Consider all the intricacies of just those few tasks I've mentioned. The skill and coordination it takes to do some of those things; the dexterity, the deftness, or what we call "touch."

Hands are about touch. Touch is what we do with hands. We touch and pet our animals, we tousle the hair of our loved ones. We comfort others with touch. We rub backs and massage sore muscles. With touch we reassure, we restore, we revitalize.

We greet someone new with touch, by shaking an out-stretched hand. Fingers touch a vibrating string on a fingerboard, or through a key and hammer; Fingers open or close a valve and bring forth music. We say he or she has "touch" in their playing.

In the Psalter we pray to God, "prosper the work of our hands; prosper our handiwork." This place, this space represents the work of hands of the designers and builders. The music this evening comes from the hands that wrote it and the hands that plan, practice and play it.

Hands have created the beauty of our setting, arranged the bounty on the reredos, stitched the detail on the altar hangings, carved and constructed the wooden furnishings, made altar bread and wine, crafted the chalice and paten and linens, and placed them at the ready for our use.

With our hands we can create so much good in our lives and the world; with our hands we can wreak havoc and deliver pain. We can strike and hit and kill. We can defy, receive, and destroy. We can lift our hands in praise and prayer, or we can lift them in defiance and anger.

We do so much with our hands everyday that we don't think about what we'd do without their use. That is, until we injure a finger or our hand, and cannot use it as we once did-only then does our unconscious dependence on come to mind. Then we get frustrated, not being able to do what we routinely do. And if we regain its full use again, we go back to forgetting our helplessness.

With our hands we give and receive. Receiving usually requires that we extend our hands and open them. Giving usually requires extending our hands and releasing that which we have to give. Giving and receiving requires an exchange from a giver to a receiver. If it is a true gift, the receiver is free to do with it whatever he or she desires. That is the nature of a gift; we are completely free to do with it whatever-no strings attached.

While Thanksgiving is a national holiday, for the Christian we are called to make it truly a way of life. Thanksgiving is central to what we do whenever we gather for worship. It is in the very name of our central act of worship, for the Greek word for thanksgiving is Eucharist-the Great Thanksgiving.

Our hands are also central to our life of faith and worship. Hands baptize and bless, we lay hands on in healing prayer, we anoint with oil, we bury in our Memorial garden, we exchange the peace, we give of our alms, we bring forward our gifts to God, we take bread and bless it, break it and give it.

Look at your hands-in a few moments, you will have in your hands the bread of life; you will take in your hands the cup of salvation. We extend our hands, we reach out for the real presence of Jesus. By holding out our open hands we receive him. We receive what he gave us by his own hand-his body and blood, the blessed bread and cup of wine.

We remember that he stretched out his hands to receive children, outcasts, the sick and the lame, women and foreigners-he received them all; even the Roman soldiers who received him at Golgotha, and pierced his hands and his side. Those hands reach out to hold and embrace the world, our world, which needs the work of Christ's hands in it now more than ever. The work of your hands, for "Christ has no body now but yours; no eyes, no hands on earth but yours."

Several years ago I started opening my hands at the Lord's Prayer. It means a lot to me, because it is a profound moment. Christ is present in his sacrament-I want to be ready to receive him. I open my hands to let go of all that I try or want to hang onto-my things, my life, my schedule, my plans, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. In that moment I try to let go of all that and I open my hands to receive Christ and whatever it is that he has for me to receive. Then I receive him. In my hands.

If I don't make an effort to think about it, I lose probably one of the most profound moments of my day, my week, and ultimately, my life. Encountering Christ. And if I can open my hands at the Lord's Prayer, and while receiving the Eucharist, then maybe I'll open my hands more to Christ in others, the poor, the sick, the outcast, my neighbors, and my family.

For life is only worth living with open hands, and open hearts, and open minds. It allows Christ to show up, to fill us up, and to renew our way of looking at the world; even something as simple as looking at our hands.

The Rev'd Timothy M. Dombek
ST. JAMES EPISCOPAL CHURCH
301 Piney Mountain Road
Greenville, SC 29609-3035
(864) 244-6358
timothy@stjamesgreenville.org

Copyright © 2002 Timothy M. Dombek All Rights Reserved.