But we have this treasure in earthen vessels 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 driven to 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 be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.

~ II Corinthians 4: 7-12

Life is difficult, and we often feel the way Paul must have when he wrote our morning lesson. Did you listen to his words? “We are hard pressed on every side... perplexed... persecuted... struck down.” At times, even for a man of faith like Paul, the troubles of life seemed pretty hard to cope with.

Psychologists tell us that one of the most frequent sources of environmental depression is the feeling that there is more to do than we can ever accomplish—I so we retreat and do nothing at all. “We are hard pressed on every side…perplexed... struck down,” and so we give up and surrender to feelings of failure.

There was an Irish priest named St. Brendan the Navigator. He is remembered for his ocean voyages. In fact, there is some speculation now that he may have seen the shores of America eight hundred years before Columbus did. In any event, the famous prayer of St. Brendan was this: “O God, the sea is so big, and my boat is so small.” Who has not felt that way at one time or another—“ ...hard pressed on every side... perplexed... ”—immobilized by the immensity of life and what it expects of us?

I know a couple, an orthopedic surgeon and his wife, a registered nurse, who practice medicine in southern Africa. She operates a medical clinic on a squatters’ reserve where there is one doctor and one nurse for twenty-six thousand indigent people. Her husband used to work in an area of southern Africa where he was the only orthopedic surgeon for three million people. “O God, the sea is so big, and my boat is so small.”

Haven’t we all felt that way at one time or another? Overwhelmed by the tasks that life sets before us—and ill-equipped even to attempt them?

I may not have world-shaking advice to offer to that, but I can offer a bit of practical wisdom. There is an old adage that says: “I cannot do all things, but I can do something.” That’s great advice. Paul didn’t transform the entire Mediterranean in a day or year or a decade. He did his work one village at a time, one church at a time, one letter at a time. Focus on Philippi. Do what you can. Move on to Corinth. Give it your best shot. Settle in for a while at Ephesus. Try to make a difference there. One day at a time. One task at a time. When I said to my friends, the surgeon and nurse, that I cannot imagine how they cope with the enormity of their jobs, he responded: “Michael, we just treat one patient at a time.”

“I cannot do all things, but I can do something.” Approaching life that way—one day at a time, one task at a time—the sea feels a bit smaller, and your boat a bit easier to oar.

Sometimes we shy away from meaningful tasks in life not because we feel inadequate but rather because we feel morally unworthy even to attempt things that seem sacred or spiritual. Paul knew about that. Paul the great evangelist and missionary. Paul who risked his life establishing churches. He said of himself once: “I (feel like) the chief of sinners.” And he was serious. Prior to his conversion, as you recall, Paul had been a persecutor of the Church. He led people to prison simply because they worshiped Christ. He was an accomplice in the murder of St. Stephen.

He would have been the first to say, “I’m not good enough to serve God. I’m not good enough to work in the church. I’m not good enough to be a Christian disciple. I am profoundly unworthy.” And yet he could not deny the fact that God had specifically called him to do holy work. And that astounded Paul—and humbled him—and eventually led him to say, “We have God’s treasure in earthen vessels.” In other words, God uses very imperfect humans to build His Kingdom.

I don’t know about you, but I find all that pretty encouraging. I like thinking that God can use imperfect vessels to carry His love to the world because that means He can use me and you, too.

When I get too down on myself, when I start wallowing in guilt, when I feel stained or soiled, I sometimes remind myself of the long list of biblical heroes … and what their lives were actually like … and how God used them in spite of themselves.

1. Noah was a drunk.
2. Abraham was almost a hundred years old before he even got started.
3. Isaac was a daydreamer.
4. Jacob was a terrible liar.
5. Joseph was vain... and later on, abused... and later on a convict.
6. Moses didn’t want to do what God asked.
7. Gideon was a coward.
8. Samson intellectually was about the dimmest light on the Christmas tree.
9. Rahab was a prostitute.
10. Jeremiah and Timothy were just boys when God called them to do a man’s work.
11. David was an adulterer and a murderer.
12. Elijah was suicidal.
13. Isaiah actually preached naked. (There’s a tradition we are not going to start at Marble!)
14. Jonah ran from God and was angry when God finally saved the Ninevites.
15. Naomi was a homeless widow.
16. Job was bankrupt.
17. Peter denied Christ.
18. The disciples forsook Christ.
19. Martha was an obsessive worrier.
20. Mary Magdalene, by tradition, was an escort.
21. The Samaritan woman, the very first evangelist, was a serial polygamist.
22. Zaccheus was a white-collar thief.
23. And Lazarus was dead!

Now, if God can use people like these to create our entire Judeo-Christian history, and to build the Church, then my guess is He can use you and me, too, no matter what we have done or failed to do in the past. “We have God’s treasure in earthen vessels.” We are broken, imperfect—but so were all the biblical heroes who wound up in Sunday School books and on stained glass windows, and look what God did with and through them!

A dear friend and mentor of mine, the late Bishop Ernest Fitzgerald, wrote numerous wonderful books. Perhaps my favorite of his was entitled God Writes Straight with Crooked Lines, quoting the old Portuguese proverb. Bishop Fitzgerald maintained that God is not reluctant to use the unlikeliest of people to accomplish the most sacred of tasks. He referred, among others, to King James of England, an unscrupulous man who never met a sin he didn’t like. But it was that very king who appointed a council of scholars to give the world the King James version of the Bible, which is still cherished by believers the world over.

Kenneth Goodson, the masterful preacher of a former generation, used to say that “the church is not a showplace for saints. It is, instead, a hospital for sinners who can be used to do saintly things.” God writes straight with crooked lines.

I am thankful to know that because it means God can use me. I don’t have to be good enough or smart enough or young enough or old enough or moral enough or handsome enough or rich enough or powerful enough or anything enough. In fact, my usefulness to God and the world is not about me at all. It’s all God’s initiative. He calls whom he choose.

The bottom line is: It’s all about grace! Maybe we don’t have the ability to accomplish all the tasks set before us. Maybe we don’t even feel morally worthy to try. But God’s grace gives us the strength to address one day and one task at a time—and God’s grace gives us the power to do holy things, however unholy we may think our lives have been.

I was at Best Buy on 85th Street last week and observed something that has always intrigued me. As I went on the escalator from the lower level to the upper level, the man in front of me—on the escalator, remember—walked up it. Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve always thought it takes a special kind of weirdness for someone to walk up an escalator. Why not just use the stairs if that’s what you want? The escalator is designed to do it for you—to carry you up to the next level. I think grace is like that. God can do with us and through us what we cannot do ourselves. He can take us to levels of impact and service that we never dared dream about. God’s treasures may rest “in earthen vessels” –but those vessels rest in His perfect hands. And that’s what led the same Paul who said, “I (feel like) the chief of sinners” to finally say, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

God has never been hampered by our inabilities or our soiled histories. He is only hampered if we refuse to let Him use us. Remember that list of biblical characters I read—their inabilities, and their immoralities? But they became heroes simply because whatever they had, whatever they were, they said. “God, I may not be much, but I am at least willing to be Yours.”

Last week we attended the Urban Angels Banquet sponsored by the New York Theological Seminary. They have an intriguing program where professors are sent behind the walls of Sing Sing Prison to teach the inmates there, many of whom eventually earn their Master of Divinity degree. They go into prison hardened criminals; they come out with clerical collars. Some of those former inmates have begun an outreach program of their own, going into tough neighborhoods in New York and dealing with at-risk kids, trying to catch them and turn them in a new direction while there is time.

One of those ordained former inmates was seated near us Tuesday. He said: “Imagine God using someone like me. No one would have thought it possible. People thought I was nothing but a heap of dirt. But God knew…that’s where the flowers grow!” “We have God’s treasure in earthen vessels.”

All of us differ in our lives’ stories, in our gifts and graces, in our histories, in our accomplishments, or in our guilt. All of us have flaws and limitations. But in some incredible way, God is able to use all us “imperfect vessels” to build his perfect Kingdom. The only thing required of us is simply to say:

“Whatever I am, O God,
I am at least willing to be Yours.”

So, do not ever sell yourself short. And do not ever sell God short, either. If you are open to His grace, then yours is a life where flowers can grow!

Let us pray:

O God, we may be little more than earthen vessels—but we believe that in Your hands, we can help make this world a better place. We come to You as imperfect creatures, but we trust ourselves forever into Your perfect hands. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.