From the UCC Network: 10/16/2011 "Hands"

Hands

Excerpt from Exodus 39:32-43  

"Then they brought the tabernacle to Moses, the tent and all its utensils, its hooks, its frames, its bars, its pillars, and its bases; the covering of tanned rams' skins and the covering of fine leather, and the curtain for the screen; the ark of the covenant with its poles and the mercy seat; the table with all its utensils, and the bread of the Presence; the pure lampstand with its lamps set on it and all its utensils, and the oil for the light; the golden altar, the anointing oil and the fragrant incense, and the screen for the entrance of the tent…The Israelites had done all of the work just as the LORD had commanded Moses."

Reflection by Quinn G. Caldwell

Here's the thing about hands.  The same pair can be used to build a bomb and to stroke a child's face; to smack your spouse around and to paint a masterpiece; to flip somebody off and to remove a cancer from an ailing body.  It's all about who's in control.

The Israelites had just blown it big time: they had cast themselves a golden calf to worship.  The story glosses over the actual process of making the calf, but it must have taken a lot of work, some of it quite skilled, to produce such a thing.  A lot of work, a lot of craftsmanship, a lot of time, a lot of loving care…all to produce one of the worst abominations God seems able to imagine.

Now here are those same people, offering the Tabernacle.  The hands that created an abomination have now woven, and dyed, and cast, and sewn, and built a great portable cathedral in the desert.  Those same sinning hands have now produced tools to dispense forgiveness, and furniture for righteousness, and containers for covenant, and a seat for mercy, and a great thing of beauty rising in the starkest of surroundings.

When left to their own devices, the best the people could come up with were a cow and a party.  With God in control, they crafted mercy, and forgiveness, and beauty.

Who's going to control your hands today?

Prayer

God, I know whose playground idle hands are.  So grant me tasks to do with mine that will be gentle, beautiful, creative, and just.  Amen.

About the Author Quinn G. Caldwell is Associate Minister of Old South Church in Boston, Massachusetts, and co-editor, with Curtis J. Preston, of the just-published Unofficial Handbook of the United Church of Christ.