Adequate?
Have you ever felt completely inadequate? Sunday morning, prior to our church’s worship service, I went down the deadly serpent’s hole of comparing my insides with someone else’s outsides. I watched a video of a young, hip couple who had successfully planted a church in a rural town. He had a big burly beard, his shirt buttoned all the way to his neck, and he wore Blundstone boots. She had intentionally mussy hair and a nose ring. Their outsides screamed church planting success.
I, on the other hand, am heading quickly to 54, overweight, and talk a big game while having the cold dainty feet of a runaway bride. I went to worship having sufficiently lashed my soul with condemnation and doubt.
I led the congregation in worship (irony of ironies) and sat down to listen as our pastor opened up the Bible. The passage was in Mark and is the familiar story of Jesus feeding the five thousand (Yeah, yeah . . . we all know how it ends. Yawn). In the story there are five thousand plus people who have followed Jesus into a desolate area. It was late in the day and the people were hungry. The disciples implored Jesus to send them away so they could get on their way to find food. But Jesus turned their request on them. “YOU feed them.” Impossible. They were completely inadequate to fulfill such a demand. But Jesus used their inadequacy to show His adequacy.
Our pastor directed us to 2 Corinthians 4:7: “But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.” He drove home the point that we do not put our greatest treasure in clay jars. That would be irresponsible and silly. We have fireproof and tamper-proof safes for those items. Clay jars are completely inadequate to fulfill such a demand. But Jesus promised to use their inadequacy to show His adequacy.
The sermon ended and the pastoral prayer prayed, we entered into the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. The elements of bread and wine were explained as symbolizing Jesus body given and blood shed. They were dispersed among us to reflect on the sermon, Christ’s work on our behalf, and the application of the Word to our lives. “This is my body given for you. Take and eat.”
I held the bread in my hand and realized I was about to put what represents the Treasure of all treasures into this clay jar of a 54 year old man in khakis and a blue blazer. Clay jars are completely inadequate to fulfill such a demand. But Jesus promises to use my inadequacy to show His adequacy through His surpassing power. And that’s something this church planter needs to grasp.