A man made his way across a lonely landscape. His feet were bare and caked with dust. His clothes were worn and tattered. In his arms he carried the only three items he could call his own: A bowl made of clay, a silver spoon and a rusty hunting knife. He came upon a creaky bridge, and as he crossed it, the silver spoon slipped from his grasp and was lost in the whirling water below. "Oh, my knife! Gone forever!" He continued on, holding his remaining possessions closer than before. He passed into a deep forest. It wasn't long before a monkey swooped down out of a tree and snatched his silver spoon from his hands. As the monkey disappeared in the treetops the man cried, "Oh, my spoon, lost to me also!" The bowl, he clung to with all his might, folding it into his garments so that it stayed close to his skin. However, he came to a broken wall, over which he had to climb. As he picked his way carefully across the boulders, his clay bowl slipped from his grasp and shattered on the stone. The man paused. No move he made. And then, with his head thrown back and his arms raised to the sky he hollered, "Free!." And he carried on, with a bounce in his step and his arms swinging.
I don't remember where I heard it before, or even the details of how it was told, but the essence of this parable stuck with me. The weight and responsibility of things can be so tiring. On occasion, the life of a pilgrim has appealed to me. Hold on to the ones you love, and go. . . leave everything else behind. I have never worked out the how or where of this scenario. But the idea is still exhilarating. No ties to anything but one another.
The Acts church did it. They sold everything they had and gave it to the ministry, and to support one another. In today's reality, however, love would, likely, only get you so far in this climate, and then you would either have to become dependant on social assistance, or freeze to death in the snow. What's the balance? How do we become people freed of our proverbial clay bowls?
Aidan and I spent the Lord's day with a family who is about to do just that. They, and their six boys are heading off to Africa to train up local men to become pastors. In their wake, they will leave behind everything. And I mean everything. We were taken on a tour of their empty house, and offered the last of their furniture and appliances. The boys will be allowed to fill one small suitcase apiece. No bikes, no skates, no stuffed bears.
This same family followed us to our building site later in the day, and toured our home-to-be. They loved it. Offering it high praise, and hinting that this would be the place they come on furlough. Surely the awkwardness this situation presented is evident to you. While this couple was in the midst of purging themselves of all of their wordly posessions, Aidan and I were equally as busy compiling our own.
Mercifully, it wasn't long before we were offered this little gem; "We have been greatly blessed by wealthy friends who's wealth is their ministry. Everything they own is given in hospitality and fellowship." You have much? Then give much. The more I meditate on this the more I understand. God has given us all clay bowls. Those of us who cling to our bowl until our knuckles turn white will never find peace. But those of us who hold on lightly, treating it as a thing to be passed around, will be just as the man who's own bowl slipped out of his fingers to the ground: Free.
