Excerpt from Daniel 2:24-49

"As you saw the feet and toes partly of potter's clay…"

Reflection by Quinn G. Caldwell

Yet another in the long list of metaphors you might not have known comes straight from the Bible.  King Nebuchadnezzar dreams of a scary statue and wants to know what it means.  Daniel tells him: the statue has clay feet and so will fall.

These days, "feet of clay" is used to describe a big-deal person whose career or persona or whatever is built on shaky ground.  It's also somebody's weak spot, their Achilles heel (that one's not from the Bible, FYI).  The implication is that smart people, people who are doing it right, will make their feet of iron, stand on solid ground, be invulnerable.

Here's the thing, though: everybody has feet of clay.  That's what God makes feet out of—even his own.  If you make it through your whole life without your feet getting stubbed or stepped on, be-warted or ingrown-toenailed, if you manage to do what God didn't and live your whole life without having your feet nailed to a cross, still those feet will one day turn to dust.

On the eve of his death, Jesus washed his followers' feet.  Baptized their fragility.  Blessed them in all their clayeyness.  Said if they leaned on him, when their feet crumbled, they would stand forever.

Here is a true thing: if they haven't already, your feet will one day betray you.  Here's another: your ability to stand up full of life never depended on them anyway.

Prayer

God, I sure do love these feet and what they can do for me.  But I trust you twice as much as I do them.  Amen.

About the Author Quinn G. Caldwell, a United Church of Christ minister, is the co-author, with Curtis J. Preston, of the Unofficial Handbook of the United Church of Christ, published by The Pilgrim Press.