Mtr Mary Trainor

Lord above hear my plea, when it's time to judge me,
take a look at these hard working hands.

Dear friend,

Regular human beings, full of heart and youthful exuberance. Chosen by Jesus, thinned from the crowd, called by name. Given the role of a lifetime.

Jesus did many things that irked the religious professionals. But his selection of core team members must have been near the top of what they considered his most-egregious offenses.

Uneducated men, some whose livelihoods were earned by the sweat of their brow and the ache of their hands. Jesus was preparing this bunch to be messengers of salvation? To be elevated above those properly prepared for such roles? He chose these ordinary men to help usher in God’s kingdom?

In the Office Gospel today from Matthew (9:35-10:4) Jesus talks about the staggering number of people in need of healing and relief, people who were ”harassed and helpless.” The harvest of need was plentiful. But the laborers were few.

So he called the Twelve, gave them authority over the spirits, the ability to heal all manner of illness, and he sent them out ”into his harvest.”

If these hands filled their task then what more could you ask,
for these fingers have worked to the bone

The italicized phrases interspersed in this reflection are from a song titled These Hands made popular by the late Johnny Cash. He was an early member of the outlaw movement, a rebellion against what some saw as an over-domestication of country music.

After Cash died in 2003, son John Carter Cash found many unpublished lyrics while sorting through his father’s belongings. Fifteen years later, in 2018, his son worked with others to produce an album based on Cash’s unpublished work. Forever Words includes sixteen songs sung by a variety of artists. And just which singers were those chosen for recording?

From an online music magazine titled The Line of Best Fit: “It’s an album of mainstream misfits, who occupy the same uncomfortable space in contemporary music that Cash often did; artists who, despite their commercial success, have often felt the ‘cold winds of exclusion,’ as Johnny Cash once described it.”

The cold winds of exclusion.

It seems Jesus got in the biggest trouble when he swung wide the doors to the kingdom. When he healed people who were supposed to be outcasts. When he ate with sinners. When he invited everyone. When he called out religious professionals for adding to the people’s burdens. When he expanded the view of who can be a recipient of grace.

Not just the perfect, not just the polished, not just the educated. Not just men, not just Jews. Ordinary human beings, irrespective of gender, insider and outsider. Each and every one, by virtue of being human, a candidate for the grace of God.

These hands raised a family, these hands built a home 
now these hands raise to praise the Lord.

Mtr. Mary

Listen to These Hands here.