When we walk past a field of wheat or rape, the last thing on our mind is a smithy with its heat, noise and biting air. Yet the two belong together. We cannot have one without the other. Someone, somewhere is going at it hammer and tongs on our behalf. Not only is there metal-bashing. Logging is another hammer and tongs routine. Or perhaps I should say that this was how men used muscle until recently to repair ploughs, make spades, shovels and blades. Now we get machines to do the jobs for us.
And what is true today in our fields and workshops was also the case in the time of Jesus. He did not compose his parables, apophthegms and guiding principles in a vacuum. He was speaking to men who were familiar then as men are today with clearing scrubby soil, killing off weeds and dealing with leaky roofs, blocked pipes and refractory bolts. All this we can infer from the setting of Jesus’ parables, for instance. So if we imagine a scene of pastoral bliss and silent greensward from which men came together in a crowd to hear Jesus, we have got the background wrong.
There has to be leisure for some habits to form. To become a painter takes time. It’s no good expecting a Rembrandt or a Raphael to come fully formed to the task of interpreting in oil and canvas a fellow-citizen. We recognise that apprentices, painters and musicians need opportunities to learn their skills and practise them. The rest of us have to accept that we are achieving leisure for novices to flourish.
Do we readily accept a kind of surrogate arrangement whereby others do their religious duty for them while they keep food on the table, blankets on the bed and wheels on the wagon?
Is religion a passive aspect of life that needs no hammer and tongs, no might and main on the part of somebody? Not according to St Paul. His was a faith that called for effort, imagination and energy. We see this in how Paul made himself a charge on nobody, stepped up to the mark in the ship in danger and in the imperial court-room (just as Cicero did).. We see this in the unceasing campaign that engaged the attention of both Paul and Jesus. They and their audiences were hard at it, hammer and tongs one day after another.
MOSES’ CRAFTSMEN
‘To all the craftsmen whom I have endowed with skill give instructions’ (Exodus 28. 3). ‘’I have specially chosen Bezalel, a master of design, whether in gold, silver, copper or cutting precious stones.’ (Exodus 31.1-5)
BRISTOL HOT-SPOT
One ‘hammer and tongs’ programme in the C of E and other churches is the business of training for the ministry. Most of us know nothing about it and its training institutions but it is a changing scene. Bishop Colin Buchanan (who has served as principal of one of them) has chronicled events at a Bristol hot-spot and the ups and downs of what is now Trinity College. This warts and all publication suggests that the staff of theological colleges have had to be fit enough to survive an obstacle course and manifest a sense of humour sufficiently developed to cope with the snares that came their way as they amalgamated. ’Three became One’ is published by Trinity College, Bristol at £5 including postage.
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