“Give a small boy a hammer and he will find everything he encounters needs pounding.“
That phrase was later developed by a philosopher, Abraham Maslow, who said, “If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.“
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This Law of Instrument was known as Maslow’s “Hammer Theory”, “Gavel Theory”, or “The Golden Hammer.” It is an over-reliance on a familiar tool. The idea is we become over-reliant on one tool, one thing that we have that solves all of our problems. If you think about it in modern days. I will just give you a few examples of what that might be.
For some people, their tool is yelling. Whenever they can’t fix a situation, they just begin to yell and scream until they solve the problem. Think about somebody that gets to a cash register and there is a discrepancy on the price. All they know how to do is just start yelling and screaming at the customer service representative.
Or I think about myself. Sometimes, as a priest, sometimes a husband and wife might come up to me about a problem. Thank God I am not the pastor. I do not have to deal with all the big problems. But, you know, the husband might start yelling and screaming at me. I think this poor wife has to live with this all the time. Sometimes that is all we know what to do.
Or think about a parent that has to discipline their child and their only form of discipline is a smack. All they know how to do is smack their child. And that becomes the one tool that they rely on.
I think about the Feast of The Body and Blood of Christ. I think about eating. Maybe your difficulty is with eating. Or maybe it is with weight or how you feel about your body’s appearance. And the tool that you always go to is that hammer. And how often is it that you beat up on yourself with that hammer?
We all tend to have an over-reliance on a familiar tool. It is our go-to tool that we use to solve our problem. Often it is just to beat whatever that problem is until we find a solution. Oftentimes, we beat ourselves up or we beat up the ones that we love.
We hear this in the Gospel today. Jesus is having this amazing experience. He is healing people. He is preaching about the Kingdom of God, and before you know it there are five thousand people that are gathered here before Jesus. He is doing these amazing things. For Him, it is not a problem, right? But the disciples see it as a problem. There are five thousand people there and evening is coming. The disciples realize that there is a large hungry crowd. I don’t know if you are anything like me, but if you are hungry and you are in a big crowd, you start to get hungry. You know, where you start to get angry and you get irritable.
The disciples are worried about this. There are five thousand people there. They are going to get hungry. They are going to start to get disruptive. They don’t know what to do. So they say to Jesus, “You have to get rid of these people. Dismiss them. Tell them to go their own towns and villages. They can find lodging and food.” Jesus knows what their primary tool has been. He knows what their hammer is. And so He says to them, “Give them some food yourselves.” He knows that their hammer is self-reliance. The disciples think that they have to take care of their problems themselves. They have to figure out a way.
The disciples say, “Jesus, all we have are these five loaves and two fish. And even if we go and sell all of our wages, that is not enough to feed five thousand people.”
Their hammer is self-sufficiency. Their hammer is doing things themselves. It is wonderful to see what Jesus does, because He has a tool that they don’t think to use. He says to them, “Give me what you have. Give me your five loaves and two fish.” He takes the five loaves and two fish, and here is Jesus’ tool. It is not self-reliance. He takes the five loaves and two fish. And then what does He do? He looks up. He looks up to His Heavenly Father and He prays to His Father. Then all of a sudden the five loaves and two fish miraculously multiply. There is not only enough to feed the entire crowd, but there is twelve wicker baskets left over. Twelve are representing the apostles that will then go out to all the world and supply the world’s needs.
This past weekend we celebrated, The Feast of The Body and Blood of Christ. This reality that Jesus gives us everything that we need; that He does feed us; that He does provide for us. The problem is we far often rely on the familiar tools.
Think about whatever challenge is going on in your life. I am sure you have them. We all have our difficulties. We all have our struggles. Right now my struggle is thinking about packing. I have no idea how I am going to pack everything up and get everything ready to move in two weeks. Often I think about how am I going to do it? How am I going to manage? It is the self-reliance. But all we have to do is realize that we have a far greater tool in our midst. We have a far greater tool than a hammer. All we have to do is stop and look up and offer our prayer to the Father, and we find that the Father can make everything happen in our lives. The Father can work miracles. The difficult thing is we far too often rely on the hammer. We far too often rely on self-sufficiency. I suppose it is tempting if the only tool you have is a hammer to treat everything as if it were a nail.
Realize today that we have a far greater tool. That we, as we receive The Body and Blood of Jesus, we become Jesus. If we become Jesus, that means that we have the Father with us. Anytime that we are in need, anytime that we are tempted to rely on ourselves or rely on our hammer, all we have to do is look up to our Heavenly Father. Offer our prayer of whatever it is that we have, and we will find that God does work wonderful miracles in our lives.
So let go of the hammer, and turn your head up to God!
