"Jars of Clay"

Sermon Transcript for October 15, 2000

By Rev. John Enright

Scripture Reading: II Corinthians 4:5-10

 

As I begin to share with you what God has laid on my heart, I would like for us to base these thoughts on a passage of scripture in which Paul states it so well. Paul states in

II Corinthians, Chapter 4:5-10, he says this, "For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said let light shine out of darkness, may His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show God’s all surpassing power is for God and not for 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 bodies the death of Jesus so that the light of Jesus may be revealed in our bodies."

I’m very happy to be here this morning and to have the chance to fellowship together with you during your Mission’s Conference. It’s the first time that I have ever been to this church to speak. And yet we have a great deal in common. Your pastor has been over to Congo; has been to see what we are doing and has been a participate in our work for many years. You have in your congregation people who have been to all the places I have been. People who have worked in the Congo for many years. Others who have written them. Through Glen Beck’s participation in our work, we have had the privilege of a partner who has shared in so many things. And we are grateful for Glen’s work for missions down through the years; I cannot express that enough.

And so as I come here this morning I sense that we have been working together, though many of us have not met. That we’re part of a team. And so it’s with a certain sorrow that I say to you, Africa’s a mess! The Congo is split right down the middle. We can’t even go back to where we normally work because the front line is very close and there’s a good chance of getting killed. I look at Angola and I just hold my head. What can we say about Liberia and Sierra Leone or Somalia and on and on. And yet, even in that, as I come to you as your representative sent over to Africa, I say that there is a certain awe because we realize this is such a problem. It’s so far beyond anything that we can do that this is in God’s hands. And that we can rejoice as we watch and see how God is going to pour out His love on that continent. And we together, as people who love God, who are prepared to share the Good News of Jesus Christ, realize that our small part means to be blessed and amplified as God’s power goes out to the world.

So it’s in the light of this huge world in which God has placed us that I believe these words of Paul are so important. Paul is talking to the Corinthian church. And he understands that he has the knowledge for which the world is striving, seeking, dying. He has the knowledge that Jesus is Lord. That in Jesus Christ God is revealed not only that we can go to Heaven, but how we are to live. That for which everyone is striving. God has made it plain that Paul is the bearer of this message. And we share that. Jesus is love. We have the truth and it is a wonderful and frightening responsibility. And Paul goes on to say that the problem is that this treasure has been put into vessels of clay, jars of clay. And in case there’s anyone who doesn’t understand that analogy...there were at that time vessels of silver, glass, metal, things that are precious. Things that you would keep in the home. And then there were the little jars of clay. And I’m very acquainted with these. When we went to Congo,...I arrived there in 1950. That’s my home; I’ve lived there virtually all my life. I spoke Swahili before I spoke English. As a kid we would go to homes and we would squat down by the campfire, by the fire that people were having supper, and eat the mush and different things. We would eat out of little bowls of clay. And at that the metal pans and so on had not arrived for everyone and so the women made these little vessels of clay and they would cook over the fire. And it was great! I recommend termites and caterpillar dipped in jars of clay. In Indiana, I think what Paul would have said was, what’s with this Styrofoam cups--paper plates. We get the picture!

Not a very valuable sophisticated product. Something very simple, ordinary. And into these jars of clay has been placed this wonderful, transforming Good News of how God intends for us to live on His planet. We don’t have to beat ourselves with a whip, but let me just make it clear that we indeed are jars of clay. We are very limited. Many of us know. Some of us don’t need to know. We’re here this morning in this gorgeous church. I build churches over in Africa. And Glen will verify this, Mike as well. It ain’t like this one! We do our best. This is fantastic. And in this church we sit in worship; and folks we’re part of the body of Christ. This body extends over the whole world.

And think of this church as a tuxedo because this is top of the line. And over there in Congo is a church that are our brothers and sisters in Christ and the per capita income is $10.00 a year. And I didn’t suck that out of my thumb, that comes from the source of all my information--the BBC. Here in America it’s the Reader’s Digest and in Africa it’s the BBC. Where pastors earn $1.00 a month or less. Where none of the children wear shoes. Where in the last two years, again the BBC reported this, three million people have died as a result of this world. Many from sickness and starvation. And we don’t even know about it!

We’re more interested about why people die in bus accidents.

And we’re called to be a body; and we can’t. We’re called to make disciples. We go into all the world; and we have a hard time keeping the lawn mowed, doing our job, keeping our lives together. We have been told not to preach Bible insurance; not to go out and give a quick-fix gospel, but to make disciples. To bring the people into a relationship with Jesus Christ that transforms their life, and we’re still working on that ourselves, let alone going out into all the world.

And try sometime going to another culture and learning another language. (Speaks in Swahili) I grew up with that. That’s my native language. You try to go to another country and learn the language as an adult. People get really mad at me because I can do that. It’s so neat. I didn’t have to suffer at all; I mean, it’s just there.

We are limited. We can’t do what we see needs to be done. So we have a Mission’s Conference like this and we bring in missionaries. People like John Enright. My wife and I have been over there now for 28 years working as missionaries. And you can check but my feet don’t even touch the ground; I walk about two inches above the ground. Now, I’m sorry, but missionaries are jars of clay as well. We came here to the States two years ago. We left Congo for a quick vacation. My brother made it possible. We got here; had a great time seeing the family. And said, since we’re in America and Congo’s pretty remote place, let’s have some routine physicals done. So Kathy went in for this routine physical and at the end of it the doctor called us in and said she had breast cancer and that she was going to have some pretty radical surgery. Wow! We came for a little vacation.

And suddenly we realized how fragile, how precious this life is. And we went through the surgery and we went through all the details and we won’t get into that. And finally we’re given a clean bill of health of go back to Congo only to find the Congo exploding in Civil War. The whole thing is a mess. Armies are in there fighting and killing primarily over the minerals that are in the ground. People are dying and we can’t go back because where we live is where the armies are. We packed our suitcases and we, not knowing where we were going headed to Zambia and stopped in the town of Ndola. And there we thought I would set up shop, planning to go into Congo as soon as we could. We were there anticipating returning and I kept getting these messages. John don’t come; you will be arrested. There is a warrant for your arrest under state security laws. Huh? What did I do? I mean not what did I do but what do you know that I did?

It turns out that my crime is actually a very amazing one. It seems that I hid 200 enemy soldiers that I had trained and equipped. And I was keeping them under water in the waterfalls there in Nembo(sp?). Now I am a very capable person; but even this surprised me. Apparently these folks had been breathing water for the last two years; I had them hidden. And no one could see them because I was keeping them there by magic. Now, this would be funny except it would have got me killed. Just about three months ago they finally sent a delegation, they searched for the soldiers, they couldn’t find them, and I have been exonerated. I am innocent of my crime. We couldn’t go back to Congo.

There in Ndola we didn’t know any one. We’re sitting in this house and here comes jars of clay. Weak, fragile, limited. And Paul says, "Isn’t that great, because now when something gets down you and I both know that we didn’t do it. It was the power of God." And so it started out very simple. A guy came to our house and said, "Would you come preach at this little Methodist Church at Habozi(sp?) Township there near Ndola?" And we went along to the church with my family. There might have been ten people. Just a little tiny congregation. They rented a school room. And all of the other little churches rented school rooms around us. About the time I wanted to pray, the Pentecostals were all speaking in tongues or preaching or whatever; it was kind of noisy. But, I got up to preach the sermon the first Sunday. I preached, you know, about 20-30 minutes, like we’re suppose to. They said, "Gee, we wanted 2 ½ hours, you’ve really shortchanged us. Can you come back next week and finish your sermon?" So, I said, "Well, okay." So I came back and after four weeks of this foolishness they gave me the Senior Pastor of the church. And I did that ever since.

The little classroom, of course, became too small very quickly. Many of the people spoke Swahili so I would preach in Swahili and it would be translated into ??? We found a tavern that was for sale. Some of the folks showed me it. And it looked kind of rugged. The tavern’s name was "Devil’s Island". It had been kind of notorious in its day. But the city council had found it so dangerous they had condemnd it. They had taken the roofing off and it had been abandoned for about ten years. It looked terrible; but being a builder I kind of saw some things that could be worked out. My wife thought I needed a psychiatrist; but we bought it for $1,000 and slowly began to revamp it. We painted it and put a roof on it. And this old bar has turned in to the Kamose(sp?) United Methodist Church. Don’t make any jokes about suds or anything. And it’s about 6,000 square feet and fantastic.

As as of 2 ½ months ago, when I left Congo, we had in excess of 300 people worshiping every Sunday morning. Our youth group ran anywhere from 75 to 100. We were able to do mission projects. We were able to minister to the sick and the needy in that community. And as the youth group met for the last time a young man, let’s call George, was sitting there in the youth room and had a big smile on his face. And I said, "George, remember the first time I met you?" And he kind of looked down at the ground. He came in to church dead drunk. He had been drinking and at 9:00 a.m he was already very intoxicated and wandered into church and kind of sprawled there. He made an impression. I watched him come drunk a few more times, start singing in the choir, start participating in the youth group. And at the time I spoke, his life had been changed. I saw a person transformed by the power of God. My job is not to judge. But when I said to him, "What about now?" A smile split his face and you saw what God had done and my new horizon came. That God puts His power in jars of clay. That’s why I need to be in Ndola. And there’s a congregation that has now started 14 other congregations in the Ndola area.

We needed to have a pastor’s school. We’d been training village pastors in the Congo for 30 some years. But the war made it impossible. And so we set it up saying, "How can we put something together where these guys can come down from Congo, we can bring people from Tanzania. We can have school." Where do you start? Through a miraculous series of events two things happened.

1. We found a place, 80 acres of land, use to be a trucking company owned by the Yugoslovia government. I bought it from President Milosovich. That’s true. It had buildings and security walls and water and this amazing facility, right there by Ndola, located perfectly. It had gone for sale for $500,000 initially. The price was dropped to $360,000; and I bought it for $100,000 cash. That’s the first miracle.

2. Now the second miracle is I had $100,000 cash! I will never worry about money again. God can raise money from the skys. The best thing in my life is that I never had enough money. I learned how to build churches for $2,000 - $3,000 and I would have spent $50,000 if I’d of had it. And so when we needed the funds, there was a legacy from a family here in Indiana, my brother was tapped for a little, family members kicked in, churches like yourself. And when we needed it, I wrote a check and we bought it.

Pastors came from Congo. Pastors came from Tanzania, from Zambia. Some guys drove their bikes across 700 miles to get to that school. And we had a chance of feeding them, taking care of them, and sharing with them what it means to be a pastor and to share Christ. This is a glimpse of a big ministry. And so, at the end of that time, they went back to their homes and they took to villages you and I will never see, the Good News that Jesus is Lord. And God uses our faithfullness. You have a sense of looking at your life and saying, "Gee, I’m a spectator in my own life. Because it is God that is doing this." And the unspeakable treasure that is put into jars of clay.

Now what about the church in Congo? What about Capakunga (sp?) And Ninbo(sp?) and all of that world that we left behind? They’re doing just fine. I’m not indispensible. They’re doing great without me. The hydroplant is running; the center is operating. They’re paying their own bills and that work is carrying on. And I just rejoice that even in the midst of these kind of things God’s great power is there.

And so, my friends, we come to this morning. Your Mission’s Conference. God has called us to be faithful. I am humble and so thankful when I hear all that this church is doing in missions. I’m thankful for the chance to be part of your Mission’s Conference because I am the one who receives this. I know what it does out there. And on behalf of people who cannot thank you, I thank you. God calls us to care now. For my wife and I, we will be speaking during this furlow. I’ll go back in January, then in July we will return for another 3-4 years. I hope to raise the money to finish that center so that we have a conference center, a training center, for youth and for pastors and for lay people in the country of Zambia that will be there long after all of us are dead. That will stand as a beacon. That’s what this will go for. Building dormitories right now. And we’ll get it done.

African churches, African Christians--they’re doing their part. Even as we speak this morning, they’re carrying on God’s work. And what’s it like...it’s like....I was cutting some boards making bunk beads, getting ready for pastor school to start. And I had my skill saw out. I plug it in; it’s got electricity here at the center. I cut those boards and the guys that were helping me, and I didn’t think a thing about it. And then it came to me, you know, as I plugged in to that electricity what was going on was pretty big. You see, there’s a thing called the Intertropical Conversion Zone and these trade winds and they bring water out of the Indian Ocean and they dump it on the continent of Africa. And that water drains into our river that they call the Zambeze. And that water flows down this huge river, over Victoria Falls, and into a gorge made by some Italian company, and you just shake your head at what these people do. They built a wall across this river. Unbelievable! And so there’s a lake hundreds and hundreds of miles long. And then I got the priviledge of going down to this cave underground and there’s these six turbines as tall as this church. And they’re spinning and they’re putting out electicity. And I stop telling people about my hydro plant up in Congo. I can’t talk about that anymore. It’s embarassing. And as the power goes out into all of Central Africa, and old John plugs in his skill saw, and he says, "I saw the Lord." I tapped in to something much bigger than what I have. And in the same way, all of us have the privilege of tapping into the kingdom of God. God’s reign on earth. And when we are going in God’s direction, we have the priviedge of experiencing God’s power in our lives.

And now we come to our faith promise. Our chance to participate. I listened to the beautiful music this morning. And Sarai, I was talking to her earlier. And I asked her how they played that beautiful duet on the piano that’s called "Marching in the Light of God". And we sing that song in Africa. We dance and jump around. You people are wimps. We get into it. That’s a great song. But then I listened to that beautiful organ music. And thank you, choir, for that number. And I was talking to Sarai and I said, "How do you do this?" And she said, "I was in a mall in Indianapolis and they had this book and it said, "Organ and Piano for Dummies". And I read that book and in three days I was just doing what you see." I’m lying. I didn’t talk to her earlier. I know she didn’t read the book. Practice. How many years? Too many. Piano lessons. Teaching little fingers how to play. Exercises and practice so that Sunday morning we could all enjoy this beautiful music. Okay. But it didn’t come easy. There was struggle and pain and then there was the joy later on.

And God has given us the job of developing of growing of discipline. And part of that discipline is sharing what we have. And we have the priviledge this morning of participating in something far bigger than we are. And I don’t really care where it goes to as long as it goes for God to access and it does God’s work. And think of this as practice. This is not a contest to see if we can give more money than Peace United Methodist Church down the street. No, this is not football. This is about learning to experience God’s power in our lives. And I thank you and I commend you that you are participating in this wonderful thing that Paul told so well. Jars of clay through whom God is pouring his power. And we have a chance to be a part of that.