I was very sorry not to be with you last Sunday. In some ways it was a bad time for me to be out of town since I had just announced my impending departure. But the vestry retreat had been planned for a year, and since the vestry will be in charge of the parish after I leave, I thought it was very important that I be with them at the retreat. And as sorry as I was that I couldn’t be here that morning, I was really glad that I was there with them.

This morning, I want to tell you a little bit of what went on at that retreat. I found it very heartening, and I think it’s especially important for you to hear about it as St. John’s approaches this time of transition.

We did several creative exercises, and the vestry was really wonderful in all of them. I’m going to tell you about just one. Before we went, I asked Martha Spring, who is constitutionally a creative person, to come up with some creative exercises that would help the vestry learn about one another and begin to gel as a group. “I don’t want it to be an academic exercise,” I told her. (Which, of course, was ridiculous since she wouldn’t have done that anyway). I said, “I’d like them to do something with their hands. How about if we use clay?”

So Liz Schellingerhoudt, who is a potter, brought clay, and Martha gave a half a pound to each person, along with some tools and a bowl of water and a placemat and, most importantly, a warning that the clay stains. When everything was ready, I read them a passage from Luke in which Jesus predicts that he will suffer and die and be raised on the third day, and then he says,

If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake, he will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? [Lk. 9:20-25]

After the reading, Martha gave them instructions: “You have twenty minutes,” she said. “Use your clay to express your feelings about this reading.”

Now, before we go on, I want to pause to let you think of what you would make with your clay to express yourself in light of this reading about suffering, and death, and resurrection, and taking up your cross, and finding true life. Don’t worry about your artistic ability (that’s not the point), just go with the concept. I’m going to give you twenty seconds, then I’m going to ask for volunteers to tell us what you would have fashioned out of your clay. (Not how, just what).

[Wait 20 seconds. Go to nave floor and ask for volunteers. Repeat their answers so people can hear.] [This worked well. Lots of people responded with a wonderful variety of images.]

Thank you. The original plan was that Martha was going to tell the vestry to make a cross, but Martha didn’t do it. Listening to the reading about suffering and resurrection and taking up your cross and gaining true life, she suddenly felt that it would be too confining to tell them what to make. Notice the wonderful variety of images you came up with. If I had told you to think of making a cross, we would have lost that creativity. And because Martha went with her feelings and didn’t confine the vestry to making little crosses, we got a wonderful variety of images from them as well.

I wish I could remember them all. They were very good, and all very creative. There was a crown of thorns; a crucifix; an empty tomb; a heart with a cross inscribed on it; a communion set; a fence to keep sheep safe; the shoulders of God carrying the world; a person carrying another person; a hillside with rocks on a path leading to a cross; and finally (and amazingly considering that the artist had only half a pound of clay), a man standing on a rock with a shelter over his head, holding the Word of God, moving toward heaven. I wish I could remember them all, but the point is that we ended up with a wonderful variety of creative sculptures.

After everyone had described their sculpture, I read them an excerpt from the passage we read this morning from St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians:

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body --Jews or Greeks, slaves or free --and all were made to drink of one Spirit. For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the organs in the body, each one of them, as he chose… [T]he parts of the body which seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those parts of the body which we think less honorable we invest with the greater honor…. But God has so composed the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior part, that there may be no discord in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. [1 Cor. 12: 4-27]

In Greek, the “you” in that last line is plural, which English doesn’t have a way of differentiating. But Southern does, so it should be translated, “Now y’all are the body of Christ and individually members of it.”

After that reading, Martha gave additional direction: “Now,” she said, “take each of your individual sculptures and work together to make them into a cross. You have twenty minutes.”

So in twenty minutes, they (1) agreed on the basic design of the cross; (2) they worked together to decide whose sculpture went where to facilitate the design; (3) they didn’t fight over whose work received the most prominent placement; and (4) when a little bending or melding was necessary, they didn’t object that their masterpiece was being defaced.

So they ended up with a cross that, I must say, was a bit odd. It didn’t look like any cross I’ve ever seen before. But it was very wonderful, very rich in texture and imagery and meaning, because everyone participating put some meaning into that cross.

And then we sort of debriefed the process that had lead up to them making that cross. We talked about how Martha had changed the plan because of what she felt from the Spirit, and how much would have been lost if she had instructed them to make little crosses.

They talked about what would have happened if the exercise had started with Martha giving them a six-pound lump of clay and saying, “Make a cross.” They might have made a beautiful cross, but it almost certainly would not have reflected the richness and creativity of the rather odd looking cross they made.

And they talked about how important it was that each of them did their part on their own. “To get this started,” they said, “each of us had to do our job. Each of us had to make our own sculpture.”

And they talked about how different people had had different reactions to the same reading, but each individual had brought their own creativity, their own gifts, to the process. Instead of arguing about whose sculpture, was the “right” interpretation, they honored the variety of responses and the richness that came out of those differences.

Then they discussed how important it was that their gifts were used for the greater good of making the cross. They talked about how they had cooperated, how they had set individual egos aside, how they had worked together to make the cross.

And they were proud of themselves. And they should have been. Because that rather odd looking cross positively brimmed with the creativity and meaning and faith that this little community of faith had given it. Beautiful crosses made from a six-pound lump of clay have their place, but I think Jesus would take this rather odd looking one any day.

I thought that it was important for you to know something of what went on at the vestry retreat, especially since I’ll be leaving soon and the vestry will be in charge. But really, that shouldn’t have anything to do with it. Because before I got here and after I’m gone, these words were and will still be true: “Just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. . . . If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it. Now y’all are the body of Christ and individually members of it.”

My brothers and sisters, when I’m gone and keeping you in my prayers (and I will), my prayer for you will be that, individually and together, you honor God by how you shape with the clay he has given you.

The Rev. James H. Pritchett, Jr. St. John’s Episcopal Church, College Park, GA. If you would like to comment on this sermon or receive these sermons by email, contact me at rector@stjohnscollegepark.com.