A Hand Laid On You

 

Scriptures: Numbers 27:12-23, Acts 6:1-7

 

Some of you may have read the article in the R-J about ten days ago about the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the African National Congress in South Africa. In fact last Sunday wrapped up a weekend of celebrations, as current South African president Jacob Zuma, according to one report, “received a rapturous welcome from 40,000 ANC supporters as he arrived at the Free State Stadium in Mangaung, [Bloemfontein] while tens of thousands more watched on large TV screens at several overflow centers in the vicinity.” The article in the R-J noted, though, that many of the promises proffered by the ANC when it came to power in 1994 had not yet been fulfilled (sounds a lot like our own situation, doesn’t it?). We have long had in this country a particularly significant relationship with South Africa: during the long and painful years of apartheid many Christian denominations, including our own United Church of Christ, sought sanctions against the South African government, and after the freeing of Nelson Mandela and the inauguration of a more democratic form of government we hailed the integrity and fortitude of the man and the possibilities that might now come out of South Africa. Last year’s movie “Invictus”, if you managed to catch it, with Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon, gave us some insights into both the man and the nation.

Before there was Mandela, though, there were other heroes in South Africa. One of my favorites is the author Alan Paton, who has a way of putting things that just jolts me sometimes. In his most famous novel, Cry, the Beloved Country, Theophilus Msimangu, a black priest, hears his fellow priest, Stephen Kumalo, say to him, “You are kind”, and with a sharp rejoinder Msimangu replies, “I am not kind. I am a sinful and selfish man. Only God has laid His hand on me. That is all.”

I said last week that I am doing a kind of two-sermon arc that deals with the twin concepts of leadership and service as we held our Leadership Sunday last week and then today prepare for our Annual Congregational meeting. These twin ideas form the paradox that is at the core of a Christian life. And now here is Alan Paton offering us yet another paradox: we are not kind. We are sinful and selfish and we know it. And yet – and yet – God has laid a hand on us. Us. Even us. God has asked us – all of us – to be God’s co-workers, for once we have felt the strength of that Spirit, which is God’s hand, we must respond with the work of our hands and hearts. Our unkindness and our selfishness and our sinfulness are overcome by God’s placing and our accepting of that spiritual hand.

In the passage I read from the book of Acts the early disciples were concerned about some of the every-day tasks that had to be done. The Hellenists – which was just a fancy name for Greek-speaking Jews – had become critical of the more conservative Hebrews for spending all their time at preaching while neglecting such basic tasks as distributing food and money to the widows, who had no legal rights and therefore who had to be cared for by the community (sounds something like the old argument between Mary and Martha, doesn’t it?). The disciples didn’t really want to take time away from their missionary work, although they felt that the criticism might have been somewhat just, and so they asked the community to pick out seven who were dedicated and capable of meeting the needs of the widows. Among these seven was Stephen, the first Christian martyr (and the namesake of our priest in Cry, the Beloved Country), who got his start in Christian service from such a small matter as some widows’ complaints.

And so these seven experienced the laying on of hands. Now, most often we think of this act in connection with ordination to the ministry – giving the minister his or her special authority. Moses’ singling out of Joshua to lead the people into the Promised Land, as we read about in the first scripture lesson, by laying his hands on Joshua is another example of authority being passed on through this symbolic gesture. But these seven were laymen! (They were, unfortunately, all men.) So was Joshua! Yet, we have no feeling of impropriety here. It is right that laypeople should be ordained for the tasks that they are to perform. Here is yet again another paradox: the idea of the ordained layperson. To those who accept the strength of God’s spirit in their lives, the laying on of hands signifies a willingness to do God’s work in all realms, not a setting apart for special tasks as we so often interpret this in our ordination ceremonies.

I got to thinking about these seven laypeople and their role as ministers as we prepared for our Annual Congregational meeting and planned on the election of new officers and board members – whom we will be installing in a few weeks with, at least, a figurative laying on of hands. So, I’m hoping that, in the same manner, this sermon can be a figurative laying on of hands upon each of you.

Notice in particular that these seven laypeople were not to be merely assistants to do the dirty work for the apostles while they got all the glory of evangelizing and baptizing. G.H.C. Macgregor suggests that these seven were to be missionaries on the same level as the apostles – in fact, Macgregor says, “The distinction between the seven and the twelve was one of sphere rather than of function. The seven were to be for the Hellenists exactly what the twelve were for the Hebrews.” These were laymen, yet their work was on a par with the apostles: “and the word of God increased…,” the book of Acts tells us. The same is true in our own church: our moderator is (almost always) a layperson. In the UCC top denominational leadership is often laity – such as Charles Lockyear, who served the UCC for many years as treasurer.

So, down through the years and into the present you who are laypeople have felt the weight of this hand. And sometimes it can be a weight, too. When I was ordained, which, by the way, is coming up on 48 years ago now, the moderator cautioned me that after all those hands had been laid on me I would probably need help in getting off my knees since the weight of several pairs of hands on top of one’s head tends to throw your balance off. The weight of God’s hand does force us to our knees. And often we do need help in getting up and going out to do God’s work. That’s why the Christian community is here – why we are told in Galatians to “Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” (6:2) We feel the weight of responsibility – even as Stephen felt it – even as Joshua felt it when he was given the task of leading the Israelites into the Promised Land. When the hand laid on you is experienced as a weight and not an inspiration, then you do not always want to accept its responsibilities.

Yes, the hand of God does make demands – demands of stewardship, of attendance, of service in the world, and perhaps especially of service in the church. There can be a desire to rebel against the weight of these demands. In our day some people can say, “I don’t need the institutional church; I can have my own religion,” and go off into the woods like a Henry David Thoreau. Oh yes, it is possible – even if difficult – to rise by yourself from the weight of hands laid upon you, but the greater joy comes when you are helped by others into new insights and new paths of service. Could the seven have been as effective ministering to the Hellenists if they had not had the backing of the twelve apostles? And likewise, could the twelve have been as diligent in their preaching and witnessing without the work of the seven?

There is an old story that is often told (in fact, I think I’ve told this before myself): when Christ went back to heaven after the resurrection an archangel met him and asked, “What are your plans now, Master?” Christ replied, “I have left all that in the hands of human beings.” The archangel was nonplussed: “But humans are notoriously unfaithful; what if they fail? What if they refuse to accept the mantle of your hand? What other plans to do you have?” And Christ simply says: “I have no other plans.”

We are the hands of Christ. This little story helps us to realize that it is not just the weight of God’s hand that we feel but also its weightlessness (yet another paradox). To experience God’s hand laid on you is to know the incredible freedom of God’s unlimited grace (that’s why we spent a lot of time last week focusing on being free). In The Who’s rock opera Tommy there’s a break-through moment when Tommy, breaking through the barriers of his blindness and deafness sings, “I’m free. “I’m free. And freedom tastes of reality.”

When we have felt the weight of God’s hand, felt it force us to our knees, and then have been helped to stand by the community which surrounds us, even as we learn to help others, then we are ready in truth to be the hands of Christ. To go back for a moment to my own ordination, after all those hands had been laid on my head and then I stood up there was a remarkable feeling of lightness, almost weightlessness. This physical sensation is something like the psychological feeling we have when we have truly given ourselves over to Christ’s service and accepted all the responsibility that entails. It is the feeling of freedom that comes to someone who for a long time has been jailed within the cell of self and then breaks loose by an act of self-giving.

In the 9th chapter of Acts something quite similar to this experience of weight and weightlessness happens to Paul. After his famous encounter on the Damascus Road the weight of blindness comes upon him. It is only when Ananias – directed by the Lord – comes to Paul and lays his hands on him that Paul experiences the weightlessness of receiving sight. According to the account, “something like scales fell from his eyes, and his sight was restored.” (9:18) Paul could not relieve the weight of his blindness by himself, but when he was helped by a member of the Christian community he knew the experience of being filled with the Holy Spirit. Once having accepted the weight of that hand we have the promise of never being alone. It is by the power of grace that God has put a hand on us. Now it is up to us to accept this gift.

At the close of Alan Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Country James Jarvis, the land-owner whose son, Arthur, has been killed by Absalom Kumalo, the son of the priest, Stephen Kumalo, comes home to his farm which is right next to Stephen Kumalo’s parish. There, one night, Jarvis, the white man – father of the murdered boy – meets Kumalo, the black priest – father of the boy about to be hanged. In their mutual sorrow they recognize that each has grown in stature, for James Jarvis had never before been able to accept the work that his son had been doing to advance equality of the races in South Africa. Now, despite the nature of his son’s death, Jarvis has seen something of the vision which drove his son on; and Kumalo speaks to him the words Kumalo had heard before from Msimangu: “God has laid His hands on you.” Jarvis retorts: “I am no saintly man.” And both are right, for indeed God does not lay a hand on the saintly but on those who struggle and gasp and search and doubt and sin and die. Jarvis is not a priest like Msimangu, he is a layman. And yet he has accepted God’s hand laid on him to cleanse his thoughts about the work of this his son who has been killed.

Just so is it true that we are all ministers – we are all ordained by the laying on of God’s hands. We may feel inadequate to the responsibilities entrusted to us, but if we have felt the strength of a hand laid on us, then we know that the work of the church is not simply that of the minister or the boards or the Church Council. Rather, we all must rise from our knees after feeling those hands laid on us, with the help of those who are our Christian companions, and take up the work of Christ’s hands in this world. Only as we accept the weight of the hand laid upon us can we serve God and the church in the freedom of weightlessness.

Amen.

 

Dave Pomeroy

 

First Congregational Church/United Church of Christ

Las Vegas, NV

January 22, 2012