Jesus the Carpenter

Since I’m a Christian minister who builds a little, and I write here about construction and tools, you’d think I’d love it that Jesus was a carpenter.  How cool is it that, that this guy I admire and try to follow, worked in construction?  He was so different from me, and lived long ago and far away, but we both like to hammer and saw!

After a frustrating day on the road with the disciples or the Pharisees, neither of whom seemed to listen very well, maybe Jesus would go back to his workshop and build a little table, or sand down a nice bowl for his mom.  Just to relax and see some actual results.

I can identify with that part of his dual identity – rabbi and carpenter.  Both my husband and I, minister builders, have been known to say, “I get it why Jesus was a carpenter.  It’s so satisfying to look at something you built and say, I did that.  While ministry can be a little frustrating in the results department – did I really accomplish anything today?”

But I must admit, a lot of the carpenter myth about Jesus seems like just that, a nice fairy tale.  Sweet father Joseph is a carpenter, teaches his son in the little Nazareth woodshop, son has a nice common touch, and takes Dad’s building skills and uses them not just with wood but builds the Kingdom of God.  

(It’s a tale eerily reminiscent of Pinocchio – another sort of odd son of a carpenter (Geppetto) who strives to be good, suffers death but then the Holy Spirit, uh, Blue Fairy, brings him back to life.  Bad joke about this.)

In the Gospels there are only two brief references to Jesus as a carpenter.  Actually only one specifically about Jesus -  incredulous folks say, “Isn’t this the carpenter….?”  In the other reference, a crowd is likewise incredulous, but adds in a little hostility - “Can this be Joseph the carpenter’s son…?”

Being a carpenter does not seem to be a job that increases Jesus’ credibility – why should we listen to this carpenter, or why would a carpenter have any insight into God or the meaning of life?  I guess these folks don’t know that we carpenters can apply our great skills to other enterprises (a good eye, steady hand, some skill with measuring, finding the right tools etc…)

Most likely they scorn him as carpenter or carpenter’s son because a “tekton” (the Greek word) was not a beloved Geppetto or “This Old House” restorer.  Literally a craftsperson, either a builder in wood or a stone mason, tektons belonged to one of the lowest and most scorned social classes of Jesus’ time, even below the peasants, just above the untouchables and expendables (according to Biblical scholar John Dominic Crossan.)  It would be like saying, why should we listen to this septic tank cleaner?  

So while we may romanticize the carpenter, his supposed occupation did nothing for Jesus’ credibility or success.  But it’s good to learn that Jesus really was a lowly man, not even of the peasant class, let alone a union shop contractor or a professional rabbi/teacher.  No, the tektons, the artisans were men and women barely visible or acceptable.  Christians would do well to remember that our messiah was such a man.

A very different view of Jesus the carpenter can be found in The Last Temptation of Christ, the controversial novel by the modern Greek author Nikos Kazantzakis.  His Jesus isn’t a jolly craftsman building chairs or houses either.  Instead, this Jesus builds crosses.  The man who is to die on a cross is employed by the occupying Roman forces to build these very instruments of execution.

Pretty heavy symbolism, or irony.  I didn’t get it at first, I recall, why the author created this devise.  And a wise colleague said, “It’s just another example of Jesus’ humanity.  We all build our own crosses, we all at least contribute to the situations that sink us.” Kazantzakis uses these scenes of Jesus sweatily and dramatically carving these death machines as a way to show his own inner turmoil, his “temptations” to live only a human life, most controversially for many, with Mary Magdalene.  (Kazantsakis was excommunicated from the Orthodox church for writing this book, and when Martin Scorcese made a movie of it he received death threats for years.)  Traditional so-called Christians couldn’t imagine or accept that Jesus would have any kind of inner turmoil or that he would need to make a living or that he would take Roman money or that he would sweat and toil over lumber and tools.  IE, that he would be human.

The other irony or controversy is that the Lord of Life would use his constructive skills to build a destructive object.  (Lenny Bruce said that if Jesus had died today we’d all be wearing little electric chairs around our necks.)  But that’s something we humans do all the time.  

The English word carpenter seems to come from old Latin words that mean carriage; a carpenter built wooden carriages.  But the definition goes on to specify that carpenters built carriages, but not Roman chariots, vehicles of war.  That was another job.  No, the dictionary says, carpenter’s carriages were the kind of vehicles that women rode in.  That interested me, women’s vehicles - does that mean they are more comfortable, smoother?  Or that they were used by women to carry the food and other products they had grown to market, as opposed to those male chariots of war?  

So I guess I do like it that Jesus was a carpenter.  Because it reminds me that he was truly a man for all the people, especially the poor, since he was one of them.  And that he did have good building skills, both for community and kingdom.  That he much preferred the company of women and food than men of war.  And that even if he did struggle with his own demons and doubts (“Take this cup of suffering away from me.”) and maybe even built his own cross, even strong carpenter nails could not keep him there.   I guess I will keep building alongside him.

Copyright © 2016 Deborah Streeter