Paul, my neighbor,
died in his sleep one night, and his children held a garage sale. Among the
tyre chains, tools, and ladders that filled our street with tradesmen’s
vehicles were a number of shelves of pottery, for Paul practiced an art thousands
of years old, the way of the potter.
It put me in mind of Psalm 2: ‘Thou shalt
dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel’. Who shall be broken? The nations.
A cursory glance at the news confirms this as just truth: the kings of the
earth breaking and taking from one another.
The greatest of
vessels is called Theotokos, the Mother of God, who carried the Lord Jesus.
Like every mother who has ever lost a child to death, she is a broken vessel,
yet the light that shines through her as a result of this breaking illumines
the world. Blessed, broken, given. Can you ever separate a mother from her
child? Are they not one flesh?
They say the
church is our mother (broken in its own way), and we are thus one body. Paul,
without meaning to, nonetheless preaches after his death. His vessels preach
for him. What preaches for you, and me?
