This Christmas, Preach about Jesus's Wheelhouse

That’s in her wheelhouse.

Have you heard the word “wheelhouse” used in an expression like this?

I seem to hear it more and more, so it got me curious. What’s it’s origin?

I didn’t know so I did a quick internet search.

I learned on the Grammarphobia website (and others) that the word “wheelhouse” literally means a “house” that holds “a wheel.” Specifically it pertains to the enclosed room (or “house”) on the top of a boat where the wheel is.

The wheelhouse is the important area where the ship is steered and controlled by the captain.

“Wheelhouse” moved into the vernacular when it migrated in the mid-20th Century from boat to baseball.

A ball thrown into the batter’s wheelhouse means the ball is thrown into the “sweet spot” for a particular batter.

The pitch unintentionally takes best advantage of the batter’s skills, so he can hit the ball hardest and send it furthest.

If something is in someone’s wheelhouse, then it’s within the range of what they can be most successful at, or is the best they have to offer.

Their skills and experience come together with sharp focus to do the thing they do best.

Understanding this much about wheelhouses, then, a new question arose for me:

What’s in Jesus’s Wheelhouse?

This may seem an odd question to be asking this time of year.

After all, we’re looking more at a baby Jesus than we are at boats, baseball—or houses with wheels!

And yet, it’s a fundamental question this time of year.

Jesus was clear about what was in his wheelhouse from the moment he was born, and he focused his efforts there with divine authority.

Jesus’s wheelhouse was the healing of the human heart.

He focused everything he did to heal the human heart.

Jesus saved. He reconciled God with humanity and humanity with God.

Jesus healed. He healed people’s bodies, minds, and spirits so they could enjoy and spread being reconciled with God.

Jesus taught. At least from age twelve Jesus taught others about Scripture and God’s love for them so their minds could be renewed and their lives transformed.

Jesus preached. He demonstrated God’s love in parables, deeds, and when addressing crowds.

Jesus used all his skills and his very being to make us one with God and one another.

Jesus’s wheelhouse included saving, healing, teaching, preaching.

Just as importantly, do you see what’s not in Jesus’s wheelhouse?

What’s Not in Jesus’s Wheelhouse?

Everything else.

For example, carpentry.

We know Jesus’s earthly dad, Joseph, was a carpenter, so we assume he taught Jesus.

However, carpentry is never mentioned in the life of the adult Jesus. Carpentry, it seems, was not in his wheelhouse.

Had it been, it would have distracted him from the things that were.

Nor was social activism in Jesus’s wheelhouse, at least not in the modern sense. Jesus didn’t organize and lead people to eradicate a social scourge, like slavery, hunger, or homelessness.

I imagine he could have, and probably would have been really good at it if he had.

But he didn’t.

If he had, it would have distracted him from what was in his wheelhouse.

Jesus’s wheelhouse was to heal the human heart.

If he could do that, then all the rest could follow.

Christmas Preaching about Wheelhouses

In an age when we have almost endless possibilities to engage in social activism, church work, our careers, and develop our skills for our hobbies, not to mention taking care of our families and homes, our wheelhouses are crammed full.

We have become hoarders, saying yes to everything we are or could be good at.

For example, preacher—first heal thyself: where are you saying yes to opportunities that take you beyond your wheelhouse?

Skilled at leadership? We say yes to requests to head this committee, or run for that church election, or serve on another board because we know we’d be good at it.

Skilled at pastoral care? Sure! So we say yes to every request for “just a few minutes” of our time, or answering every email even after work hours, and organizing one more committee to reach out to people who need it. Why? Because we care and we’re good at it.

Skilled at community organizing? You bet. The needs are great, the harvesters are few, but if you could just mobilize a feeewwww more people, the neighborhood could get turned around.

No matter what it is you (or your listeners) are good at, there is no end to the people who could benefit from your wheelhouse.

But when we keep saying yes and never say no, eventually our wheelhouses are so stuffed with to-do lists and responsibilities we can’t turn the wheel anymore.

Our wheel gets stuck in one direction.

In essence, our responsibilities steer our boats—our lives—rather than us. We have no room to maneuver—even when we see an iceberg ahead!

Our families, ministries, and our health might be at stake because we’ve said yes too many times.

Yet our deadlines, and our promises and expectations to meet them, prevent us from changing course.

In other words, just because you can say yes because it’s in your wheelhouse, doesn’t mean you should.

Preach Clarity of Purpose

Jesus was born to heal the human heart.

That’s all he did. His entire life.

What about you?

What about your listeners?

What is so fundamental, so core to who you are, that you can say you were “born” to do something?

Identify that.

Say no to everything else.

Preach Limiting Even What You Are Born to Do

Jesus healed the human heart by virtue of who he was, and of course, through his death and resurrection.

But he didn’t physically heal, teach, preach to every single person.

His concern was global as demonstrated through the specific.

That meant he could say no to more “specifics,” more individuals who desperately needed and deserved his help, to achieve his global purpose.

We also were born for a global purpose as articulated in our baptismal covenant. We demonstrate our purpose through the specifics. But that doesn’t mean we demonstrate it through every specific, even when people desperately need and deserve our help.

We can still say no. Because we’re not more than Jesus.

Preach How to Say No

Affirm the need for and good work of the one asking for your help.

Tell them your commitments prevent you from taking on anything else right now.

Wish them the best.

Aiding your listeners to enter 2020 with clarity about their wheelhouses might be the very best gift they receive this Christmas.