Handyman

Text: Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16 Other texts: John 14:1-14

Into your hands, O Lord, we commend all for whom we pray, trusting in your mercy, through Jesus Christ. In these words we conclude our own prayers each Sunday. Prayers of the people, this part of worship is called. Which strikes me as odd, since who else would be praying, and what are the other prayers if not ours? But of course, the title means prayers that are not written down beforehand or part of the formal liturgical prayers, but are prayers in our hearts—prayers thus of a particular person, you—and prayers that must be shared with others—all who are in this place in this moment, this particular congregation gathered here today.

Into your hands, O Lord, we commend all for whom we pray. We are handing over to God the people, including ourselves, and events for which we pray. From our hands to God’s hands. Our hands have proven themselves not to be sufficiently able to handle things.

For there are things that were beyond our reach and beyond our strength. Curing sickness, mending hearts, keeping people safe, banishing fears, undoing wrongs. In our prayers, we let go of our pretense that we can save others, or ourselves. Our petitions and thanksgivings, our concerns and celebrations, are humble prayers: asking God for a hand, or thanking God for a hand that was given.

Into your hands, O Lord, we commend all for whom we pray. These words come from today’s psalm, psalm 31. In it, someone seeks to be saved, to be delivered, to be rescued. To be redeemed. All of these words have one ordinary and urgent meaning: I am stuck in a bad place: get me out of here! And make haste it says: do it quick!

Deliver is the right word, here, because it conveys the notion of movement. We are in one place and hope to get to another place. Take me out of the net in which I’m trapped, the psalms says. Pluck me from the tangled mess I’m in.

People find themselves in enemy hands. Rescue me from the hand of enemies, the psalm says. Caught up in the nets they have woven for us. These enemies are many, tricky, and strong. And old-fashioned, as old as the psalm. Enemies within. Pride and greed and gluttony. Fear and anger. Worry and regret. And enemies without. Disease, addiction, and violence. The devil and all his empty promises. We put our lives into the hands of forces that are not trustworthy. Or just as often those forces grab us and hold us tight against our will.

I am in distress, it says in the few verses that the lectionary skipped over—I am in distress and my eye wastes away from grief, my soul and body also. My life is spent with sorrow, and my years with sighing.

There is a tug of war here between, as Martin Luther wrote, between us and these forces that threaten to devour us. Our enemies are tenacious. Stronger than us.

Into your hands, O Lord, I commit my spirit, says the main character in the psalm. By stating this, we take ourselves from the hands of our enemies and give ourselves to the hands of God. It is a transfer of trust: from what is untrustworthy to one who can be trusted.

We commit to God those things which are beyond our own powers and abilities. We give our lives—that’s what the word spirit means here—we give all of ourselves to God. We let go of the notion that we are in control and put the course of events into the hands of God. Trusting, as we pray, in God’s mercy.

My times are in your hand, the psalm says. This is a statement of resolve: here, God, take my life. And also it is a realization: my life has always been yours. The psalmist, who starts by asking to be rescued, ends up by being freed. Letting go of one’s life results in freedom. Into your hands, O Lord, the verse more completely says, into your hands I commit my spirit; you have redeemed me, trustworthy God.

The disciples are, like the person in the psalm, in the hands of enemies. The followers of Jesus are fearful—with good reason—of the present and the future. This Gospel passage is part of what is called the Farewell Discourse. The disciples know that danger threatens, that Jesus will leave them. They must have a notion by now that their lives, as followers of Jesus, will be difficult. The combination of almost certain impending danger and grief would trouble anyone.

Yet Jesus assures them: do not let your hearts be troubled.

The only antidote to this terror is to trust in God, Jesus says, and to trust in Jesus himself. In my father’s house, he tells them, there are many rooms. Or sometimes translated many mansions, or as in our Bible, many dwelling places. It is easy to think that Jesus is talking about some heavenly hotel. And Jesus is going to go talk to housekeeping about getting all the suites ready for his disciples.

Maybe so. But it seems as likely that Jesus is promising to each disciple what the person in the psalm prayed for. Which is a place for us in God’s hands. The word for dwelling place in this Gospel reading is “abide,” one of John’s favorite words. In John, Jesus is in us and we are in him. This mutual abiding is particular to each of us. Jesus did not promise that there would be one room big enough for everyone. There is one for each. The dwelling place is home. It is where we live, which in John is in Jesus.

Living in Jesus is another way of saying that we commit our spirit and time into God’s hands. The metaphor of rooms is reassurance by Jesus that for each of us, there is a place in God. That placing our lives in God’s hands is a particular event that God expects and is prepared for. We can trust in God not because of some vaguely hopeful sentiment, but because God’s hand is open to each person, ready.

We commit to God our lives and prayers for ourselves and others, trusting that God’s hands are eager to receive us.

When our hearts are troubled, when the future looks scary, when we are tangled up in net fashioned by enemies within and without, when our grip seems weak, into Gods’s hands we commend all for whom we pray, trusting in God’s mercy, through Jesus Christ.