The parable of the carpenters shop.
I want to read you an excerpt from a novel. In the story the hero Jack is invited to come and work in a carpenter's shop. The Master carpenter Charlie is an experienced gent of few words but the words he speaks are insightful and I found them helpful. You’ll probably pick up that English is not his first language and I have dulled and omitted some of his more colourful language. Here’s how the story goes.
‘Down at my end of the workshop Charlie had laid out the wood for the boardroom table he was making. Three perfect walnut boards, fifteen feet long, eighteen inches wide and one and half inches thick. The first time Charlie had given me a job using timber of this quality I’d asked “What’s this?”
“Piece wood,” Charlie said ‘Sweet mahogany. One hundred years old.’
“I don’t think I’m ready for this” I said.
Charlie had taken the cheroot out of his mouth and given my statement some thought.
“Jack” he said, ‘Till you make something nice out of it, it’s just a piece of wood’.
I studied the rough walnut boards with reverence. This was one of the classic furniture timbers. Very few makers ever had the chance to work with wood of this quality and size. I turned one of the boards over. Chalked on the other side was the date Charlie had laid the the boards down. 10/3/46. This wood's moisture content was so low that even the ducted central heating in some Collins street tower wasn’t going to cause it to move. Did an emerging mining company deserve a table made from unobtainable timber, air-dried for at least fifty years? Wouldn’t some lesser, wetter timber do? The miner wouldn’t notice. I’d once asked Charlie the same question about a bureau he was making for a hotel owner with drug connections. “This (here insert naughty word) I’m not making it for” he said. “He’s just the first owner. I’m making it for all the owners”.
A few things to draw out of this little excerpt.
Jacks opening line “I don’t think I’m ready for this”.
There is a sense in which we are never quite ready for this adventure that we call discipleship. We approach it joy, yes but also I hope with a sense of respect, awe and tremulous anticipation. And I think that at every chapter in our lives, no matter where we are up to in our life - novel there will always be a sense in which we say
“I don’t think I’m not ready for this” and I think that is a healthy way of going forward. How can we ever be really ready? But you friends.. You are more ready than you know.
Notice please that the wood needed to be aged. With the years the moisture had dried it out until it was absolutely ready to be the best possible wood it could be. We ought not to be miffed if there are a few grey hairs in our congregation. Rather this should be a cause of celebration for we have truckloads of life experience to draw on. Often the more mature we are, the better we are.
“Till you make something nice out of it, it’s just a piece of wood”. We need to be fashioned. We begin simply enough as a piece of wood. Gnarly, bumpy walnut boards, rough hewn but ready to be made into something quite lovely. The Master Carpenter sees the potential in us and if we allow him, will fashion us into something quite magnificent.
“This mmmggh I’m not making it for” he said. “He’s just the first owner. I’m making it for all the owners.”
Our work, our prayers, our ministry, is not just for ourselves and it’s certainly not about us. It’s always about … Him. Nor is it just for our children. Our work, our prayers, our ministry is for future generations and even the generations that have not been born yet. Frequently, not every time, but frequently when I stand at the altar, I am aware that there have been countless priests before me who have stood where I stand and have offered the same sacrifice. And long after I am gone there will be a string of priests who will stand at exactly the same place and do exactly the same thing.
The question that we frequently need to ask is
“What will future generations think of the decisions we made in 2021?” Will they thank us or will they be cranky with us?
A prayer to finish
O Christ, the Master Carpenter,
who at the last through wood and nails purchased our whole salvation;
wield well your tools in the workshop of your world,
so that we who come rough-hewn to your work bench
may be fashioned to a truer beauty by your hand.
We ask this in His name Amen.