St. George's Episcopal Church
Roseburg, Oregon
Third Sunday After Easter Day
30 April 2006
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Acts 3:12-19
Psalm 4:1-8
1 John 3:1-7
Luke 24:36b-48
Collect of the Day
From the Revised Common Lectionary as Adapted for Use by the Episcopal Church
and Authorized by the 74 th General Convention of the ECUSA
Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. He said to them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence. Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you — that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. (Luke 24:36b-48)
It’s All In The Hands
The Rev. Dr. Bill Stroop, Rector
When Jesus appeared before the disciples, he greeted them in peace. Instead of being happy to see their master and friend, they were terrified. Perhaps they were scared because of guilt. After all they had abandoned Jesus in his hour of greatest need. Perhaps they were expecting him to condemn them for their weakness and failure. But instead, Jesus greeted them with love and in peace.
Still, they doubted that it was Jesus who stood before them. And why not? They knew that he had died and had been buried. How could he be before them now? And in the flesh? How did he get in?
Luke then tells us something peculiar. Jesus asks the disciples to look at his hands and feet for proof as to who he is. He did not ask them to look at his face, peer into his eyes, or listen to his words. He said, “Look at my hands and feet; see that it is I myself.”[1]
When we see pictures of Jesus today, we often see his torso or head. His hands and feet are often not shown. I am most often drawn to Jesus’ eyes in representational art. But Jesus told his disciples to recognize him in his hands.
Hands are very telling of who we are. I was a chaplain at the VA during my early years in ministry. And I worked at the VA as a scientist for nearly two decades before that. During that time, I saw many veterans, and I ate with them in the cafeteria. Their hands had lots of stories to tell: missing fingers, missing pieces of fingers, or hands that had been replaced with prosthetic devices. Each had a story to tell.
Jesus’ hands tell a story. They were once physical hands that waved about as he taught. I do not imagine Jesus sitting quietly like the Jesus in Jesus of Nazareth. I see him flailing his arms around to make points about the kingdom of God. I see his hands willingly reaching out to touch the untouchable leper. I see him rolling mud made from dirt and his own spit to put on the eyes of a blind man. I see him embracing his friend Lazarus and I see him holding a little child in his arms. I see him grasping bread, giving thanks, breaking the bread, and sharing it with his friends.
My father was a letter carrier. He worked as a letter carrier in the fleet post office in San Francisco during World War II and continued that line of work after he was discharged until he retired in the 1980’s. Dad’s hands were famous in their own way. Mailpersons have to case their mail; that is, they need to sort through piles of mail and put the mail into bins corresponding to the stops they will deliver that mail to the following day. My father was among the fastest at casing mail in the post office. Young carriers new to the trade would watch my Dad with amazement; while the other older carriers would just smile as my Dad’s hands pitched mail at a machine-like pace.
But I knew my father’s hands in other ways. His were the hands that gently held my wrist and my ankle and my feet when I broke them at various times during my childhood. His were the hands that held a variety of brushes as he painted portraits of people’s pets and various nature scenes when he became a professional painter after he retired from the post office. His were the fingers that taught me how to put a single salmon egg on a number 14 gold egg hook when we went fishing. His were the hands that put a hand full of earth on his wife’s casket at her funeral.
My father died about a year and a half ago, and when I stood next to his bed the morning he died, I held those hands. Although death dramatically changes a person’s appearance – despite the best efforts by the local mortician - my Dad was recognizable in his hands. Not “by his hands” but “in his hands.” I could see and sense the real presence of my father in his hands.
Maybe it would be helpful if we looked at our own hands like Jesus wanted the disciples to look at his. Jesus’ hands and feet were proof that he went through the pain, through the death, and emerged from that suffering. Jesus hands spoke of who and what he was. What did the disciple’s hands say about them? What do our hands say about us? Where have our hands been? Whom have they touched? Whom have they hurt? Whom have they helped?
Our hands are the most effective parts of the body of Christ. They are the parts that manipulate the world around us for good or for evil. They can heal or harm. They can build or destroy. They can hammer nails or be pierced by them.
In Jesus’ day, the most effective and visible way of changing the world was through the kind of work done with the hands. In our world, the word “hands” is more metaphorical, because we have a greater capacity to affect the world by application of other human attributes, including our minds, and our words transmitted at the speed of light. But the metaphor of “hands” still works. What the Gospel asks us to do is to remember that what we do – our actions – speak volumes about who we are.
Emily Hertzer, a Yale graduate and Chicago law student, understands this well. She adapted the name Newportant from Dr. Love, a Newport, Rhode Island artist, for a new use.[2] Newportant originally meant something new and important, something original and inventive. Hertzer is trying to start a national Newportant trend to develop a life style that is cultured, civil and well-mannered. She wants to change people’s lives.
Now while this may not be Gospel, what Hertzer is saying is that in order to become Newportant people, we need to change our basic behavior. That is like what the Gospels tell us over and over again: What we do is what we are. We love our neighbors as ourselves. We listen for God’s voice, not ours or society’s. We practice charity and kindness. We bear each other’s burdens. We forgive.
What matters is what we do with our hands, our hearts, our souls, and bodies. We are called to live by loving our neighbor as our self. That is where we will find God.
Love is the message. It is out of love that we treat each other as we should. It is the expression of the Golden Rule – treating each other as we wish to be treated. If you want people to be kind to you treat them with kindness. If you don’t want to be cut off in traffic, don’t be the driver who cuts off others. If you want civil treatment in the grocery store, or in the kitchen, or in a relationship, treat others with civility and respect. Now that doesn’t mean to not address things that hurt – honesty and disclosure are crucial to being respectful of yourself and of others. But if you don’t get civility in return, try to keep your cool, and let the civility flow.
It is not always easy to face rude or hurtful or disrespectful behavior – let alone frankly unkind behavior – with civility. It is not always easy to build a bridge with ones hands. But as it says in 1 John, we are called to be Children of God. “Let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him” (1 John 3:18-19)
What will we do with our hands this evening, tomorrow, and for the rest of our lives? What will our hands and our actions proclaim about us as Christian people? What will our life’s work tell others about the person of Jesus? Will we be faithful Children of God?
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COMMENTS? E-Mail Me
When Peter saw it, he addressed the people, “You Israelites, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we had made him walk? The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our ancestors has glorified his servant Jesus, whom you handed over and rejected in the presence of Pilate, though he had decided to release him. But you rejected the Holy and Righteous One and asked to have a murderer given to you, and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses. And by faith in his name, his name itself has made this man strong, whom you see and know; and the faith that is through Jesus has given him this perfect health in the presence of all of you. “And now, friends, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers. In this way God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, that his Messiah would suffer. Repent therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out.
1 Answer me when I call, O God of my right!
You gave me room when I was in distress.
Be gracious to me, and hear my prayer.
2 How long, you people, shall my honor suffer shame?
How long will you love vain words, and seek after lies? [Selah]
3 But know that the LORD has set apart the faithful for
himself; the LORD hears when I call to him.
4 When you are disturbed, do not sin;
ponder it on your beds, and be silent. [Selah]
5 Offer right sacrifices,
and put your trust in the LORD.
6 There are many who say, “O that we might see some good!
Let the light of your face shine on us, O LORD!”
7 You have put gladness in my heart
more than when their grain and wine abound.
8 I will both lie down and sleep in peace;
for you alone, O LORD, make me lie down in safety.
See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure. Everyone who commits sin is guilty of lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. You know that he was revealed to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. No one who abides in him sins; no one who sins has either seen him or known him. Little children, let no one deceive you. Everyone who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous.
Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. He said to them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence. Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you — that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.
O God, whose blessed Son made himself known to his disciples in the breaking of bread: Open the eyes of our faith, that we may behold him in all his redeeming work; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
[1] I am indebted to Barbara Brown Taylor for inspiration for this sermon. See Barbara Brown Taylor. “Hands and Feet.” Home By Another Way. ( Cambridge, MA: Cowley Publications. 1999), 119-123.
[2] Information about Emily Hertzer and Newportant was adapted from Timothy F. Merrill. “Newportance.” Homiletics. 18(2):68-70 (2006).
The Mission of St. George’s Episcopal Church is to lead people to love Jesus, and, through worship and scripture, to become empowered as a servant body – to each other, to our community, and to the world. For information about St. George’s Episcopal Church and its life and mission, please contact us at 1024 Southeast Cass Avenue , Roseburg, OR 97470 or by phone at (541) 673-4048 or (541) 680-3465. Contact Bill by email at wgstroop@earthlink.net and visit our church at http://www.roseburgchurch.net |
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Copyright © 2006, William G. Stroop - All Rights Reserved.
27 April 2006
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