A Crafted Life
Rachel Doll O’Mahoney
July 12, 2026
Exodus 31: 1-9
The Lord spoke to Moses, “See, I have chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God in skill, in understanding, in knowledge, and in all kinds of craftsmanship, to make artistic designs for work with gold, with silver, and with bronze, and with cutting and setting stone, and with cutting wood, to work in all kinds of craftsmanship. Moreover, I have also given him Oholiab son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan, and I have given ability to all the specially skilled, that they may make everything I have commanded you: the tent of meeting, the ark of the testimony, the atonement lid that is on it, all the furnishings of the tent, the table with its utensils, the pure lampstand with all its utensils, the altar of incense, the altar for the burnt offering with all its utensils, the large basin with its base . . .
My aunt and uncle live in Wisconsin.
In a semi-rural place near a lake.
It’s a lovely place, wild turkeys, and cranes,
Deer and coyotes.
Except that they have constant problems with deer eating their garden.
One Christmas my father drew my Aunt and Uncles names in the Family gift lottery.
And being a maker and tinkerer of things my father “got to thinkin”
That with the parts from our old dishwasher, and the bits of hose that didn’t get run over by the lawn mower, and some of the tools in his work truck he could remedy their deer problem.
My father died 22 years ago.
And when I visited my aunt and uncle they gave this to me:
This is a motion detecting deer sprayer.
It is a simple machine.
The motion detector senses movement, the hose turns on.
Scares the living daylights out of a deer-
30 seconds later it turns off.
It was gifted in the very bespoke wrapping paper of a towel wrapped around a bucket with a zip tie holding it together.
My father could make or fix anything.
From woodworking to electrical work.
He once took our car apart and rebuilt the whole thing.
Once made a pitching machine out of an old lawn mower.
I have a dining room table in my house that he made.
We use it for art and crafting- trying to channel his creative freedom.
You probably have something in your home or your life that was made by an expert tinkerer, an artist, a creative or craftsperson-
Perhaps a person you love made it
Or it is an object or piece you saw and knew was built with precision, skill and care-
It is probably something you treasure.
A material item whose beauty is beyond just its form but is embedded with the labor and craft that a person using their hands, imagination, sweat, and decision making put into it.
I have a notion that every one of us is capable of being craftsmen… that might be part of what it is to be “made in the image and likeness of God.”
all of us have gifts and maybe when taken to the edge of skill, desire, precision and experience are a sort of craft.
And I think that craft can be a great many things: From woodcarving to deep listening.
From stand up comedy to building an engine.
Gardening, childcare, or painting are all crafts-
All can be finely tuned skills that when borne with love and careful attentiveness move to the next level.
Craftsmanship is not limited to the work of just our hands but also our minds and bodies- our imaginations and presence.
Craftsmanship refers to the skill, artistry, and meticulous care a maker puts into creating an object or performing a task.
It [craftmanship] distinguishes high-quality, expertly made work from mass-produced goods…. (4)
Craftmanship is, of course not just about traditional artisanal skills.
Not just about making gargoyles out of stone g or glass blowing.
But is about hand-work.
About deep attention to the materials we work with
And our relationship to those materials.
And that might happen with gardening or bread or painting on canvas or someone’s house.
It might happen with repairs and building or relationships.
It might even happen with Quaker business practice or caretaking your elders.
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Our scripture text today is from Exodus.
And unless you know scripture REALLY well you probably don’t recall these two folks, Oholiab and Bezalel, very well.
BUT you probably have heard of their work because they built the ark of the covenant…
Which you may recall is what Indiana Jones searches for, and finds, in the first movie.
The book of Exodus contains the great story of the Hebrew.
They escape from enslavement by the Egyptians.
They receive commandments from God
They travel- hungry and thirsty, of wondering if enslavement is better.
Exodus is the story of making covenant and then days later breaking it by building a golden calf to worship it.
And then being punished and asked to walk 40 years through the desert.
—
I imagine that some of that is vaguely familiar.
And so in the people’s journey through the desert for 40 years the people need a way to bring the Holy with them.
frankly they have almost nothing else.
They are not acquiring possessions or land or any sort of permanance.
Except for this container where they can envisage that God dwells with them…
A traveling box for their holy relics- and a seat that God sits on to be among them..
Exodus chapters 25-31, which our text is from today,
Are 6 chapters of Exodus which serve as an instruction manual for 2 craftsmen on how to build this impressive box/bench and all that comes with it.
______
I imagine that each of us has tried to put something together and the instructions were clearly written by someone whose first language was not you first language-
You try to follow along.
Your hands aching on that stupid allen wrench.
You realize 6 steps later that tiny hole matters and you used the wrong board on the wrong side.
You undo all the previous steps, your hand now getting blisters.
You start over again and again.
And when its done- your irritated, your back aches, and the whole thing wobbles.
These instructions can be amusing at best.
And confounding at worst.
This is what Exodus 25-30 is like.
An instruction manual in Ancient Hebrew.
And there were 2 people who were entrusted to make this holy container.
2 people who God had endowed with special gifts to do this.
2 people who could build, craft, and create according to the instructions.
Oholiab and Belezal.
They are gifted people.
They are skilled and talented artistants and craftspeople.
And God wants them to make this container for the Holy presence to travel with the people of Israel.
__________
Bezalel and Oholiab are given a profoundly important role.
Without their gifts, the place for God to be among the people is lost–
Without using their gifts-
God cannot sit among them.
Their names are mostly forgotten.
But their work is as important as those who built Notre Dame,
What if crafting, creating, building- is vital to the presence of God in the world.
IF so, what are we all doing staring at our phones and shopping on TEMU.
_________
The bible is full of craftsmen- named and unnamed-
Perhaps the most known among them is Jesus.
Matthew and Mark liken Jesus to a carpenter- Which is kind of true.
The best use of the Greek word isn’t carpenter really-
But craftsman. (3)
He could probably do carpentry, stonemasonry, furniture making, and repair almost anything.
Being a craftsman is theologically important for Matthew and Mark because God is ALSO a craftsman-
God is artisan/ a worker/ builder/fixer
God is a tinker-er and a creator.
—--------
crafts work is holy work.
Hand work is holy work.
The work in materiality of this life holy work.
Paying attention to details the beauty and potential in the material world around us is attention to GOD herself.
In creating, in crafting, in making we are mindful of those who will receive our craft work
We are attentive to the problems and gifts inherent in things
We slow down, bring our attention to things.
And all of that: mindfulness of other, attention to potential problems and gifts, and slowing down are all holy things!
“Craftsmanship nurtures the souls of all those who practice it. The maker's experience with their work is as important as what is created by them. Perfecting details, caring about quality and ensuring that artistry is present in the process is divinity at work.(7)”
________
I know a woman who cleaned houses for most of her adult life.
And she was skilled.
Down on her hands and knees scrubbing the floor, dusting the knick-knacks.
The corners of the homes she cleaned were not hide outs for grime.
But that was not the craft- not really-
when her clients got older she washed their linens and helped with laundry.
She took them to Doctors appointment.
And asked them for small favors they could do for her.
recognized when things were in disarray in a new way and walked them into new thresholds.
Her real craft was in relationship building.
Her craft was the slow burn of supporting people, of dignity sharing
I don’t think she ever saw herself as having been a craftsman.
But I do.
Slow, precise, attentive,
nuanced, personalized,
embodied and material work.
It was a slow dance over decades.
__________
Here is an invitation for you all-
For us.
To make things.
To use our hands.
To use our imaginations.
To be artisans and creators.
To be workers or cleaners or waterers.
To be makers and craftspeople.
To be menders, repairers, fixers.
To be attentive listeners and meditators.
_______
Our particular gifts may not be Oholiab and Belezal’s but we are all gifted with something-
Making a quilt or a table.
Fixing your doorknob and making jam.
It’s fiddling with our lawn mowers and making a homemade meals
Its learning the dance and laughing with the rascal toddler!
______
And this isn’t about being traditionalist either:
“Craft matters not because the past was better, because in many ways it certainly wasn’t, and not because there is any moral purity in kneading dough rather than buying bread,
but because there is something profoundly human in the wish to bring care to matter.
To take the time to learn the method and grow less clumsy through repetition, and do something well for no better reason than the doing of it well. .
We do these things because they satisfy something in us that remains hungry even after convenience has fed us. They give form to care and turn attention into something tangible that you can reach out and touch.
Care becomes a cleared bed, a repaired sleeve, a jar of some fermented thing bubbling in the kitchen, or a loaf cooling under a cloth. To make something well is to say that the world deserves more from us than use and disposal.” (5)
This is also a justice issue.
IF this is so important and so human we need to make space for our neighbors to have access to time and energy and resources to be makers.
To tap into our deep cultural wells of craftsmanship.
To share gifts, capacities and resources.
This only happens when we all have enough time, money, space to do so.
_________
Perhaps the craft I have been spending the most consistent time on in the past couple of years has been sermon writing.
In fact, before sitting with this reading and this text this week I would not call it a craft.
But it is.
And here is the thing-
AI doesn’t write any of my sermons.
And here is the other thing- It could.
I could input the reading and have it draw up themes.
Then I could pick out those themes and ask for more messages about that.
I could ask AI to make things more Quakerly.
I could ask AI to help me come up with some stories or studies or poems about these topics.
But the thing about a craft, and what makes it spiritual, is that we are changed by it too.
We are changed by our gardening.
By our pizza making.
We are changed by our tinkering at old radios
Changed by taking care of children and elders.
We are changed by the fixing and painting and reading.
Change by watering, and witnessing.
We are changed when we craft.
I am changed every week by sitting with the scripture passage, when I wrestle out my own stories my own context-
I am changed as a person.
I am also changed as writer.
That is a craft.
And you are too.
You will be too.
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What I ddin’t share at the begining was that my Dad was a repariman by trade.
He fixed dairy equipment at farms all accross southe central illinois.
He was very good at what he did.
Last week, I was in my hometown.
I ran into someone who knew my Father.
He said to me, “Your Dad could fix anything.”
Maybe that’s why I’ve always kind of liked the image of God as father.
Lets all be crafters. Let’s create. Let’s give our attention to the details.
Let's be the image and likensss of God.
We, with God, might be able to repair and create much more than we thought.
1. Wiley, C. R. “Shop Class as Soulcraft: Let Us Recognize the Yeoman Aristocracy.” The Imaginative Conservative, June 9, 2025. https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2025/06/shop-class-soulcraft-matthew-b-crawford-c-r-wiley.html
2. Crawford, Matthew B. Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work. New York: Penguin Press, 2009
3. Robinson, Matthew K. 2021. “‘Is This Not the Τέκτων?’: Revisiting Jesus's Vocation in Mark 6:3.” Neotestamentica 55 (2): 431–445.
4. CAERT, Inc. (n.d.). Craftsmanship (Lesson L600122). Illinois State Board of Education. https://www.isbe.net/CTEDocuments/TEE-L600122.pdf
5. Cooper, Sam. “The Confidence of Weeds: Why Practical Work Feels Increasingly Important in Modern Life.” The Black Butter Club, May 16, 2026. https://substack.com/home/post/p-197762122
6. Haider, Imran. “What Is Craftsmanship.” Markhor Journal (Medium), April 30, 2016. https://medium.com/the-markhor/what-is-craftsmanship-771b8db1c5f4.
7. Uili, Joel. “The Craftsmanship Manifesto: Reviving Craftsmanship in the Modern World.” Archer Online. May 1, 2026. https://archeronline.substack.com/p/the-craftsmanship-manifesto