I love to watch buildings take shape. I guess it’s the frustrated engineer in me, because that is what I would be involved with if the Lord had not, some fifty years ago, told me to build churches and souls instead of structures. But I love to see buildings take shape. There is a special joy in watching all that raw material come together into something useful.
I suppose I come by that naturally. One of my grandfathers was a contractor, specializing in moving houses. My dad used to tell stories about how, when he was a small boy, his assignment was to crawl under a house and put support blocks in place. Sounds like child endangerment to us, but he survived. Grandfather Smith found joy and fulfillment in moving things around, taking what was in the wrong place and making it useful again.
That grandfather died when I was only two years old, but my other grandfather was my first hands-on teacher. Grandfather Harpole had been a master mechanic for the Big Four railroad, and could make all sorts of things. He taught me shop trades – how to drive a nail, how to use a saw, how to drill a hole. I think of him every time I use tools. And no, he did not teach me what to say when I hit my thumb with the hammer! I figured that out all by myself!
That grandfather died when I was nine years old, and I am sure there is much more that I could have learned. I got along the best I could with the skills I gained. Today, if you were to visit my home, I could show you in every single room my efforts at building, especially my efforts at carpentry. I will be the first to tell you that it is not a pretty sight. But I have done what I could.
Let me tell you about some of my projects. These will tell you something about what the carpenter does with his timber. And, do not despair, they will also connect with the Scriptures and with the Good News!
I
Come with me through our dining room and stop at the door into the kitchen. Look closely and you will see that it has been reworked. Some while back we bought a new refrigerator-freezer, one of those side-by-side monsters, and the delivery men found it tough to move through the door. They did it, but it was not easy, and they banged up a few places in the process. So the mistress of the manor decreed that the door should be widened.
I managed to show her that major widening was impossible, but I did agree that a totally unnecessary moulding strip that narrowed each side of the frame could come out. No problem. Ah, but who knew it had been put on with glue? And who knew that when it was removed it would leave jagged, unsightly remains? We were going to have to put something right back on the places we had just cleared. We were going to have to defeat our own purposes, unless we could come up with something paper-thin.
I looked in every hardware story in the county, and found nothing. But then I remembered that in our own backyard there was a discarded door, one of those cheap interior doors that was made of nothing but a fragile frame and some sort of ultra-thin plywood. This thing had been sitting out in all kinds of weather for months, waiting for me to take it to the dump. Well, I took it apart, and behold, there was enough of that thin material to cut and put into place inside that mangled kitchen doorframe. We have our wider door, and with a paint job and some discreet filler here and there, it looks just fine.
All because we did not discard something that looked like trash. All because we redeemed from the garbage pile timber that seemed to be useless. But it wasn’t.
That other carpenter, that much better one, has the same approach. The one whose mission it is to build up ancient ruins and raise up devastations has also decided that He will reclaim what the rest of us have thrown aside as useless. The one who announces that He is sent to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners – that carpenter has looked in His own backyard and has seen possibilities in what others call human throwaways.
Waiting in this Advent season, waiting to celebrate the birth of the Promised One, waiting for good news in times that seem to be filled only with disastrous news – waiting now must surely mean that we do not throw away either ourselves or our neighbors. Waiting must surely mean that we are to redeem life wreckage.
You see, the child whose birth we soon celebrate grew up to be a carpenter too. And what timber He had to work with! There was Peter, the bold and brassy. There was Nathaniel, the skeptic. There was Thomas, the chronic doubter. There were James and John, ambitious for prestige. Human timber that many would have rejected. But of such timber this Carpenter made disciples and missionaries, because He would not discard someone that looked useless. Because He redeemed from the garbage pile timber that seemed to be nothing but scrap.
Brothers and sisters, ours is a world that counts life cheap. Scores die of hunger every day, with no one attempting to feed them. Hundreds live in squalor, with no one attempting to house them. Thousands die too soon, taken out by epidemics, with no one to cure them. Tens of thousands live under oppression, and no one frees them. And, most of all, millions live apart from God, and no one brings them the Good News. No one, that is, except those of us who are reclaimed timber, brought back from the ash heap by the carpenter who wants to build ruined cities and repair devastations.
Jim was one of my students when I was campus minister at the University of Kentucky. Jim gave me fits. Jim clearly did not like me, primarily because I was not Calvin. Calvin, the previous campus minister, he idolized. He loved Calvin, I was not Calvin, therefore I could not do anything right. And I have to tell you that I did not much care for Jim either. He called himself a Christian, but his language and lifestyle did not match that profession. He would play on our Baptist Student Union basketball team and he would sing in our choir, but he would not come to Bible studies and he would not participate in anything I considered substantial. We just sort of tolerated each other. But Calvin, my predecessor, with whom Jim stayed in touch, saw what was going on, and counseled him from afar. Calvin saw potential in Jim, and through his long-distance encouragement, got Jim to apply for a missions position. Well, the mission board wanted an evaluation from his current campus minister, not his former one, and so I wrote a stinger; I said, “Do not take this student.” I said, “This guy is not smart enough to do missions work.” I wrote, “He is not missionary timber.” About two weeks later came the word that Jim, despite my negative remarks, had been appointed for a two-year term as a missionary. I phoned that mission board official and I said, “What are you doing? I told you Jim was not missions timber!” And he said, “Calvin thinks, and we do too, that we should take a chance on Jim. We think the raw material is there.” Now fast forward about forty years – Jim is a career missionary, still doing the Lord’s work, doing it well, planting new churches, despite my negativity. Because somebody – not me, I am sorry to say – because somebody decided to redeem the scrap timber from the garbage pile.
Hear the word of the prophet: The Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners … they shall build up the ancient ruins, they shall raise up the former devastations, they shall repair the ruined cities. The Carpenter will use rejected timber, and His Kingdom will be built.
II
Now, if you will, come through that widened door all the way into our kitchen. Look up above that large refrigerator, and you will see another of my carpentry efforts. In fact, you will see a success and you will see a failure. It has to do with the carpenter and his timber.
We have a set of cabinets that fit quite well above the old refrigerator, and, originally, standing next to them was a vertical cabinet that went almost floor to ceiling. Then to the right of that cabinet there was plenty of blank wall. Well, in our house blank walls do not stay blank long, nor do empty spaces stay empty. Again, the mistress of the manor decreed that we needed more cabinet space and that the way to get it would be to move the vertical cabinet several feet to the right, and then build two cabinets, one upper and one lower, to fit in the resulting space between refrigerator and relocated vertical cabinet.
So I did the relocation – shades of Grandfather Smith, the house mover – and then, remembering all of the skills I was taught by Grandfather Harpole, the master mechanic, I carefully selected the right timber and handled it precisely. I built a reasonably acceptable set of cabinets for our kitchen. With the right stain, you could scarcely tell that they were not made by Scheirich instead of by Smith. Good, useful cabinets – until that fateful day I have already mentioned when we bought the new larger refrigerator, and all the cabinet work had to move again, about four inches. Not much, but it might as well have been a mile, because that meant that up at the top between the original cabinets over the refrigerator and my masterpiece there was now a four-inch gap that needed to be filled. You cannot leave gaps between cabinets! So I grabbed a piece of wood, any old piece, cut it to fit, rigged up some sort of attachment, and announced to said mistress of the manor, “There you are. Stain that.” “Stain that”, that infill, that piece of timber casually selected and shoved into place. She applied the stain, and it looked all wrong. She tried another stain. It looked worse. She has by now mixed stains and added a little of this and a dab of that, and it still looks bad. Why? Because it was the wrong sort of timber. Because it was not the same wood or the same grade as the cabinet wood, and therefore it will not take the stain the same way.
It is a perpetual reminder that some things are not going to be exactly right, but if you want to build up the ancient ruins and raise up former devastations, you sometimes have to work with imperfection. It is for me a symbol of doing the best you can with what you have, even though you do not fit perfectly.
And therefore it is a sign and symbol of the church and of our place in God’s mission. The church – this church, any church – is less than what God intended. Paul describes the church as something started by God the master builder, founded on Christ, but then to be finished by the rest of us. God designed the church to be a community of those who celebrate His glory, who reach out to others, who share the Good News, who go to the ends of the earth to take the message of salvation.
But what have we done? What have we built? Too many churches are into empire-building, trying to become larger and larger instead of better and better. Too many churches are into head-bashing, more interested in hammering others with their ideas instead of leading others to their Lord. And too many, far too many are into self-indulgence and making things warm and fuzzy for the saints instead of getting out to the frontiers where people hurt. Too many churches are headed in all the wrong directions.
And yet God uses us. And yet the master Carpenter sees the church as His timber, and puts it to work where He needs it, whether it seems to fit or not. The master Carpenter has not given up on the church, for all its flaws. It may be knotty timber, it may be warped, it may even be rotten, but He who has chosen the church and made it His own has declared that He will give them a garland instead of ashes … the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit, [and] they will be called oaks of righteousness. Oaks of righteousness, solid, load-bearing timber.
Waiting in this Advent season, waiting to celebrate the birth of the Promised One, waiting for good news in times that seem to be filled only with disastrous news – waiting must surely mean that we do not give up on the church. Waiting must surely mean that we wait with the knowledge that God will use this church, flawed though it may be. It is a time for us to wait and to see where God wants to use us. A time to wait and to discern what our future will be, and to follow the lead of the Carpenter as He inserts us into the empty spaces.
Maybe some feel as though this church no longer fits this community. Some wonder why those who live in the immediate surroundings are not here in large numbers. But I tell you this church is the timber that God is using to fill the gaps for certain needs and certain kinds of people. Do not give up on your church; it does meet a need, it does have a future, even though it may not look like or sound like other churches. You are still timber that the Carpenter can use. Do not give up. There is an important gap that the Lord wants you to fill.
The Church of the Savior in Washington was founded more than sixty years ago by Gordon Cosby, a Baptist pastor and army chaplain who wanted a different kind of church from what he had known. The story of the Church of the Savior is much too complex for me to tell here, but one thing stands out: they have been misfits for sixty years. They are misfits in the church world, because they have never built anything with a steeple on it and have never grown to be larger than a few score members. They are misfits in the corporate world, because they have insisted on training a few effective disciples rather than on McChurching by the thousands. And they are misfits in their community, because they have invested themselves in parts of the city where their disciplined style of life did not fit. And yet they have become the timber that God has used to bring clinics for the poor, housing for the homeless, assistance for the elderly, respite for the weary, and insight for the searching. Only a few score members in the Church of the Savior; we have two or three times as many here today as they have in total. They have no worldly ambitions, their pastor does not grin on television, their buildings do not impress visitors. They are misfits. But they are the single most effective church I know. They are what the prophet calls “oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, to display his glory.”
Now I know that you are not the Church of the Savior. But I also know that God the master Carpenter can take this First Baptist timber and can insert it into the heart of Montgomery County and fill a gap. I know that God the master builder has not set aside this congregation, but intends to use you to fill the gaps and reach and teach those that no other church can reach or teach.
Wait, wait, in this Advent season, and discern what this community needs, and just be available. If it is something different from what other churches do, so be it. It is your timber, put it in place. If it is something different from what you have always done, praise God! He has found a unique place for you. The Carpenter will make His timber fit.
III
So: I found the right castoff timber and repaired my doorframe. I picked up what I had, though it may have been a misfit, and plugged the gap in my cabinets. I have lots of timber still left. I have scraps from those jobs, I have posts from deck construction, I have pieces of paneling. And not only scraps, I even have some pristine timber, wood that I bought thinking I would use, but never did. I have plenty of timber, and in fact it’s about to overwhelm us. I don’t have room to store it all, and I don’t think I am going to use much of it. It’s creating disorder in my house.
You know, it’s time to use that timber. It’s time to put it into the hands of someone who can make good use of it. I have more than enough timber. What can I do? Where could I put my timber that would give me joy?
Advent is a waiting time. We wait to celebrate again the birth of the prince of peace. But Advent is waiting in the active voice. It is about possibilities. To support missions work, to share the Good News with a neighbor, to teach a child, to invest money and time and life itself in the church – that is the timber out of which joy can be built. The prophet has a word for us: “Their descendants shall be known among the nations, and their offspring among the peoples; all who see them shall acknowledge that they are a people whom the Lord has blessed.”
Brothers and sisters, we are a people whom the Lord has blessed. We are not dead wood, rotten and useless; we are reclaimed and made useful. And we His church are not mere misfits; we are those who stand in the gap for the damaged souls that need us. The way to wait through Advent and to wait for God’s fulfillment is this: let the Master Carpenter use my timber – my money, my time, my energy, my heart – let Him use it to build His Kingdom. And then I will shout with this prophet, “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my whole being shall exult in my God.”
It feels good to be the Carpenter’s timber!
