The Treasure in the Earthen Vessels

A Reflection on the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Beloved in Christ,

It is interesting to note the image chosen by Saint Paul in today’s Apostolic Reading: “We have this treasure in earthen vessels.” A treasure ought, we would think, to be kept in a vessel worthy of it. Precious things belong in precious containers. Gold is placed in a fitting place; holy things are treated with reverence; that which is valuable is guarded carefully against loss.

Yet Saint Paul tells us that God has done something quite different.

God, Who “commanded the light to shine out of darkness,” has shined in our hearts, giving “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Christ Jesus.” And this immeasurable treasure He has placed in vessels made of earth, in us.

Saint Paul does not flatter the vessel. He does not pretend that conversion has somehow made human nature invulnerable. Almost immediately he begins describing what happens to these earthen vessels: “We suffer tribulation, but are not distressed; we are straitened, but are not destitute; we suffer persecution, but are not forsaken; we are cast down, but we perish not.”

He doesn’t say that Christians do not suffer tribulation, or that faith prevents us from being perplexed, pressed upon, persecuted, or cast down. Christianity does not require us to pretend that clay has become iron. The vessel remains earthen.

It grows tired. It suffers. It can be frightened. It can be wounded. It discovers its own limitations, sometimes painfully. The Christian may find himself in circumstances which he cannot repair, bearing burdens which he cannot simply put down, confronting questions for which he possesses no immediate answer. Yet, none of this proves that the treasure has departed.

Indeed, Saint Paul gives almost the opposite interpretation: the treasure is placed in an earthen vessel precisely “that the excellency may be of the power of God, and not of us.”

There is a great difference between Christian virtue of fortitude and the mere performance of strength. The latter insists upon appearing invulnerable. The former knows perfectly well that it is vulnerable and nevertheless trusts God.

The Christian can therefore say, without contradiction: I am cast down, but I have not perished. I am troubled, but I have not been abandoned. I do not know how this will end, but I know Who has remained with me.

The strength is not finally in the vessel; the strength is in the treasure. But what is this treasure? Saint Paul has already told us: it is “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Christ Jesus.” And here the Apostle leads us almost naturally into this Sunday’s Gospel.

A doctor of the Law approaches Christ and asks Him which is the greatest commandment. Our Lord answers with words familiar to every Christian: to love God with the whole heart, soul, and mind, and to love one’s neighbour as oneself. Upon these two commandments, He says, depend the whole Law and the Prophets.

And had the conversation ended there, one might have imagined Christianity principally as a sublime moral teaching. Love God. Love your neighbour. Certainly nothing in the Christian life can contradict these commandments, and every examination of conscience must eventually return to them. But Christ does not permit the conversation to end there. Instead, after the inquirer had finished asking his questions, then Christ Himself asks one: “What think you of Christ? Whose Son is He?”

Here we see a remarkable turn. The Gospel has moved from the greatest question of what man must do to the still deeper question of Who Christ is.

The Pharisees answer that the Christ is the Son of David. Their answer is true, but incomplete. And so our Lord takes them further. If the Christ is merely David’s descendant, how does David himself, speaking in the Spirit, call Him Lord? “The Lord said to my Lord: Sit on My right hand, until I make Thy enemies Thy footstool.”

The question remains before them… and no man is able to answer Him a word.

That question remains before every Christian as well, to this very moment, and at every moment of our lives: “What think you of Christ?”

It is possible to admire Christian morality without answering this question. It is possible to appreciate the commandment of love without answering it. One can admire the Sermon on the Mount, respect Christian civilization, study Christian theology, appreciate Christian art, defend Christian moral principles, and still leave unanswered the question which Christ Himself places at the center: What think you of Christ?

But Christianity does not begin and end with a moral program. The Gospel is not merely the announcement that mankind ought to behave better. The treasure entrusted to us is Christ Himself.

He is the Son of David according to the flesh, yet David calls Him Lord. He is the One in Whose face shines the glory of God. He is the One Who entered death and overthrew it. He is the One Who, as the Resurrectional Kondak sings, “with the hand that originated life” raised the dead out of the dark valleys. And it is His life which Saint Paul says is to become manifest in us. “Always bearing about in our body the mortification of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be made manifest in our bodies.”

Here the image of the earthen vessel becomes still more profound.

God does not preserve the vessel by keeping it untouched upon a shelf. The Christian is not entrusted with Christ merely in order to possess a treasure privately and safely. Saint Paul speaks instead of being pressed, persecuted, cast down, and continually delivered unto death. And yet through all of this, the life of Jesus becomes manifest.

The vessel may show its cracks… and through them something greater than the vessel may be seen. This is why Christian weakness need not end in despair, and Christian strength need not end in pride. If everything depended upon the vessel, despair would be entirely reasonable. We know what we are made of. We know our sins, inconsistencies, fears, limitations, and failures.

But the Apostle directs our attention away from the clay and toward that which the clay has been given to carry: “We have this treasure in earthen vessels.”

The Church herself has often appeared before the world in precisely this way. Her saints have not always been powerful according to worldly standards. Her confessors have been imprisoned. Her martyrs have been killed. Her faithful have been scattered. Her priests have grown old and weary. Her churches have been destroyed. Whole Christian peoples have passed through persecution, poverty, exile, and apparent defeat. Yet the treasure has survived vessels which the world considered broken beyond repair.

That is because the treasure is not ours to manufacture. Saint Paul assures us: “God, Who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts.” The same God Who once commanded light to appear in the primordial darkness has caused this light, this treasure, to shine: the knowledge of His glory in the face of Jesus Christ.

That is why Saint Paul can be cast down without perishing. That is why he can bear death while speaking of life. That is why he can suffer and still believe; believe and therefore speak; speak because he knows that “He Who raised up Jesus, will raise us up also with Jesus.”

And that is why the question in the Gospel matters so much. “What think you of Christ?”

If He is merely a teacher, then His commandments may inspire us, but our weakness remains our own problem. If He is merely an example, we may admire Him while despairing of ever becoming like Him. If He is merely one religious figure among others, then the treasure is ultimately only another collection of human ideas entrusted to human keeping.

But if He is indeed David’s Son and David’s Lord; if in His face shines the glory of God; if He is, as we sing, “the Resurrection and the Life and the God of all,” then the Christian possesses something infinitely greater than his own strength. We carry the Treasure while remaining earthen vessels.

And perhaps that is precisely why God has chosen such vessels. For when the vessel is impressive, we may admire the vessel. But when something frail is pressed and does not despair, cast down and does not perish, wounded and yet continues to love, mortal and yet bears within itself the promise of Resurrection, we begin to suspect that something else is present which cannot be explained by the clay.

The excellency is of the power of God, and not of us. The vessel is earthen, but the Treasure is Christ.

13 September 2026