Earthen Vessels

Homily for the Feast of St. James

Whenever I hear this passage from St. Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians, I immediately think of a tremendous treasure that was found in amphorae or jars of clay in caves near the Dead Sea. For about ten years between the years of 1946 and 1956, a Bedouin Shepherd found seven clay jars that contained scrolls that proved to be manuscripts of the Book of the Prophet Isaiah and the Book of the Prophet Habakkuk. Since this initial discovery, archaeologists have continued to search the caves around the Dead Sea for further manuscripts. To date, the archaeologists have found more than 15,000 scrolls, many of them manuscripts from the first to the third century. The latest find was in the year 2021.

These scrolls proved to be one of the most important discoveries in the history of the Bible. For Bible scholars throughout the world this was a treasure beyond their wildest dreams. All of the scrolls are kept in a museum in Jerusalem. Archaeologists and scholars are still working to unroll these scrolls to determine what the manuscripts contain.

Of course, St. Paul knew nothing of this treasure found in the twentieth century. The treasure of which he writes is contained nowhere secure or reliable. Indeed, herein lies the beauty and value of this paradoxical treasure. Through Christ, God has placed God’s very life inside each of us, inside our every day, earthly bodies.

Today we celebrate the feast of the Apostle James, whose mother in the gospel pleads for him and his brother to sit beside Jesus in the eternal kingdom. In this instance, James’ mother overlooks the truth that the honor is not that they will sit beside Christ someday, but that Christ has already chosen to walk beside them. Like Jesus, James and his brother will go on to lay down their lives, their earthen vessels, in loving service of others. Their treasure of God’s presence within them could not be hidden, but instead were revealed in their simple gifts of self. The same is true of you and me.

Each time we receive Christ in the Eucharist, we stretch out our arms and cup our hands, emblematic of our participation in Jesus’ gift of sacrificial love. We offer our earthly bodies, our whole lives to God. In the words of St. Paul, we are always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our body.