We're Also the Lumber--May 5, 2021

We're Also The Lumber--May 5, 2021

"Yet Jesus is worthy of more glory than Moses, just as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself. (For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.)"  [Hebrews 3:3-4]

Preachers (like myself) like to think of ourselves as God's helpers.  We like to think of ourselves as Jesus' co-workers, bringing the Kingdom with our holy words, or courageous leadership, or faithful lives.  We picture ourselves as apprentices in Jesus' carpentry shop, assisting our Lord as together we build the church.  And all of that may have glimmers of truth to it, at least some of the time (sometimes, God does have to work in spite of us, and not just through us, though).

But the thing that religious professionals (again, ahem, like me) have a harder time coming face to face with is this truth:  we're all at the very same time part of what Jesus is building, too.  We're not just the construction crew: we're the project, along with everybody else!  In other words, I'm not the one helping to hold the screws or cordless drill for Jesus as assembles something out of beautiful oak boards, or at least that's not the whole picture.  I'm also the lumber!  I'm part of what Jesus is making into something new, and so are you.  We're the house God is building, not the sub-contractors God hires out to set the trusses or run the electrical work.

And this, I have to confess, is humbling.  All of us want to imagine we are instrumental to God's plans.  Each of us wants to cast ourselves as the critical figure with the necessary skills for just the right moment to the do the specific task and fill the particular role that God needs you to do, or else the whole enterprise will come tumbling down like a house of cards.  Each of us wants to see ourselves as indispensable to the Divine Plan, as God's chosen instruments for fixing the world's broken places (usually we also assume God's plan aligns with our current priorities and preferences, too).  But maybe it is also true that God is working on me, and not just through me.  Maybe I am still incomplete and in need of being built up myself, and maybe I'm not the master builder or expert carpenter I imagine myself to be.  Maybe God takes the plane and the sander to my rough edges, not just putting those tools in my hands to go fix someone else.

And that's ok.  That's an important realization.  As difficult as it is to see that we are not only (or even primarily!) God's co-workers, but the very ones God is working on, that's an important gift to be given.  For preachers and other religious professionals, that should keep us from getting too big for our britches and casting ourselves as spiritual giants, when we quite likely have a great deal to learn.  And for all of us, it reminds us that it's ok to be a work still in progress--that's who all of us are, all the time.

When the writer of Hebrews compares Jesus and Moses, he follows this same train of thought.  Instead of saying that Moses is like Jesus' apprentice or co-laborer building God's house or God's kingdom, Jesus says that Moses is more like a part of the house itself.  Even Moses!  The guy with the Ten Commandments in his hands himself!  That guy, as important as he was, was also just one more piece of what God has been building.  So for any of us, preachers, church council presidents, life-long Christians, wise and seasoned faith mentors, and those still dripping wet from the font, this truth has a way of reminding us that God is still working on us.  It can also be true that God uses us, even when we're not finished ourselves, as instruments for God's good purposes elsewhere in the world--but it's worth remembering that God is working on us at the same time.  And it's okay that God isn't done with us. 

In fact, that's what gives me hope.

Lord God, we dare to pray that you would keep making something good and holy and blessed out of us... and that you would use us in your work, as well.