In her play, "The Zeal of Thy House," Dorothy Sayers imagines a stonemason working on an intricate carving for the chancel of Canterbury Cathedral, who clumsily lets his tool slip and spoils the whole great piece of stone assigned to him. It is a sad moment as the valuable and custom-cut stone stands misshapen. The architect, however, takes the tool out of the artisan’s hand and although he remonstrates with him for his clumsiness, begins to enact forgiveness. He redesigns out of the spoiled carving a new and different figure which has its own part to play in the ensemble of the Cathedral, and then permits the blundering mason to complete it in all its glory. "So works with us," concludes Dorothy Sayers, "the cunning craftsman, God."

On reading it, I could not shake the phrase from my mind: "The cunning craftsman, God." As used, the word cunning does not mean some kind of craftiness which might be our modern interpretation. But taken in its pure sense it indicates skill, wisdom and ability. The phrase then really means that the Master artist God can take our blundering efforts and still make something useful out of them. He takes our mismanaged lives, our failed efforts, our missed marks, our shameful deeds, our alien attitudes, our sinful lives and out of his divine resourcefulness he saves the day by creating something new, worthy and wonderful that still has usefulness and beauty in the divine plan of things. It is a reassurance that we desperately need, but one on which we cannot presume.

We have not gathered here this morning to proclaim to God our assets and accomplishments as did the Pharisee who prayed proudly in public. God knows them well enough. There is no question but that we have done many things well. The Pharisee, bless his soul, seemed to have had quite a list of accomplishments which he took great pains in enumerating to God. Reading them over and looking at my own life, I find that I fall far short. Also, like any of us, he took delight in accentuating those areas where he excelled or felt that he had achieved perfection.

It might be well to reflect on what an impressive record this is. The man is honest in his business dealings, sets fair prices, gives value for value received. He is a model husband. To top it all, he is an exemplary churchman, devout in his religious duties and astonishingly generous in supporting the church budget. Yet in reality, his prayer had a hollow ring. In it we find every shibboleth of superiority and sanctimony. There is no compassion, no love, no sympathy, no concern for his poor brother standing by in obvious and abject misery. There is no humility. He seeks nothing from God except an ear to hear his accredited achievements. Unconscious of defect, he raises no cry to that completeness "which flows around our incompleteness," and thus misses heaven whose strength is made perfect only in weakness.

What utter sadness ... this sham of a man with a pretense of a prayer, worshiping at the altar of self. His very sanctimoniousness isolated him from humanity and heaven. His look of superiority criticized an unfortunate, seeking a word of hope or a hand of help. His pride of bearing and being set him apart from the affairs of his day where the polished surface of his self-excellence needed to get scratched and smudged in the struggle of humanity. And so our Lord dismissed his piosity with the words of retribution: "For every one that exalteth himself shall be humbled."

But the other half of that sentence reads: "He that humbleth himself shall be exalted." We gather at the sacred table not to exalt ourselves. If anyone has, he is here under a misapprehension and for the wrong purpose. We are here-gathered, to humble ourselves in the sight and before the majesty of Almighty God. Someone once said, "The Christian Church is the only organization in the world where one of the conditions for membership is the admission that you are not perfect. If you will confess that you have come short of God’s perfect will, that you need His forgiveness and grace to live the Christian life and that accepting the Lordship of Christ over your life, your purpose to join hands with other Christians to accomplish God’s will on earth, the Church opens her doors to you." In that frame of mind, we come, all standing in the need of God’s forgiveness and praying his grace to more worthily live the Christian life. We join a great throng, an innumerable host of those who through the ages have come to submit themselves to the cunning craftsman, God.

The Good Book tells of Moses who lost his temper in opposing God, David who submitted to uncontrolled lust, Peter who gave in to cowardice and denial, James and John who sought the chief seats in the new kingdom, Paul who was a cruel inquisitor. Reading its pages we realize that here is recorded not only good about men, but also the worst, as well. Yet God, the cunning craftsman, took each of these individuals in the moment of humility and surrender. With forgiving and patient love he helped each to fashion a noble and useful life.

In the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican, the Publican who had wandered in far fields smote his breast and beseeched God’s mercy on him. Like a clumsy artisan, he recognized that he had spoiled the stone assigned him to work. His life was gouged and disfigured by his own poor workmanship. He had no one to blame but himself ... yet he needed to turn to someone greater than himself for help. The divine architect hearing his cries of need stooped to aid and to redeem. Reads the parable: "and he went to his home justified" ... made right with God. As George Buttrick has well written: "Heaven bends low to the soul that feels its need. They that mourn for their sins are comforted, and the poor in spirit are enriched by the kingdom of God."

God has given us the tools of our faith, one of which is this holy Sacrament. God in Christ now seeks to help us refashion, remold and renew that which has been defaced. Each one of us comes with his own private burden. Here we are with our unfinished commitments, duties left undone, opportunities neglected, our consistent inconsistencies, incompetent failures, recalcitrant rationalizing, and misdirected pride. Before God we stand humble and hopeful. That is all he asks. To come to exaltation, fulfillment, forgiveness, and a new wholeness in him, this is the point where we must begin.

We must begin individually and corporately. Around the long table of the Lord this day sit countless Christian individuals. What a vast company we are ... soldiers in Saigon, statesman in Washington, Orientals, Negroes, and Caucasians. Yet, as we have failed individually, we have our corporate derelictions as well. World Wide Communion is not a day when we exalt in great unison and with loud voice our common accomplishments throughout the globe, although they have been substantial. But, it is a day when we sit soberly at table asking God’s forgiveness for the many things we have left undone.

We have not always listened clearly and carefully to our Lord’s petition, "that they might all be one" ... and barriers still exist that separate our essential unity. As we sit at table, the hungry still cry their pitiful sobs of desperation ... "food, food, food" ... in a world with potential for superabundance. The sounds of warfare still echo beyond our hallowed halls and peace on earth good will toward men is still so slow in coming ... because we are proud and stubborn. We talk often and this day particularly of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, yet our reluctance to accept and practice what we so glibly mouth, is evidenced by charred ruins and twisted girders of frustration. Our diminishing global influence and importance in the eyes of the world attests to the indifferent attitudes harbored by the multitudes who have not clearly heard the great commission to witness and serve as demonstrated by our common Lord.

It is a good world that God has designed, but it is not a beautiful world for the eye to see. For here and there and more frequently than we want to admit, we have let the tool slip from our hand and have hurt rather than helped the cause. Now it is in our mutual humility that we bow before the divine architect, the cunning craftsman, God, and ask him to use us anew.

Communion speaks of forgiveness, of the grace of God, of the love of Christ; the newness of life and enterprise that comes because we are humble enough to admit our failures. Let us return to our homes and our tasks justified, remembering Christ’s alternative: "For everyone that exalteth himself shall be humbled; but he that humbleth himself shall be exalted." Now is the moment of humility and exaltation when the cunning craftsman goes to work.