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While I
find it hard to keep up with local press coverage, my friend
David Mosser manages to sift through news dispatches from
Great Britain. Which was how he learned, last November, about
two British mental health workers who visited a female client,
chatted for several minutes, decided she wasn’t interested
in talking with them, and then left (presumably to fill out a
case report in the car before continuing on to their next
stop). What they somehow failed to observe was that she was
dead.
They
had let themselves into the flat of Patricia Harris, a
43-year-old paranoid schizophrenic, who they found sitting in
the kitchen….curtains drawn….her back toward them. When
she failed to respond to either their greeting or their
chatter, they figured it was “just one of those days” and
they left. It took another 24 hours….and a follow-up by two
more seasoned case workers….to confirm what they could have
learned with a longer look or a simple touch. That she was
done….cold….gone.
Today’s
text is not about how to tell that a 43-year-old woman is
dead, but how to tell that a 33-year-old man is alive. The man
is Jesus. The place is Jerusalem. The story is Luke’s. The
witnesses are 11/12ths of the original dozen. The question is
resurrection. Is the rumor true? Is this really him?
Lay
aside, for a moment, your bewilderment as to why I would
preach a text that follows Easter, 50 days before Easter.
After all, Lent begins on Wednesday….Ash Wednesday. Lent is
40 days in the countdown. But you don’t include Sundays in
the countdown. So add seven (allowing for the Sundays), and
add another three (from today through Tuesday)….and it would
appear that I am 50 days early. You’re right, I am. But
don’t worry about it. Trust me.
All
that’s at stake now is that there is a dead man
walking….or at least standing….in their midst. What’s
more, his presence is terrifying (which I, for one, don’t
find the least bit surprising). They think they are seeing a
ghost. Some translations use the word “spirit” (drawn from
the Greek word “pneuma”). A better translation is
“ghost” or “apparition” (drawn from the Greek word “phantasma”).
Trust me, go with “ghost.”
What
follows is the need of Jesus to prove he isn’t….a ghost, I
mean. So he tells them to look at his hands and feet. Moments
later, he swallows a piece of broiled fish. As for the fish,
the important issue is not what he ate, but that he ate. We
have parishioners today who can’t. Eat, I mean. Their
ability to swallow has been trumped by a tumor or stilled by a
stroke. The message (here) seems to be that Jesus has a body
that works like a body….or else why would the text take
special note of the fact that not only did he ask for
something to eat but, when it was served, “he took it and
ate it in front of them.” Which has nothing to do with
allowing the disciples to observe his manners, but everything
to do with allowing the disciples to observe his throat.
But
enough about the fish, already. Of greater interest is his
invitation to look at his hands and feet. In John’s story,
something similar takes place, albeit a week later. You
remember John’s story. That’s the one where Thomas is
invited to make a physical check of Jesus’ extremities
(“Put your hands in my holes, Thomas”). As to whether
Thomas does, John doesn’t say. Here in Luke’s story,
everybody’s invited to check Jesus’ extremities. But as to
whether anybody does, Luke doesn’t say, either.
So
are Luke and John telling the same story? The possibility
exists. But it’s hard to say. What is easier to say is that
both Luke and John employ similar stories to combat similar
heresies. What heresies?
- That Jesus’ resurrection
was not so much physical, as spiritual.
- That, in life, Jesus only
“appeared” to be in the flesh (meaning that history
should remember him, and the church should worship him, as
being far less human and considerably more divine).
But
hands and feet are as human as they come….as physical as
they come….and maybe as ordinary as they come. “Look at my
hands and feet,” says Jesus. “Did you ever see a ghost
with these?”
Funny,
though, that Jesus doesn’t say: “Look at my face. Listen
to my voice. Give me a little quiz, the better to check out my
memory. Ask me to preach a sermon, the better to check out my
theology.” Jesus doesn’t say any of those things. Just,
“Look at my hands and feet.” Presumably, Jesus wants them
to see the holes. Although Luke doesn’t say “holes.”
Neither does Luke, in his narrative of the cross, mention
“nails.”
Let
me ask you a question. Could you identify anybody by their
hands and feet alone? I mean, those of you who are married. If
we veiled your spouse’s identity, save for hands and feet,
could you pick your spouse from a line-up of other people’s
hands and feet? I’d like to believe I could. But I’m not
sure.
Hands
and feet, says Barbara Brown Taylor, are simply not the first
things we notice about one another. Yet, upon closer
examination, hands and feet are so telling of who we are. One
of my hands has a finger that doesn’t bend, since I
dislocated it playing basketball in a church league tournament
on the same day Al Kaline hit three home runs on his way to a
break-out season. That was the year Al hit .340 and
telegraphed to the world that he was on his way to stardom. I
heard every one of those three home runs sitting in an
emergency room, waiting for someone to pull my pinky into
place. Which eventually was done, albeit without anesthetic or
expertise.
And
on my left hand is a rock-hard, callous-like collection of
skin, which the doctors tell me has nothing to do with
physical labor and everything to do with being a southern
European. Genetically speaking, Slovenia did this to
me….meaning that something of the story of my people is in
my hand.
And
the stress of my work is in my hand, too. My cuticles are far
from pretty, given my tendency to pick and chew on them when
feeling pressure. Which beats ulcers, I suppose. Although
cuticles are more visible than ulcers. And you can tell from
the fingertips of my left hand that I once played violin for
twelve years, and from the fingertips of my right hand that I
squeeze every last word I write from a hand-held pen.
As
for my feet, they are more private, somehow. I rarely go
barefoot. And it would probably surprise you to learn that I
don’t own a pair of sandals. Not that my feet have anything
to be ashamed of. No corns. No warts. No blisters. No hammer
toes. In fact, the length of my toes is perfectly symmetrical,
with the big toe being tallest and the little toe, shortest.
As a child, I probably liked it when adults played “This
Little Piggy Went to Market” on my feet. But as an adult,
the one time I allowed somebody in a worship setting to wash
(and perfume) my feet, I didn’t like it. Perhaps I feared
that my feet might offend. Although I remember taking note of
Jesus’ word to Peter (when Peter recoiled at the idea of his
Lord washing his feet). Jesus said: “Peter, if I do not wash
you, you have no part in me.”
I
can identify many of you by your hands….especially those of
you who come at 8:15. Every month I hold the loaf you reach
for. I see hands with partial fingers….hands with gentle
tremors….hands with not-so-gentle tremors….and hands
sufficiently crippled so that breaking the bread is as
demanding as eating the bread is satisfying. I see delicate
hands, muscular hands, soft hands, hard hands, damp and sweaty
hands, even nervous hands. Over the years, I have seen
surgeon’s hands (which are antiseptically clean) and auto
mechanic’s hands (which no bristled brush or bar of Borax
will ever clean). “Clean,” of course, being relative.
Wasn’t it Linus Van Pelt who once showed his hands to his
sister, Lucy, telling her that they would one day be the hands
of a concert pianist, a portrait artist or a rocket
scientist….only to have Lucy look at them and sneer: “They
have jelly on them.”
But
all our hands have jelly on them. Dirt, too. And blood.
Somebody’s blood. Mary Martin may have been able to “wash
that man right outta her hair.” But as many times as you
said to someone, “I am washing my hands of you,” you
probably found it hard to accomplish (and were largely
unsuccessful).
Hanging
around funeral homes like I do, I know that while a few close
family members may lean over the casket and kiss the face of
the deceased, to whatever degree the rest of us interact with
the body, we are likely to touch the hands of the deceased.
“Look
at my hands and feet,” he said. And when they did, what they
saw were hands that had broken bread, poured wine, pressed
poultices of mud and spittle against a blind man’s eyes,
lifted a little girl from death to life, danced in the air
when he taught by the sea, and dared touch (against all
superstition and taboo) the flesh of the ritualistically
unclean and the leprously diseased.
And
looking at his feet, they probably saw (in addition to the
wounds from the nails) the remains of the road….along with
the visual remembrance of that vulgar woman who, at an
altogether lovely dinner party, scandalized everybody by
wetting his feet with her tears and then drying his feet with
her hair.
You
know, it might have been easier had Jesus stayed dead. Then
they could have embalmed him (which, if you remember, is what
the schedule for Easter morning originally called for). Yes,
they could have embalmed him….prepared him….dressed him
(blue suit, red tie, Sunday school pin, Masonic emblem, maybe
a little American flag on his lapel)….and combed his hair.
Then we could have filed past him….eulogized him….maybe
even sainted him. All in all, a nice, clean, complete picture.
But
if today’s text was the last day we saw him, then
“embalmed” was not the last way we saw him. Instead, we
saw him as someone whose feet touched earth and whose hands
touched life.
Which
is our situation, too, is it not….people whose feet touch
earth and whose hands touch life. For most of us, Lent is
going to come and go and we are still going to be here. So as
important as it is to tell his story from cross-bearing to
tomb-transcending, it is also important to ask: “If we are
the ones left, what does it mean to be the body of Christ?”
In
recent years, I have not been a huge promoter of Lenten
disciplines. You have not heard me urging you to read this,
pray that, or give up something else. Putting a quarter a day
into the slot of the cardboard folder some churches send home
for Lent (the better to extract ten dollars from you by
Easter) has not been a hallmark of my ministry.
But
I wonder if there is something you could do with hands or
feet….daily or weekly….to mark the time and keep the
season. Use your imagination. Your hands can make and
bake….touch and reach….lift and carry….gather and give.
While your feet can stand up….step out….make a visit….or
cross a bridge. So much of Lent-keeping has, over the years,
tended to be cerebral. What would happen if, just once, we
expressed Lent in ways more physical? As for me, I will do the
only things my hands know how to do. I will write 40
notes….by hand. To whom and about what, I do not know. After
all, I still have three days to figure this out. But God will
lead me (as concerns the who, what, how and why).
One
look at the hands and feet of Jesus and we know where he’s
been. But after gazing upon the hands and feet of you and I,
will anybody know where we’ve been?
Note: I am deeply indebted to the marvelously-talented Barbara
Brown Taylor for raising some of the same questions and
treating some of the same themes.
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