“The Space Between our Hands”
Psalm 84; Matthew 14:22-32
Rev. Dr. Deborah L. Clark
April 2, 2017
More than a decade ago, I preached a sermon on Psalm 84 that drew upon Auguste Rodin’s famous hands, which you will find on your bulletin cover. In my sermon, I talked about how inspired I was by Rodin’s choice of a title for his sculpture: Cathedral. If a cathedral is a human effort to convey our awe at God’s greatness, then this sculpture’s name suggests that the ultimate human expression of God’s glory is our hands coming together—perhaps in prayer. It fits: prayer is an acknowledgement of our trust in God’s goodness and power.
When we chose “Sanctuary: Safe Space, Brave Space” as our theme for Lent this year, I immediately thought of Rodin’s sculpture. In addition to conveying a new way of thinking about cathedrals, might this work of art also offer fresh insight into what it means to be sanctuary? If sanctuary is wherever we pause to be aware of God’s presence, then certainly our hands coming together in prayer is sanctuary. I thought about the sense of safety in our congregation that enables us to lift up our prayers during Celebrations and Concerns. I thought about the bravery that comes when we know others are praying for and with us.
Pleased to have found my sermon illustration so far in advance, I went onto Wikipedia to find some fun facts about Rodin and his sculpture. The description I read led me to take a closer look at the sculpture itself. It is, I realized, two right hands—which means the hands belong to two different people. One person cannot create this sanctuary alone. The sculpture is not an artistic rendition of the pious custom of folding our hands and bowing our heads for prayer. Rodin had something else in mind.
As I pondered the sculpture anew, I found myself thinking about how Jesus uses his hands—to break bread that will multiply to feed thousands, to point out hypocrisy, to receive a drink of water, to touch someone others consider untouchable. In our gospel story, Jesus reaches out his hand to grasp Peter’s outstretched hand. As their two hands come together, Peter’s fear subsides. He regains his trust in Jesus’ power to help him. He reclaims his trust in his own capacity, with God’s help, to do what he thought he could not.
Clasped hands—what a powerful symbol of sanctuary. God is present when we help each other. Clasped hands evoke safety and maybe even the bravery we find when we know we are not alone. But the hands in Rodin’s sculpture aren’t actually clasped. Could Rodin be pointing us to the holiness of the moment before Jesus’ hand touches Peter’s? God is present in Peter’s yearning for help, in Jesus’ trying to bridge the gulf created by storm and fear. Or maybe Rodin is pointing us to the sacred in the moment when Jesus lets go of Peter’s hand. God is there as Peter claims the power of the little bit of faith he has.
It is striking to me—and ultimately reassuring—that the hands in Rodin’s sculpture are not quite touching. We love to talk about unity and sing about being one; we paint pictures of children all over the world holding hands. It’s a lovely idea. What we know about our world today, and perhaps about human life in any age, is that there are so many things that get in the way. Hatred and despair, greed and the abuse of power, racism and sexism and homophobia, distrust between religions and ethnic groups, misuse of every religion’s scripture. Pretending we are all one can be a painful and even dangerous denial of reality—especially if, when we do so, we erase someone else’s story.
I have found myself thinking a lot this Lenten season about the space between our hands, especially as I’ve read and reflected and journaled as part of our Tuesday evening White Privilege study group. With each article I read, I am reminded of how race—and class and ethnicity and sexual orientation and personal family history—can lead us to experience the world in drastically different ways. In our study group, we’ve pondered what it means that Jesus is so often depicted as blond-haired and blue-eyed when we know he was Palestinian. We’ve seen the calculations of the cumulative effect of racism on family income and savings–from disparities in loan rates and housing values to the ways resumes of people with African-American-sounding names are discounted. We’ve read the statistics about arrest and incarceration rates. The things we have read and discussed are deeply disturbing–and we have tried to live into one of the agreements we made in our initial covenant: to lean into our discomfort. It is hard to keep leaning it, because it feels overwhelming–both to absorb and to figure out how to do something to bridge the gulf. There is so much that keeps us apart, that gets in the way of that unity we would like to claim.
That is why I find the not-quite-clasped hands in Rodin’s sculpture reassuring. If they are a cathedral, a sanctuary, then they assure me that God is present in the space between our hands. God is present in our imperfect efforts to reach out to understand each other. God is present in the differences we uncover, especially the ones that compel us to stop making assumptions and to start listening more carefully. God is present in the movement of our hands toward each other, in the ways we pause to allow room for difference, in the honoring that each of us has a unique story.
The sculpture’s hands are not quite touching, but the forearms are strikingly close to one another. The sanctuary—the place where we awaken to God’s presence—is not found in the perfunctory touch of a handshake, where our bodies are kept a safe and respectable distance apart. In order for two of us to bring our hands into the position of this sculpture, we have to violate all our conventions around personal space. We have to get uncomfortably close and actually intertwine our arms. Even as we acknowledge the ways we don’t understand each other, we also recognize that our lives are intertwined. How I choose to live affects you—and your choices impact my life.
The intertwined forearms in this sculpture point me to another insight into sanctuary—into the places and times we awaken to God’s presence. We discover God among us when we are brave enough to come a little closer than feels comfortable. We awaken to God’s presence when we recognize the ways our lives are intertwined, when we honor the impact our lives have on one another.
Ever since I realized Rodin’s sculpture is actually two right hands, I have been trying to imagine scenarios in which two people’s hands might actually be in this upright-intertwined-but-not-touching position. The closest I can come is folk dancing. While I’m not sure I’ve seen a dance that puts two people’s arms in exactly this position, I have certainly seen many dances where arms are intertwined, and other dances where hands are almost but not quite touching. Perhaps that is the final lesson this sculpture can teach us about sanctuary. Yes, there are many things that keep us apart. Yes, life brings us into uncomfortable closeness and sometimes unchosen interconnection. Still, with all our brokenness and misunderstanding, we can choose to dance together. The dance may be awkward. It will certainly be imperfect. Even with its awkward imperfection, the dance is joyous. The dance is sanctuary—for any time we choose to move together to the music of life, God is there.
In the end, I am glad I googled Rodin’s sculpture and took a closer look. As two people’s hands coming together, the sculpture conveys profound truth about sanctuary. Even more, it offers profound challenge to us as we seek to be sanctuary.
We are challenged to create sanctuary by reaching out our hands–reaching out like Peter for help, reaching out like Jesus to offer help. We are challenged to honor the sacredness of the space between our hands–to celebrate God’s presence in our imperfect efforts to understand one another, to honor the holy in our differences. We are challenged to lean in, to move a little closer than feels comfortable, to acknowledge our intertwined and sometimes tangled connection–and to recognize God at work in our discomfort. Finally, we are challenged to dance–to celebrate the amazing gift that we have hands to reach out, the amazing opportunities to listen and learn from one another, the amazing rhythm of life that invites us to move together.
How lovely, the Psalmist sings, is your dwelling place, O God of hosts. How lovely are our imperfect efforts to reach out. How lovely is the courage we find to come close. How lovely is the dance. How lovely is the space between our hands. Amen.