Accordingly, I enjoy boasting in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can rest upon me. I am pleased with weakness, with insults, with needs, with persecutions and distresses, on Christ’s behalf. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

I think that when people read about Paul’s strength in weakness, they usually assume either that he’s being humble and “staying out of God’s way,” or else that he’s acknowledging his feeble human abilities that God overcomes to allow him to write great letters.

I think this is missing Paul’s point. When he talks about weakness, Paul talks a lot more about his suffering, and about the embarrassing things that have happened to him –– things like being flogged, which left real scars that people would see if he ever had his cloak off. In the ancient world, people who had status in a city or community had their rights protected by that community; people without status weren’t guaranteed the same kind of protection. A strong person could avoid suffering or persecution; only a weak person or a slave would have to submit to floggings and danger. That’s what Paul accepted willingly for his ministry.

Paul gave up being respected and cared for by society. Weakness, in this sense, means losing some of the ability to control your own life and call your own shots –– the opposite of having power, which means being able to do what you want. Being genuinely weak means making your life less convenient and putting yourself at the risk of sufferings that are no longer under your control, leaving yourself at the mercy of God and other Christians to get you through things. That is what so few Christians ever do, even when it puts us at risk of becoming “the last,” by Jesus’ own words, when he returns.

Other parts of Scripture make a different point, and as I’ve said, there are plenty of passages that call us to have humble attitudes. But I think that Mary’s poem reflects what Christ will do to us unless we do it first. In other words, the way to avoid being knocked from our thrones when Christ returns is to surrender those thrones ourselves, while we have the freedom to do so.

In the incarnation, God didn’t just change his attitude in order to understand how we might feel; instead, he took on flesh and became human. The change didn’t keep God from still being God, but it was still a real change. Paul didn’t lose everything –– he still had his education, for example, that helped him write powerful letters. But he wasn’t content to just try for an inner change. If we want to live up to the teachings of Christ, I would argue that our loss of power and status needs to be real and external as well.

[Note: I’m hitting crunch time for finishing my semester papers, so I don’t have time to write anything new. And unfortunately, all my papers are too obscure (not to mention unfinished) to post. So, I dug up a short paper I wrote 6 years ago at ACU to reproduce, unedited. I hope y’all will indulge me.]

Jars of Clay
Abilene Christian University
BIBM 391, Intro to Ministry
Profs. Robert Oglesby, Jeanene Reese
By Scott Haile
March 1, 2000

Of all biblical virtues, humility by its very nature eludes me more completely than any other. I can work on compassion and kindness and sincerity and self-control and even patience, but humility times its exits to the moments when I most succeed in otherwise imitating Christ. As the saying goes, once you realize you’re humble, you aren’t humble anymore. Dealing with that reality forces me to admit that too much of my effort has been aimed at fulfilling duty, following rules and performing works. By such means I can manage to be a pretty good person most of the time and treat others well enough that we can all overlook most of my faults. Meanwhile I fail to do the only thing that can really bring about humility–not working hard or studying my Bible, but falling prostrate before God.

Paul’s metaphor of cheap clay jars holding a valuable treasure describes this humility as it applies to his ministry, in sharp contrast to the attitudes of those around him. In 2 Corinthians 4:6 Paul tells of the glorious light God has put in his heart that is the gospel of Christ. But in verse 7 (NIV) he says, “But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.” Though rabbis already taught a similar message of humility for ministry, this verse contradicted the views of many religious leaders at the time as it does the natural instincts of many of us today. Surely God has given us power so that we will use it, right? Surely a God who came to seek and save what was lost wants us to make his religion appealing to all those lost people so they can be saved?

Being raised in the church, I find Paul’s message here fairly easy to accept, and even preach to others. But figuring out where it works into my life and then actually following through present a greater challenge. Consequently, I need to keep the metaphor of the jars of clay in front of me at all times so that it will guide and shape my ministry–as indeed a potter shapes a clay pot–and keep my focus where it belongs, which is on the cross of Christ. The metaphor itself is simple, and trying to find dozens of points of connection between clay jars and Christian ministry would waste both my time and that of the reader. But the impact of that simple image on Christian ministry is incredibly profound, and that is where I will focus discussion.

First, the prevailing Christian attitude of the day apparently recognized power and prestige as signs of God’s favor. The people Paul was opposing were pretty impressive to young Christians, leading him to rather sarcastically refer to them as “super-apostles” (2 Cor 11:5). They were superior speakers (11:6) and tried to make themselves look good before men (10:12).

Jars of clay, on the other hand, are not impressive or powerful; some have referred to them as the “Tupperware” of ancient Greece–cheap, common, useful and disposable. But Paul says that God’s power is held in these vessels so that the power is indeed from Him and not from man. Savage notes two paradoxes in the metaphor: a valuable treasure is contained in a cheap vessel, and the incredible power of God is shown through a fragile vessel (165). The NIV translates the verse “to show that this…power is from God…” but the Greek text has a subjunctive “be” verb which more literally means “so that this…power might be from God…” (Savage 166) The point is that our weakness and fragility do not merely show the world that the power is from God (though it does do that) but is actually prerequisite for that power to work in us in the first place. “In other words,” Savage writes, “where there is pride and arrogance there cannot, by definition, be divine power.” (167)

OK, I’ve covered my academic bases. Now I’ll deal with why the metaphor is important to me in my ministry. First of all, my general inadequacy as a person scares me. Even if my own ability were extraordinary by worldly standards, the idea of trying to win souls from Satan by my own power would be enough to send me running. If I try to show how strong I am, I know he has the ability to knock me flat on my back. The simple fact that I have no supernatural powers at my disposal, and he does, assures me of my imminent defeat if I face him alone.

In contrast, seeing myself as a jar of clay to be filled with God’s power and broken if necessary helps conform me to the example of Christ. Following in Jesus’ steps (1 Peter 2:21) has to be my foundational theology, as it was Paul’s: “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.” (Phil 3:10-11) Paul wants to become like Christ in his death so he can become like him in his resurrection. I think this so-called theology of the cross is the most important part of Christian ministry because it sums up who we are. I love what Daniel Von Allmen said in one of the articles I read, that “mission is a way of discipleship; mission is following Christ on his way through suffering to death and only then to resurrection” (265). According to Fred Craddock’s Preaching, the form of a sermon should mirror its content, and that applies to ministry as well. If the content of my ministry, what I want to tell people, is Jesus’ emptying of himself, then I need to likewise empty myself in my ministry so they can learn what I teach by how I live.

The clay jars metaphor also has a great practical strength, namely that it works. First, as I noted above, Paul seems to suggest that God only works through weakness. If this is the case, then living as jars of clay is not just preferable but necessary to Christian ministry, at least if God is to be involved in any active kind of way. Second, Allen says that our own weakness, or “the fragility of the clay pots” can witness to the world concerning the power of God (287). Again, how we teach can convert people as effectively as what we teach.

This metaphor can cause problems if someone interprets it in an unhealthy way. First, a person’s excessive focus on his own weakness and inability could lead him to the conclusion that he cannot do anything for God. Consequently, he probably won’t do anything for God but instead will walk around in fear of making a mistake and awaiting a voice from heaven to instruct him on exactly what he needs to do. The other major pitfall which I foresee brings me back to where I started, to the difficulty of learning humility. The easiest thing in the world for me to do, once I find myself working by God’s power rather than mine, is to look down on all those around me whom I perceive work by their own strength. At that point, my humility has obviously yielded to spiritual arrogance.

I don’t think humility can be taught by or deliberately learned by a human. There isn’t a person alive whom I could not find fault with if I looked, and that always allows me a loophole, it always allows me to write a person off if I don’t like what he says. God reserves the right to humble us when we need it, because like Job we can’t really answer him at all when it come right down to it. This really convicts me as I consider my call to ministry. If God calls me to do his work, I know he will give me the preparation I need, and so I trust that he will teach me humility in light of his holiness. Before sending Paul, God knocked him on his back so that he would serve in holy reverence. But if I decide for myself to go into ministry for him, I don’t know that I can count on that preparation. In the meantime I need to seek God so that I can learn who he is and wait for the day–or decade–when he confronts me and shows me what I’m made of.

Bibliography

Allen, Ronald J. “Between Text and Sermon: 2 Corinthians 4:7-18.” Interpretation 52 (1998): 286-289.

Barnett, Paul. The Message of 2 Corinthians. The Bible Speaks Today. Ed. John R. Stott. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1988. 86-87.

Craddock, Fred B. Preaching. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1985.

Kistemaker, Simon J. II Corinthians. New Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House Co, 1997. 146-147.

Savage, Timothy B. Power through weakness: Paul’s understanding of the Christian ministry in 2 Corinthians. Paradise Valley, Arizona: Cambridge University Press, 1996. 164-169.

Von Allmen, Daniel. “The Treasure in Clay Pots.” International Review of Mission 77 (1988): 265-271.