Carhartts. And Their Obvious Connection to the Church.

This is a little talk I hastily prepared for Youth Group one night, I needed to post it somewhere so I could print it off of the computers, I was intended on taking it down, but I have decided to leave it up.



I’ve been working for Clark Builders for the last month and a bit, and there’s been a couple of things I have noticed about people while working there. I’ve noticed how people in the construction industry dress. Carhartt’s are in, Carhartt’s are the pants, coveralls, jackets and vests to have if you want to be a true construction worker. You don’t even really need to be able to do anything productive, nor do you need to have any skills whatsoever, as long as you have Carhartt’s you will be accepted as someone who truly knows what they are doing on the jobsite. Simply go out to your local Mark’s Work Warehouse and pick yourself up a few pairs of pants, maybe a matching coat and vest, some coveralls, and overalls of course, and you’re set. They may be ridiculously expensive, but the social standing is worth it. The company even realizes that Carhartt’s are very important to it’s workers, so, as I found out the other day, if you go in to purchase those things, simply tell them you work for Clark Builders and you immediately recieve 10 - 15 % discounts on your purchases. Now, some of you are wondering what I meant by, “as I found out the other day”, aren’t you? Well, yes, I gave in to the pressures of the modern construction world, I bought a pair of Carharrt pants. They are a beautiful yet manly brown, with a hammer loop, some pockety things on the sides and of course, chap-like double front material and of course, the ego-affiriming Carhartt logo affixed on the back pocket. How lovely. I walked into the trailer the next morning and I could just feel everyone’s eyes immediately focus on my legs, and I could sense the envy in the room, there was a definite air of jealousy amongst my Clark compadres. Of course, no one spoke of the lust aloud, but I knew in my heart that they were all quietly coveting my pantaloons. It’s funny though, how the way I physically dress myself on a construction site can do that to people, make them jealous, and how it can make my ego soar. (I like that, “ego soar” it’s like eagle, but not.)
Another thing I have noticed is the strange dynamics between people on a construction site. Naturally the carpenters hate the drywallers because they are always getting in the way and putting up these stupid walls that make movement difficult, and then the drywallers hate the steel stud guys because they suck at it and are just morons, measuring studs wrong and screwing them up, and then the steel stud guys hate general labourers because all we do is wander around, steal their tools and get in their way a lot, and then general labourers hate pretty much everyone because we are always getting bossed around to do different things and we never know who to listen to first and then they all get mad ‘cause nothing gets done and everyone’s all ticked because the other people never do the things they want them to do or the way they want them to do it. And then of course, pretty much everyone hates the superintendents and the foremen because they are generally stuck up wieners who require everyone’s utmost respect or they will scream for hours. It’s quite the arrangement of people. And that is simply the first level of relationships that goes on between the different contractors and sub-contractors, the interaction within each group is equally as strange. Everyone thinks that they know exactly what to do, how to do it and how long it will take. No one is ever wrong, which makes for interesting situations when things go wrong, and no one ever backs down. Everyone attempts to put up these manly fronts, as if they are all the most macho of them all. They all try to dress themselves with these characteristics and traits that will make the others think of them as tough, manly and hard as a rock. Things like fearlessness, drive, courage, determination and aggressiveness. These are the things that we all try to be like at work. Now, if everyone is attempting to live these ways at the same time as one another, what do you think happens? Have you ever seen that Simpsons when Mister Burns gets taken to the Mayo Clinic in Boston? It’s this really famous place that people go to get medical treatments and what not, anyways, he goes and the doctor comes back with his test results and tells Mister Burns that he actually has every disease known to man, and even some new ones that were discovered in him. Inititally he is in shock, but the doctor goes on to tell him about how all of the diseases find themselves in, as it is medically known, “The Three Stooges Syndrome”, wherein all of the diseases are in a perfect balance with one another, and he experiences none of the effects of any of them. Mr. Burns automatically assumes this means he is invincible. This is actually one of my favorite sections of dialogue from the Simpsons, Mr. Burns says, “So what you’re saying is that I am invincible?” To which the doctor replies, “No, actually the slightest breeze could...” And then he is interrupted by Burns, “Indestructible...” So, do you think that the “Three Stooges Syndrome” would occur at a place like my work? Those of you who do give far too much credibility to a cartoon show. Those of you who said no, you’re right. Work is a gong show. No one really gets along and the only reason they may be nice to one another is so that they can bum a smoke later. Obviously something is wrong with the community I am a part of at work. What, oh what, could it be?
Let’s read Colossians 3:12,13:

Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.

God’s chosen people. We are the ones who this is written to. And, there must be a reason this is written. Paul is showing us, by writing this, that none of us has “arrived” spiritually, no one has it all together in terms of their faith and their spiritual life. None of us here can say that we are even close, which isn’t to say that we are so far off we shouldn’t even bother. I like what Paul says in Romans. BY NO MEANS! Good grief that’s retarded reasoning, we can’t say, well, we’ll never acheive perfection why bother trying, it’s easier just to live off of God’s grace than to actually make an effort. No. We should be trying all the more to acheive God’s standard because of this. All of us are weak, defecient failures in almost every respect, and we must attempt to change that. God has mad us holy, we are set apart for God, we exist on a different level than a lot of people, this isn’t to make us puffed up and arrogant like we live on some upper echelon compared to all those regular people, no, it’s God saying that he has honored us by allowing us to share his love, grace and glory. We are dearly loved by God, and he wants everyone to know that. And that’s our purpose here for Him, is to make that known to others, to those that haven’t experienced holiness yet.
Then we get to what I really want to talk about. This next section should be a little self-help pamphlet, “How to live harmoniously in community through 7 simple steps.” Compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with each other and forgiveness. It sounds so easy, but a lot of the times, we tend to try and live with different traits, the manly ones we talked about earlier, or maybe feminine ones, which I don’t have a lot of experience in, because if you tried to be the most effeminate at work you would probably be accidentally hit wiith the backhoe. The church needs this, the church needs to work on this community thing that it tries to do. I don’t want to bash the church, but we don’t live well in community. I hear a lot about fights between people, resentment, and all these hard feelings that Christians in our church have, and it’s really sad. Now, of course, I get this way too at times, I lose sight of these qualities of community that we need to have, the love we need to be expressing to one another, and it really sucks.
This section talks about what a church needs to be and how the members of the church need to act towards one another.
I have been listening a lot to this guy named Derek Webb recently, ironically I found him on a website and then started listening to him, and I realized he’s really cool. So I want to play this song for you, about what I’ve sorta been talking about, about displaying these traits, about caring for each other, and about loving others and the church. I’ll give you a bit of a intro for it, it’s called, “The Church”, conveniently, and it’s sort of written as a love song, from Jesus to his bride, the church, and it’s pretty cool and I just want you guys to listen to it and hopefully it will tie in well to what we’ve been looking at.

(Since I cannot play you the song through this blog, I recommend you get Derek's CD. It's good. I will post the lyrics so you have some understanding.)


I have come with one purpose
To capture for myself a bride
By my life she is lovely
By my death she’s justified

I have always been her husband
Though many lovers she has known
So with water I will wash her
And by my word alone

So when you hear the sound of the water
You will know you’re not alone

(Chorus)
‘Cause I haven’t come for only you
But for my people to pursue
You cannot care for me with no regard for her
If you love me you will love the church

I have long pursued her
As a harlot and a whore
But she will feast upon me
She will drink and thirst no more

So when you taste my flesh and my blood
You will know you’re not alone

(Chorus)
There is none that can replace her
Though there are many who will try
And though some may be her bridesmaids
They can never be my bride

(Chorus)


"You cannot care for me, with no regard for her, if you love me you will love the church."
I know I often fail, I say, yes Lord, you know I love you, and then I can turn around and be a jerk to my fellow Christians. But it doesn’t work that way, if we want to live in unity, in true community, we need to practice these things that Colossians 3:12 and 13 say, we need to be kind, compassionate, humble, forgiving, able to bear with one another, patient and gentle, only when we are these things, and only when we show love to one another can we truly say that we do love Christ. It’s tough to say and it’s even tougher to do, and I hope and pray that we will take this to heart and truly live lives of life so that “love can run rampant” through the church.
I go to a Bible Study Wednesday nights with a bunch of people, and last week we talked about love, and why we thought it was or wasn’t doing that, running rampantly in the church. A lot of things were brought up, and one of them was that we don’t love or show these traits in our lives to others because we expect not to receive it. But I think we just need to get past ourselves, get past our selfish ways, get over our egos, and and really implement these things in our lives. These are some pretty heavy and weighty issues, but they are something very important that we need to be thinking about, so I want to encourage you to love, encourage you not to worry about the clothes you put on, or the worldly traits you think you have to live with, but focus on putting on the things that Colossians 3:12 and 13 exhorts us to. It’s a struggle, but as long as we are attempting it and struggling together, we will be making a difference.

Let’s pray.