The Man with the Water Jar
June 18, 2017
Mark S. Bollwinkel
[This sermon is delivered
while throwing a clay pot on a potter’s wheel in front of the congregation.]
The
Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered between 1947 – 1956 in 11 caves on the
northwest corner of the Dead Sea, about 13 miles from Jerusalem. The Scrolls are the libraries of a Jewish
sect that hide them around the time of the Jewish-Roman war of the first
century (66-70CE).
This sect,
located near the caves in what is now called the Qumran community, has been
most identified with the Essenes. They
were a radical group, who yearning for purity, took to the desert to await the
end of the world and coming of the new messiah.
Although an important and influential movement contemporary to Jesus’
times, the New Testament doesn’t mention them by name. Many scholars suggest that John the Baptist
could have been a member of the group because of his desert mystic ways such as
wearing animal skins and eating wild honey and locust (Mark 1:1-8). He certainly preached about the end of the
world, as did the Essenes. So, did Jesus
in some very significant ways. The way
he prepared himself for ministry in the desert suggests he may have known the
group as well.
The
Dead Sea Scrolls contain at least fragments of all the books of the Old
Testament, except Ester. There is a
complete manuscript of the prophet Isaiah.
Their discovery was enormously important for Biblical scholarship
because these texts were 1,000 years older than any other previous copies of
the Bible. The library also contained
volumes of other works describing biblical commentary, apocalyptic expectation
and a “Manuel of Discipleship” detailing the life of the Qumran community. Scholars are still learning from them and
debating amongst themselves their meaning.
The
Scrolls survived 1,900 years in the caves wrapped in fine linen and stored in
clay pots.
Pottery is an
ancient art and craft practiced throughout the world. Archeologists have discovered intact clay
vessels and ceramic objects dating back to 9,000 BCE. Clay is found almost everywhere. The development of ceramic utensils for
cooking, food storage and decoration is universal. In Palestine and Israel, it goes back
thousands of years.
Pottery
can be made using hands only, by pressing clay into molds, rolling coils of
clay and shaping them with tools, or as is very common spun on the base of a
potter’s wheel. Once dried it is fired
at high temperatures to vitrify the silica in the clay, thus making it
waterproof and bonding the strength of the vessel.
The
Dead Sea Scrolls jars ranged in size, some as tall as 19”. This style of pot was quite common as a
storage jar. It was often used as the
equivalent of our modern day “safe deposit box”. They didn’t have banks, as we know them, back
in the first century so folks would buy these pots, store their valuables in
them, and then place them somewhere in their homes, or buried out in the “back
yard”, so to speak. A potter would throw
a separate lid for the cylinder and then the owner would often seal the lid
with wax or animal fats.
A
potter worth his or her salt could make six of these in an hour. This common, simple ceramic vessel was used
to save a library of scripture and history wrapped in fine linen for almost
2,000 years. The contribution to us from
those ancient, pious, desert mystics and the potters they used to store the
scrolls is priceless.
The
Bible has many references to pottery and to clay. Here in Church of the Wayfarer we have a
wonderful stained-glass window depicting Jeremiah’s visit to the “potter’s
house” in the 18th chapter of his book:
The word that
came to Jeremiah from the Lord: ‘Come, go down to the potter’s house, and there
I will let you hear my words.’ So, I went down to the potter’s house, and there
he was working at his wheel. The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in
the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as seemed good to
him.
God’s judgement
will come upon Israel and after its exile return, they will rebuild their
nation and faith, waiting for a new Messiah.
As the song says of God, “I am the potter, you are the clay.”
Excuse the
dramatics. A potter’s commitment is to
the process not to the individual piece.
Failure, breakage, kiln accidents and glaze mistakes are the constant
life of a potter. As invested as we are
in the present moment of our craft, we come to know that there are a host of
things out of our control that determine the outcome of any one pot. So, we don’t get overwhelmed with any one
failure or mistake with anyone pot. We
just keep working to perfect our craft.
Couldn’t
this be true of life as well?
Consider
Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians (4:7), “But we have this treasure in clay jars,
so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and
does not come from us.” The treasure he
is referring is to be the light and love of God, contained in the fragile,
mortal and all too tenuous containers of human life. Failure and brokenness are inevitable for any
of us, however strong, brave and intelligent.
To remain committed to life and love, even when we know we will stumble
and fall, is the basis of faith.
To avoid pain is
denial, to expect perfection out of our mortality is neurosis. Health and wholeness comes to us when we
learn to love each other and ourselves despite our failures, just as God loves
us.
As horrendous
any one moment can be in our lives, we are committed to the entire process of
the life that God has given us. As
painful and difficult any one moment can be in our lives, it will not have the
final say about who we are. After all,
it is God who breathed the spirit of life into a bit of clay to create us
(Genesis 2:7). It is God who calls us
“sons and daughters” (Roman 8:14). The
prophet Isaiah, whose scroll was saved in its entirety at Qumran, says four
times that “God is the potter and we are the clay” (29:16, 41:25, 45:9, 64:8),
God’s love and grace forms our living, and it has the final word about who we
are, despite our flaws.
The man with the
water jar must have known this to be true.
“The man with
the water jar” is one of the enigmas of the New Testament. Mentioned only in Mark and Luke we really
don’t know who he was. We do know that
men did not carry water jars or pitchers in first century Palestine. That was “women’s work”. Why would a man be out in public view
carrying a clay water jar?
Some scholars suggest
that the man is a part of a conspiracy to secret Jesus into Jerusalem for the
Passover. By this time, government
officials were openly plotting Jesus’ arrest and murder (Mark 14:1-3). The Jesus’ movement hoped that he was the
new Messiah. It was imperative that he
celebrated the Passover Festival in Jerusalem when religious and national
fervor would be great, and some of the largest crowds would gather. They had to get Jesus into Jerusalem under
the noses of the Sanhedrin and Roman guards.
Like the secret password between warriors, a man with the water pitcher
could have been a glaring yet silent signal to the disciples of who to trust
and follow to the room where they could prepare for Jesus’ arrival.
Some scholars
suggest that the man could have been a member of the Essenes. The group was known to practice extreme
celibacy and would have required men to perform female roles within the Qumran
community, such as carrying water. They
certainly had a radical investment in the apocalyptic confrontation that would
result from Jesus being proclaimed messiah during the Passover festival. The man with the water jar could have been a
member of the community that would bury the Dead Sea Scrolls just a few years
later.
The term “water
jar/pitcher” is specific to a vessel used domestically in the kitchen or at
table. (The potter/preacher is forming a
replica of the traditional water jar/pitcher now on the wheel). It would have been around 12” tall and would
probably not have been glazed. The
terracotta clay used in the region was strong but fired at relatively low
temperatures, minutely porous, allowing the pot to “sweat” (allowing sheen of
moisture to gather on the surface) and then evaporate, cooling the contents of
the jar, an important feature in a desert.
So, although we
do not know his name and he is only mentioned in two of the four gospels, we
can know that a member of the Jesus’ community had such courage and conviction
that he was willing to take the risk of his own arrest to make it safe for
Jesus’ participation in the Passover that year.
It was that evening we call the Last Supper, a ritual meal we now know
as sacrament of Holy Communion, when in the sharing of bread and wine we recall
God’s unlimited love for humanity in the life, death and resurrection of his
Jesus, our Jesus.
This man with
the water jar, a nobody in history, acts in faith to facilitate his people’s
hope…our hope…for a better future, for the reign of God’s love. Because of his small role in the drama of
that evening, we gather here today, 2,000 years later to continue the Jesus
community’s investment in God’s future.
Amazing what a
simple, everyday kind of person can do when they are inspired to use their
gifts in faith.
Lets thank God
for the man with the water jar, and the members of the Qumran community, whose
passion for God’s future left us the legacy of Holy Communion and the Dead Sea
Scrolls.
Maybe the man
with the water jar was the Essenes potter whose vessels would leave us our
clearest touch with history?
Amazing what
simple, everyday kind of people can do when they are inspired to use their
gifts in faith. Amen.
