 |
|
|
Rector's Blog
Friday, August 03, 2007
Open Hands or Closed Hands?
Our hands speak in ways our mouths do not. Notice the next time that you're nervous how your hands may speak (sweaty, clammy, shaky, or fidgety). Notice that during worship at the Eucharist we may come forward to the altar for prayer and "the laying on of hands." Our hands in prayer says what words alone cannot convey. If you've ever been to Italy or Greece, and have watched people talking or arguing with each other, you know that hands can speak!
But what do your hands say? Not the ones on your arms, but the hands of your heart. In the face of your week ahead, are your hands open to God or closed? What do you see? What does God see?
We have open hands in the words of Paul from Colossians when we "seek what is above." To seek what is above, says Paul, means to put to death idolatry in its various forms—immorality, impurity, passion [living by or on emotion], evil desires, and greed. Idolatry is image worship (Greek eidolon, "image"; latreia, "worship"): it is a projection of who we want God to be and the making of him with our spiritual hands into the image of our choice. It is a way of closing our hands around God falsely: circumscribing God and calling God our own when God isn't. Idolatry is closing our hands: closing our hands around God and saying, "gotcha." But opening our hands before God means saying to God with our lives, "Though I know you, I have ever to know you better." It is saying with our hands (physical and spiritual) and even our mouths that our images of God are not complete. Before God we have open hands is when we recognize that God is greater than we can imagine, and that what we face coming in our week are blessings from God in surprising ways.
Together we may seek what is above and have open hands before God, receiving what has been entrusted to us in ways that enlarge our gratitude and the richness of our lives. To have open hands is true wealth. And through Jesus Christ, and through the active practice as our faith, we are empowered by God to have open hands.
link | Comments []
[back to top]
Archive:
09/01/2006 - 10/01/2006
10/01/2006 - 11/01/2006
01/01/2007 - 02/01/2007
02/01/2007 - 03/01/2007
03/01/2007 - 04/01/2007
04/01/2007 - 05/01/2007
05/01/2007 - 06/01/2007
08/01/2007 - 09/01/2007
09/01/2007 - 10/01/2007
|
|
