The Carpenters Arms…?
This week on Tuesday evening I was invited to lead the prayers at a special banquet evening for the outgoing Lord Mayor of London Sir Alasdair King. It was one of those extremely smart London events and held at the company hall of the ‘Worshipful Company of Butchers’. (Before you ask, yes the main course meat was very good, a beautiful piece of Lamb.) The Lord Mayor is he or she of Lord Mayors show fame but much more, they are the representative of the City of London – and Sir Alasdair spent much of his year working in this country and abroad encouraging pension reform and encouraging pension companies to invest in British entrepreneurship.
The event was packed with various key people in the City of London and especially the various heads of the City ‘Livery Companies’ – these ‘companies’ are the modern expression of medieval trade guilds, butchers, bakers, candlestick makers and much more – together there are now well over 100 livery companies representing every possible creative industry. They do an enormous amount of charitable work including supporting both Cadet Forces and St John Ambulance, hence my presence. They are numbered by order of precedence (ie age of the company)
Which is the long way round to asking, which livery company do you think Jesus would have been part of for his working life prior to his ministry beginning?
Now the obvious answer is Carpenters (The Worshipful Carpenters being number 26) as we all know that Jesus’ Dad Joseph was a Carpenter.
But wait – the Hebrew word we translate sometimes as Carpenter is in the Old Testament more accurately ‘Carver’ and would most likely have referred not merely to Wood, but also to Stone and indeed any other material to hand. And what was to hand? Well we know that wood was in quite short supply in Nazareth but stone quarries were much more plentiful.
Most surviving structures in the area from the time of Jesus were not surprisingly stone structures. Most likely thus that Joseph and Jesus would have spent much more time carving stone than wood. The Greek word often translated ‘Carpenter’ better translates as ‘Artisan’ or ‘Craftsman’. So Jesus could just as easily have been a member of the Company of Masons (number 30) or Builders Merchants (88) or Lathe Turners (51). Maybe we can start to see why Jesus talked about stone and stones so much…
Sadly, there are no livery companies for Lego Builders which is the extent of my own personal building and artisanal experience – although remarkably there is the Worshipful Company of ‘Makers of Playing Cards’ (75) and perhaps relevant of our current weather, the ‘Worshipful Company of Fan Makers’ (76)
As we continue our Summer exploration of what kind of church God is calling us to be we have reached week 7 namely ‘A living Church Building’ – it gets a whole week of its own because there is some fun and important stuff about our church building (made as it is of stone, wood and other stuff) and the building of the church that comprises us God’s people.
What kind of building does God want us to be? There are thus two clear things we need to explore, the material and the spiritual. So come along and find out what Jesus was talking about when he spoke of us being ‘living stones’ and be ready to sing plenty of songs with the word ‘build’ and ‘stone’ in as we share Holy Communion together in worship.
Peace and Blessings
Andy
Brislington Community News 