by Wendy Morical
Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
— Teresa of Avila (1515–1582)
When our Interim Search Committee interviews potential ministers, one question we often ask is, “Where do you find inspiration for your sermons?” Several of these talented people have described physically carrying a scripture on a slip of paper in a pocket as they go about their lives, waiting for the words to connect with something going on in the world around them. This struck me as a quaintly concrete way to seek the living God, but I found it compelling and returned to it again and again in my thoughts. We’ve all had the experience of learning a new word – and then hearing it repeatedly in the days that follow. In that case, our mind seems to develop a new level of awareness to that one specific, new term. The paper scripture in the pocket is simply a token of the bearer’s receptive spirit, the openness to hearing God’s voice in the midst of busy days.
During the book sale of Glover’s library, I brought home a book titled Yours are the Hands of Christ. The author, James Howell, shares ways to practice one’s faith by relating the ways that Jesus served humankind with His own hands – serving, healing, teaching, and so forth. The truth is, I had never found the time to read the book, although it sits on my shelf as a sign of my good intentions. Nevertheless, like the slips of scripture tucked in a pocket, I carried the title of that book in my head for weeks.
My process of receiving a connection took much longer than that of those seasoned ministers, who are presumably practiced in focusing on the sacred in everyday life. It also seems I required a more prosaic message in order to hear God speaking: In unpacking the nativity figures for use with the Advent services, I was astounded to remove the Baby Jesus from the protective tissue and see he literally had no hands! Amusing, perhaps, but to me also profoundly significant. Being new to the practice of seeking inspiration, I needed this thunderclap to connect with my message: Mine are the hands of Christ!
As with the new vocabulary phenomenon, I was confronted with the word hands multiple times in the next short while. During a recent Here and Now broadcast, Robin Young talked with Jeff Gershon about his miraculous recovery from Covid. He had been precipitously ill and now wanted to find and thank all his caregivers. Robin asked, “How many, …hands do you think were laid on you when you were out with Covid-19?” [emphasis hers]. Cori Bush, the first black female representative from the district in Missouri where Michael Brown was killed in 2014, told of her reason for going into politics; as a minister and activist, she couldn’t help but get involved in the movement for justice, to “lend my feet and my mouth and my hands to it.” My series of hand events continued when I picked up a tattered and spattered cookbook from my youth. In it I noticed a “Kitchen Prayer” that had never really registered before, a homely message about the sanctity of housework: “Although I must have Martha hands, I have a Mary mind… ”
Like Cori Bush, and like the army of healthcare workers who saved Jeff Gershon’s life, we are called to lend our hands to the work of creating Christ’s kingdom on Earth. We don’t have to be ministers, politicians or medical professionals, though. Christ came to live among us as a human, serving others in many ordinary ways — comforting, feeding, even bathing his disciples’ feet. During the season when we celebrate the birth of Jesus, we can get caught up in the tasks of preparing for Christmas, some of which have become even more stressful during these pandemic times. When we wrap a gift, hang a garland, prepare a meal, or write a note of friendship, we are serving others out of love; in doing so, we serve God.
May we have the presence of mind to watch the work our hands are doing, and value it for the love it is communicating, being receptive to the sacred quality of our hands’ work.
According to Howell, Mother Teresa once said that if at the end of the day you want to examine your conscience, simply look at your hands. What have your hands done today? Whom have they served? Has the imprint of Christ been left on anything those hands have touched?
Yours are the hands with which Christ now serves.
— Wendy Morical serves as Moderator for Pilgrim Church