Jesus was a carpenter and he worked with a sow and a hammer

And his hands could form a table true enough to stand forever

And he might have spun his life out in the coolness of the mornings

But he put aside his tools and he walked the burning highways

To build a house from folks like you and me

And he found them as they wandered through the wild Judean mountains

And he found them as they pulled their nets upon the Sea of Galilee

And for a thousand evenings while the day behind him emptied

He walked among the poor and he stopped to touch the dying

And he built his house from people just like these

It was on a shining Sunday when he rode to old Jerusalem

And the palms they cast before him were the crimes they laid against him

It was on a stormy Friday when he climbed the streets of Calvary

And where he died today why they're sellin' beads and postcards

And they tell us too that that was long ago

But would he stand today upon the sands of California

Or walk the sweating blacktop in New York and Mississippi

Where the mighty churches rise above the screaming cities

Would he be a guest on Sunday a vagrant on a Monday

With the doors locked tight against his kind you know

Come again now Jesus be a carpenter among us

There are chapels in our discontent cathedrals in our sorrows

And we dwell in golden mansions with the sand for our foundations

And the raging water's rising and the thunder's all around us

Won't you come and build a house on rock again

Jesus was a carpenter...