If I Had A Hammer

Acts 1:6-14

So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” He replied, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”

Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a sabbath day’s journey away. When they had entered the city, they went to the room upstairs where they were staying, Peter, and John, and James, and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. All these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers.

When I was a kid, I’d sit in the driveway trying to fix my bike with the wrong tool.  It’s not that we didn’t have the right tool.  We did.  But it was WAY OVER THERE in the garage.  Twenty whole feet away!  My dad would look at me with that dad look.  He had told me many times that if I’d just stood up and fetched the right tool, I’d have it fixed and be riding in two minutes.  Instead I stubbornly spent ten minutes trying to make the wrong tool work. 

In the Ascension story from Acts, Jesus gives the disciples their thing to fix… it was the world they were called to fix.  Not overwhelming at all!  They were to start locally, meeting the needs of their neighbors, creating what some people call “corners of kindness” that would transform the neighborhood into a place where everyone could experience the abundant life God intended.  When they were done there, they were to work out from that spot and cover the county, the state and eventually the ends of the earth.  

But having an assignment is one thing.  It’s like being assigned the task of pounding a nail. But having the right tool to do the job... having the right hammer as well... THAT makes it a real calling!  At the Ascension the disciples were assigned the task, but it wasn’t until Pentecost (which we celebrate next Sunday) that God gave them the right tool to do this job.  

That’s how God works.  God never gives us a task without also giving us the right tools needed to do the job.  When Joshua took over from Moses, he got both the task and the tool to make it happen when Moses transferred to Joshua the Spirit of Wisdom.  When Elijah turned the prophet business over the Elisha, he didn’t just tell Elisha “good luck!”… No, he gave him a double share of his spirit.  Elisha then had both the assignment… and the right tool to make it happen.

Jesus gave out the disciples’ assignment at his Ascension.  He told the disciples that their job was to, as Bishop Curry says, “transform the world from the nightmare it is for so many into the promise God has for it”.  Jesus was saying, “Here’s the nail I want you to pound.”  We too are Jesus’ disciples, and just like Jesus’ original group we too are not expected to do this work alone, nor are we expected to make it happen all at once.  Just like those original disciples we too are to start working right where we are and then go out from there.  

So we have our mission.  We’re to start locally and move in the direction of working globally.  We’re not alone.  Others have been given the same assignment, to pound nails as well, and on Pentecost we have been promised we will get the hammer we need to do the job.  But, before we start whacking away, it would be a good idea to stop and take a good look at the nail YOU’VE been given personally.  Look also at the nail our particular congregation has been given together.  Is it a common wire nail, a smooth box nail, a cut nail, casing, concrete, slating or roofing nail... is it a blued lathe, plaster board or shingle nail or is it a brad?  Even though we all have been given the same mission... to make the world work the Jesus way... even though we’ve all been asked to drive a nail... the nails we have been given are different and each of us has been called to work on changing the world in a slightly different ways.  AND, we need to remember also that many of those different nails have different hammers to drive them.  Christ Trinity, Old Parish, Grace, Saint Paul’s, Zion… we’ve all been given our nails… we’re all out to change the world, but we do not all have the same nails NOR have we all been given the same hammers by the Holy Spirit. 

Here’s a completely random example.  Let’s say there was a congregation that realized that the people in their community had drifted apart due to plague and politics and a fear of scarcity.  The part of Jesus’ mission of changing the world that this congregation had been given… this congregation’s nail… was to find a way to bring their neighbors together again.  It’s not the nail other local congregations had been given.  It was particular to them.  Now, remembering that God does not give a nail without the right hammer for the job as well, that particular nail was given to a particular congregation gifted with talented cooks, creative thinkers, many interesting community connections, a slightly unconventional approach to tackling complicated issues, and the extremely rare gift of not taking itself so dang seriously.  THAT was this completely hypothetical congregation’s very specialized hammer.  It had been custom forged especially for them by the fire of the Holy Spirit.  It was made specifically to pound THAT particular nail which they had been given... the nail, that when pounded in, would begin to bring a community that was drifting apart, back together again.  

Do you see how it works with this totally hypothetical congregation?  Where the needs of a particular town on some random country highway intersect with the gifts of a particular church also on that highway, THERE you have a people called by God to change the world in their unique and particular way.  They would begin, right in their own front lawn and right there on that lawn, the particular hammer given by the Holy Spirit would meet their particular nail given by Jesus, and then as hammer met nail, nothing less significant would begin to happen than the world beginning to change.  Amen.