Touch

 


Hundreds of years ago, a man lived a wild life. He loved women and enjoyed good wine. He relished parties and the good life. And his mother kept praying that he would find God. She told him whenever she saw him, "I am praying for you to find God." Most of the time, he shrugged her off, or just downright pretended that he hadn't heard her.

His mother grew ill and it became clear that she was going to die. Aware that she might not be with him much longer, her son started to listen to her.  She told him of how she was not afraid to die, that she actually looked forward to seeing the face of God.  She told him that the one thing she wanted was to see him come to believe.  So he began to really question her.  Did she really believe in heaven? Did she really face death without fear? What did she think it would be like?

Her son decided to be baptized. After his baptism, they went on a trip together. They were staying at a small inn, looking out the window to a beautiful garden, when something happened.  The man would later write about the experience and admit that it defied all words.  They were discussing heaven. His mother was saying how she longed to see God and he began to long too. They were talking about how beautiful it would be when, together, they touched it.  "It was as if we reached out and touched heaven," he would later say. Together, they touched the presence of God.

His mothers prayers were answered.  The young man would later become a bishop.  His mother would die with peace in her heart. Her son would go on to become one of the greatest theologians and teachers in all of Christianity. He would be known a St. Augustine.

Augustine and his mother touched heaven.  They did not explain it or analyze it. They touched it.

When Jesus appears to his disciples in the gospel of Luke, he startles them. They are in the middle of a conversation and he simply pops in. They are so scared that Jesus has to reassure then.

"Don't be scared," he says. "Touch me." 

Jesus does not answer questions like we have to do to verify our identity when log on to the computer.  He does not try to explain to them where he has been or what it was like to die and rise again.  He seems to know that these things are too far beyond the disciples.  Even if Jesus had tried to explain, they could not have taken it in. The Resurrection cannot be explained, but it can be touched.

"Touch me," he says.

Then Jesus does another strange thing.  He says, "Do you guys have anything to eat?"

They give him a piece of fish and he downs it, right then and there. He gobbles it up.

When they walked and ate on the Sea of Galilee, guess what they ate most of the time? Fish!  So, for Jesus and his disciples, this was the equivalent of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It was comfort food.

When I am just plain hungry and tired, I make myself a PB&J. It makes me feel better. I don't know how, it just does.

Jesus told them to touch him and then he asked them for food and he ate it right in front of them.  Food that they all knew was good. Comfort food.

I went to Dallas this week to meet for the first time with some really incredible priests. I was invited to become part of a group called Urban/Suburban. The group was founded by some of the leading Rectors and Deans in the country during the Civil Rights Movement.  They gathered to support and strengthen each other in a time in which they believed that it was crucial for their churches to take a stand. They needed to know how to lead their congregations towards racial equality so they gathered alone to share each others pain. 

This was the first year that I have been invited. The Retiring Dean of the National Cathedral was there. Deans of the Cathedrals in Houston, Atlanta, San Antonio, Portland and Indianapolis were there, alongside Rectors of the largest churches in the nation.  We cried together and hugged each other and ate good food and debated things. It was really good, except for one part.

A visiting Biblical scholar came to speak to us.  He was combing through the resurrection accounts, talking about their similarities and differences, and he mentioned a woman that he had met who believed that she would get to bowl with her grandmother in heaven. (Evidently, her grandmother was quite the bowler.)  The Biblical scholar mentioned this woman and he laughed at her.

I could feel my blood beginning to boil. This man thought that her picture of heaven was inadequate, that it was child-like.  I said to him, "Do you really think that this woman was so ridiculous? Is your idea of heaven any more adequate than hers?"

Needless to say, I probably embarrassed the man, but I wonder sometimes if we intellectuals make things more complex than they need to be.  The fact is that we cannot know what heaven will be like. We only have visions from Scripture like the book of Revelation.  Jesus doesn't even try to describe heaven beyond very simple images like sitting down to a meal or walking through many rooms of a house.  Instead of trying to describe what is beyond us, he just tells us not to be afraid.  And to touch him.

Every single Sunday, when you come here to worship, you make your way down this aisle and you kneel in front of this altar.  Father Perry and I then place a small wafer in your hand.  Take this, we say.  Touch it. Taste it. We cannot explain heaven to you, but we can show it to you.  You can reach out and touch it. Open your hearts and wait for the presence of the Lord, a presence that passes all understanding, to reach out and touch you.  You will not feel that presence every time, but occasionally, when you least expect it, God will just show up.

When a tiny baby is frightened in the night, the best way to comfort the child is to hold it and feed it. Hold the child in your arms, touch the little one.  Then put something in its mouth. That way, the child will know that it is loved. No explanations can do what one small touch can do.

And when I go to the hospital, I always hold the persons hand. It is that touch that speaks more profoundly than all the words I could come up with. So simple and yet so profound.

When it comes to dying, we are like little babies in the face of the unknown. Maybe we will go bowling with our grandmothers, maybe it will be something else entirely. The truth is that we do not know and we cannot know the fullness of eternal life. Not with out limited minds, not with just our brains. 

So God has the priest touch our hands and God puts something in our mouths.

 Do not be afraid, Jesus says. Hold out your hands. Touch this wafer. Put it in your mouth.

 Don't be afraid. I am right here beside you. Just touch me.