Open Hands

Text: Matthew 5:38-48

Preacher: Katie Wilson, vicar at Faith.

Thank you all for having me here. Thank you All for being here.

Today I would like to speak about equality, and inclusivity, and what those words mean to me in light of our gospel reading: to “give to everyone” and to “Love your enemies.”

I have preached before about the work we do in Faith Kitchen, providing hot meals and a shared community, and the way that the doors of Faith Lutheran are “metaphorically thrown wide open, and all are welcome.” In a way, on these meal nights, we are trying to put into practice the words of the Gospel, the words we have read today in Matthew: “Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow.”

Give to Everyone. Do not refuse Anyone. This is a Big task that we have at hand.

When we make the statement at Faith Kitchen, or in worship at Faith Lutheran, that All are Welcome, we are aligning ourselves with this same sense of radical equality that Jesus exhorts us to in the gospel. We will not refuse anyone. Every Sunday, you will find printed in your bulletin these words: “All are welcome. Christ invites all to share in his holy supper. None will be turned away from God’s table.” These words, printed again and again, do more than communicate to a new visitor the inclusivity that Faith offers. While some might gloss these words over or simply expect them and take them for granted, for others—those who have been marginalized or turned away in the past—those words “All are Welcome” might be the hinge on which their whole world swings. Yet these words do more than inform the new comers, these words, if we let them, can inform us again and again of our commitment to equality.

I have been reflecting, though, on this notion of “equality;” on what assumptions we carry along when engaging it as a concept, and on how far we are willing to extend it to others. It is easy enough to say that All are Welcome. Or to say that every human being on earth deserves equal rights, human rights, equal treatment, God’s love. I think it is even easy enough to believe in this wholeheartedly.

My question, then, is about the specifics of putting it into practice: day by day, minute by minute, and keeping it in practice even when facing people who do not make it easy, even when facing people that make it very, very hard. When we say or believe that everyone deserves equality and that everyone is included in the spectrum of the Gospel’s commandment to give and to love, then that means we must maintain that commitment throughout the myriad challenges of our lives. It means that we must include the disruptive and threatening guests in our picture of who is welcome at our table. It means, on a communal and global level, that we must include even the people that make it excruciatingly Hard to do this practice: because total inclusivity includes the violent, and the cruel, it includes the worst things we can imagine inhabiting our world.

In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus says: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous”

Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you. This means to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute others, who wound others, this means to pray for the ones who make hate and fear boil up in your throat like black tar. Pray for them, and meanwhile, ask yourself if they are Welcome. Are they included in your vision of God’s table? Do they have the equal right to God’s love?

We are running up now against the edge of “equality” that’s been troubling me. When we say “All are Welcome” it is not just an invitation to others. It is not a performative act with lines of small print hidden at the bottom saying “All are Welcome—unless you are angry, mean, scary, hateful, hurtful, of this race or that sex, wearing an atrocious coat, or too noisy when everyone else is quiet.” When we contemplate deeply the notion of equality, or the statement “All are Welcome,” it is a challenge to ourselves to examine our innermost landscapes, our own most subtle aversions, our deepest beliefs. It can be a call to put these beliefs into action, to practice what we think we believe.

Because—obviously—it is extremely difficult to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” It is entirely appropriate that as we ponder these words and contemplate this type of complete inclusivity, that we ask ask of ourselves: How? How do I practice this, how could I refuse no one, how would I love and pray for someone who persecutes, who hurts my family? This is a never ending question and I do not propose to answer it definitively. In contemplating it, I recalled a poem I have long loved that doesn’t answer this question either—but it helps to keep me asking. It was written by the 16th century Spanish Carmelite Nun, Teresa of Avila:

Teresa of Avila (1515–1582)

Christ Has No Body

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.

Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,

Yours are the eyes, you are his body.

Christ has no body now but yours,

No hands, no feet on earth but yours,

Yours are the eyes with which he looks

compassion on this world.

Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

There are many venues in which we can practice letting our hands become the hands of Christ. Giving to those who beg from us, turning the left cheek if someone strikes the right, offering our cloak to one who takes our coat—these are actions that keep Christ’s actions alive in our world. And we can practice such awareness while serving meals, sweeping floors, while watching the violent news of war and protest in distant lands and close to home, while bearing the burden of our own deepest wounds, fears, and concerns. We have been told that the sun rises on the evil and on the good; the rain falls on the righteous and unrighteous alike. It is not that there is no difference between evil and good: just that We are not the ones to judge it. That is not our work. That is not our job. And speaking for myself—the realization that I cannot judge another comes as a huge relief. My work, then, is to welcome, to include, from my highest theory to my smallest moments; in the times it is easy and the times it is very, very hard.

It is helpful for me to remember this poem in moments when my hands are struggling to give, when there is a shadow over the ability of my eyes to shine compassion on the world. I remember that Christ has no hands to do this work, but mine; but then I catch myself, and remember that it’s not about my hands, my body, “mine.”

What I want to say is that Christ has no body now but OURS.

So not only can I allow myself to see my hands as the hands of Christ, I can re-affirm my commitment to equality, and inclusivity, every time I see your hands and your feet as the hands and feet that Christ has to work with now. We do this any time we look into the eyes of a stranger and know that somehow Christ is looking back at us, shining compassion on the world.

To be egalitarian and radically inclusive is not about me deciding that I am kind and good and educated enough to accept the equality of everyone around me. It is about acknowledging that everyone around me is Already Inherently Included in God’s love. Just as it is not my job to make the sun shine or the rain fall, I have no ability to determine who is good or evil, righteous or unrighteous. Where would I draw that line? Equality and inclusivity is about deciding that I have no right to judge who is, or who isn’t, who might be or who might not be, doing Christ’s work in the world.

We are all flawed as humans, we are complicated and moody and we frequently fall far short of our highest ideals and goals. The point is that we are In Process, we are moving towards the self that we would like to be. When we move towards the inclusivity, the compassion of our own heart and when we shine that back to others, we move towards “God.” It is not alone that we do this, but with a community: our community is what reflects God to us, what shows us that Christ is moving through our own flawed and tired hands.

And Here—right here—is just such an opportunity.

Every Sunday, as part of the service, we greet each other in fellowship; we look into each other’s eyes, take each other’s hands and with all the presence and the sincerity we can muster, we wish each other Peace, Peace be with you. You may not know every person whose hand you have taken or whose eyes you have looked into. You may, in fact, three days from now be stuck behind them in line at the grocery store as they slowly unload 12 items in the 10 item express lane; you might be cut off in traffic by them later this afternoon. But you have looked into their eyes in presence, you have wished them well. You have transformed them, and they, in turn, transformed you. These are the eyes of Christ that Teresa of Avila refers to: your own eyes.

Perhaps it feels like a big leap from transforming the frustration we feel in traffic to my attempt at a theological inclusion of those who wreck violence into our vision of who is welcome at God’s table. But I believe that the seed is the same and that it is important to make the connection between them: to reflect on equality not as an distant status but as an intimate and constant process, to acknowledge the unending and difficult inner work that a commitment to inclusivity asks of us, to honor our not-knowing and our inability to judge or draw the deciding line between good and evil, even as we strive to see ourselves, and everyone we meet, as the hands and eyes and body of Christ working compassion on the world.

So if I ask Who am I to judge? Who are we to judge? Then of course I also have to ask of myself “who am I to preach this to any of you?” I have no connection that you do not have. I have no purchase on this text, or on these words, which is not also right here, waiting, and available to you. This is an invitation to practice the words of the Gospel, to participate in Teresa of Avila’s poem. We are all invited, we are all essential; we are all included.