What does it mean to be a Christian plumber?
Most of us have nouns in common; it’s the adjectives that divide us.
A plumber in my town is not shy about marketing himself as a Christian plumber. The fish decal and the “Plumbing for Jesus” tagline on his van reveal his spiritual bearings. For some time, though, I’ve wondered what makes him a Christian plumber. Is there a specifically Christian way to clean out a clogged toilet, or an unchristian way to install a faucet? I can’t imagine there is. What’s probably behind the phrase “Christian plumber” is some confusion between the qualities of a man who must be deeply Christian and the activity of plumbing that can’t be Christianized at all.
Sometimes I wince when I hear Christian used as an adjective applied to people. Adjectives are splendid inventions of grammar, yet they do not carry the definitive strength or force of nouns. Their main purpose is to modify or qualify something that is larger and more important than they are. This relational ordering is why I like to think of myself as a Christian first and a Lutheran second—a Lutheran Christian. The adjective Lutheran merely adds texture, depth, and light to my more central identity as a Christian.
When we look at the particulars of the life of Jesus of Nazareth, there are many things we don’t know, of course—his IQ, his cooking abilities, his physical strength, to name a few. But according to Carlyle Marney, we know something of his spiritual genius because of his ability to distinguish adjectives from nouns. Marney insisted that Jesus differed from others of his time by understanding the clear difference between words like Samaritan, leper, and sinner, which function like adjectives, and human being, person, and child of God, which serve as nouns.
