Build, Don't Break

During our annual pastors’ conference and workshop that took place this week in Columbia, SC, there was a workshop on preaching led by Rev. Dr. Teresa L. Fry Brown. In the workshop, she asked us to come up with a sermon on the crucifixion of Jesus Christ from the perspective of the nail that went through Jesus’ hand.

As we imagined ourselves as the nail, thinking about what we may have seen, heard, and felt as we were hammered into the hands of Jesus, a person from our table shared that, if he were the nail, he would have questioned the purpose of his existence. As a nail, he could have been part of a house or used for creating art. He was supposed to be a tool meant to create and hold things together. But here he was—a nail designed to create and hold things together—now being used as a tool for killing.

As he shared, it made me think about my own purpose in life. What was I created to be? I also thought about how people can take things that were created for good and use them in ways that were never originally intended. Then I thought about the first words of the Bible: “In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth,” and how God called it good.

I began to wonder: Was it ever God’s original intent for humans to create weapons of mass destruction out of creation? When God was forming the world in the beginning, was it part of the plan for human beings to wage war against each other over land and resources? Is it possible that, just like the nail in the story, we have been using our resources in ways that God never intended?

So, I leave you with this question: Are we using what God created—our gifts, our resources, even our very lives—in the way God intended? Or have we, like the nail, found ourselves in roles that serve death instead of life? Maybe that is why Jesus showed us how to live a life filled with love, mercy, and grace instead of hate, judgement, and condemnation. May we be tools that build, not break; that heal, not harm.

Pastor Tae Park