Tape Measure

 

Hey, Cobblestone,

     One fine morning back in nineteen-ninety-something, the boss sent me out to supervise a crew. I didn’t like supervising (still don’t), but the boss said Go and I went. He seemed to think I enjoyed it, so he kept sending. Three of those times, he sent me to lead a crew of men I’d never met. Two of those times got off to a totally tragic start, one a little less so. This was one of the tragic ones, and made that particular morning much less fine than it might otherwise have been.

     We were building an industrial/manufacturing workspace. I won’t go into the mechanicals any further than to say it was heavy-duty stuff, and to say that eighty percent of the crew I was inheriting had never built anything of the sort. The job involved “hanging iron,” as the term goes, erecting heavy steel framing, and only one man of the six had ever bolted girder-to-column or purling-to-girder. They were a concrete crew, and had just finished pouring the floor of a pole barn elsewhere. Without another concrete job lined up, their boss, who knew my boss, sent them to me, and my boss sent me to them. I could understand the good in keeping the crew working, but other than that, was baffled by the arrangement. As I walked onto the jobsite, unknown and unnoticed, the first words I heard from the crew were:

“Who’s got the tape measure?”

    The tape measure – singular? Surely not. Sure enough: one man tossed “the” tape measure across the span to another, and all five watched him use it. My first words to the crew were:

    “Tomorrow morning, everybody’s got his own tape measure, got it?”

And by the way, I’m your new supervisor. A tragic start, indeed.

     When the exiled Jews returned to Jerusalem from Babylon, their job was to resume worship in the holy city. We’ve read about their adventures in our Bible reading plan lately. To them, resuming worship was synonymous with rebuilding the temple, which had been toppled, plundered, and burned by the exiting Babylonians in 586BC. But none of them had been involved in building the original temple, only a few of the oldest had ever seen it standing, and no one living at the time had known it in the glory days of King Solomon. How does one build a temple to the Almighty? Hearsay and fuzzy recollection was all they had to go on – that, and ruined stones scattered about. It’s not too hard to see why the job stalled. If only they could have understood that their work actually involved a whole other set of measurements.

     In our day, there’s glorious work going on. According to Ephesians 5, Jesus is continually sanctifying his bride, the church, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish (verses 26-27). As the bride, you and I are certainly involved in the sanctifying. We would do well to cooperate in the work, trying to understand, best we can, what the bridegroom is up to. But none of us can quite capture the image Jesus has in his mind and heart, nor can we quite imagine the future glory days of a holy and spotless church. Who’s got the tape measure?

     In Scripture, there are five main metaphors for the church: body, building, bride, flock, and family. Each metaphor brings to mind its own standards of measurement. The general health of a body is measured by the health of its particular members. The integrity of a building is in being level and plumb, without which it will collapse under its own weight. The joy of a bride shows up in her anticipation of the wedding day. Knowing the one shepherd’s voice is what makes a flock out of otherwise random individuals. Family is most often determined by blood relation. How puzzling it is to try to combine the various standards – “apples and oranges” to the max!

     Thankfully, Jesus gave a go-to measurement for his church, a standard that faithfully incorporates the others:

    “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35).

     “ By this…” All other measurements are secondary – helpful, but not the true test Jesus gave. And how else would the rest of the world know who the church is? The rest of the world indicates often enough that they’re not impressed with our numbers or money or sociopolitical views. But what if our love for one another was the gauge? Would that draw the world in? I can’t imagine anything more appealing.

     Hebrews 10 instructs us to consider how to stir up one another to love and good works (verse 24). When we’re apart, we consider; when we get together, by whatever means, we put wheels on those considerations. I stir you; you stir me. If this very moment allows, begin to consider how you might stir up a brother- or sister-in-Christ. For extra kicks and giggles, consider how you might be stirred by someone else. Sounds like fun, doesn’t it? Maybe, if we listen real close, we can hear Jesus chuckling too.

     My inherited crew – the concrete boys turned ironworkers – were gracious, and we recovered in short order from my tragic introduction. I started learning names and stories, on-the-job. At one point I was up in the iron with the one experienced iron-monkey, who took off to the other side of the span, going hand-over-hand on the bottom flange of a beam, high above the ground. Once he was settled on the far side, I asked:

    “You’re a single guy, aren’t you, Charlie… no kids?”

    “Yeah, that’s right. Why do you ask?”

    “Because married guys with children don’t do what you just did.”

    It was the most loving way I could think of saying, “This is your supervisor speaking: ‘Don’t ever do that on my jobsite again.’”

     Bottom line, the crew and I didn’t get any good work done until we started to love one another. Thereafter, at the end of each shift, we could see the love in what we had accomplished. There was far more than iron being built up. How much truer in the church, where the plan is to participate and cooperate in the redemption and sanctification of the bride of Christ?

     You and I and everybody else in this church – we come from vastly different “trades,” and have learned different units and standards of measurement, all helpful in their way, but only to the degree that they work in concert, serving the one go-to standard. Pray, Church, to be stirred up, and to filled up with the affection of Christ Jesus (Philippians 1:8) for one another. It tickles me to think on the satisfaction we will feel by what gets accomplished in love.

     Early on I mentioned the three times I inherited a crew I had never worked with. The example I gave was the second most tragic start. Maybe someday I’ll tell about the dubious Number One, and how long it took to recover from my inglorious beginning. For now, let me tell you about the one occurrence that was less than totally tragic. After asking the boss many times if he wanted me to spec/engineer/ramrod a particular job, he said No. And then he said Go.

    “Go out there and show those boys what you want.”

    “What I want?”

    “Well, what you want them to do with my money.”

    Resolved to get a better start, I did my fussing between the boss walking away and my walking onto the site. I was picking up a crew of two, a journeyman electrician and his apprentice, who between them represented many times my own experience in that trade. My first words to them:

    “Y’all know way more about this work than I do. I’m only responsible for how it turns out.”

    “Fair enough,” the journeyman responded

     And we had a deal. We still had to navigate the dimly lit zones between what we knew and what we could teach each other, but we had a workable arrangement…

 …much like ours.

 

 Grace and Peace (and more Love o’ Jesus on you than you could possibly keep to yourself),

 

John

 

P.S. I’m glad to know ya, crew.