South Roanoke United Methodist Church

CHILDREN:  Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel (The Creation of Adam) finger of God almost touching Adam’s finger—we always need to reach for God’s hand; battery operated item runs down unless first charged up and continually charged by electricity—runs OK for awhile without it, then runs down and stops.  

We human beings always have to find something to do with our hands, don’t we?  It’s so much a part of our human nature.  We just can’t sit still.  Two children in the back seat of the car simply cannot manage to stay on their own side—somebody in the front seat always has to issue this warning to them:  KEEP YOUR HANDS TO YOURSELF!  Children just can’t help it—it is too much a part of who they are.  Whether you’re at work or at home, you just have to be doing something with your hands in order to feel that you are useful, accomplishing something, or making a difference.  What is the one thing that is often said of those who retire?  “If he can just find something to do with his hands….”  We human beings are just like that.  That’s the way we are made.  

“Prosper the work of our hands,” the Psalmist says.
          Establish it
          Fulfill it
          Give it purpose and meaning
          Let us count for something
          Help us make a difference
This Psalm, this prayer, is attributed to one who would know exactly what he was talking about.  This is the only Psalm in the entire book of Psalms that is attributed to Moses.  Moses—who else in the history of God’s people would know better that it is God who prospers the work of human hands?  It was by the hand of Moses that
          God led the people out of slavery on their way to the Promised
              Land
          The sea divided and the people of God crossed on dry ground to
               the other side
          The water came back upon the army of Pharaoh who tried to
                overrun them  
          The rock brought forth life-giving water in the middle of the desert
When the people of God suffered from hunger in the wilderness, Moses joined them every morning gathering with his own hands the bread from heave, the manna for the people of God.  When they faced the threat of the Amalekites, Moses stood at the top of the hill overlooking the battle and held up his hands—for as long as his hand was aloft, Israel prevailed; whenever he lowered his hand, the Amalekites prevailed.  When Moses’ hands grew weary, Aaron and Hur moved a stone there for Moses to sit on and they held up his arms, one on one side and one on the other, all day long until sunset until Israel was victorious.  It was the hands of Moses that cut and shaped and fashioned the tablets upon which God wrote the 10 commandments.

Moses knew without a doubt that it is God who prospers the work of human hands.  This Psalm, this is a prayer of one whose own human agency God blessed.  It is the deeply yearning cry of one who longs for the day when human work and human effort will once again and forever go hand in hand with the work of God even as it was created in the beginning.  And if we understand the Psalm at all, it is ultimately a prayer for you that everything you do with your hands will indeed be God’s work and it will prosper; it is ultimately a prayer for South Roanoke Church , that everything we do will be God-blessed.  

And so the people pray with Moses, and we pray with Moses:
          Prosper the work of our hands!
                   Establish it
                   Fulfill it
                   Give it purpose and meaning
                   Let us count for something
                   Help us make a difference

Now, how can this prayer be     so bold in its request?
                                                so optimistic about human effort?
                                                so confident in its petition?
for the very core of the prayer is a confession of the finiteness, shortsightedness, temporariness, even impotence of the work of human hands, if not human life itself?  It says
          we are but dust, we are so small in comparison to God;
             e.g.  a watch in the night is about 3 hours—to God a thousand   
           years is like a watch in the night—a thousand years is like 3 hours
           to God!
The prayer confesses that we are but grass which flourishes in the morning but fades and withers at night.  So insignificant are we in comparison to the vastness and majesty of God.  The prayer laments that our days are so short—70 years, maybe 80 if you’re strong, and even then they are full of toil and trouble;  they are too soon gone; they fly by.

Our human life, our every human endeavor as described in the Psalm looks an awful lot like that drill with the depleted battery which ran as long as it could until its battery ran out.  The Psalmist knows that we can only go so long on our own.  All the life we have comes from God.  All our energy, vitality, hopes, and dreams that are really worth anything were created in us by God.  The human hand was so lifeless until touched by the finger of God.  By the touch of God’s hand we have life.  Moses knew that, too.

So why is this prayer       so bold in its request
                                      so optimistic about human effort,
                                      so confident in its petition?
Because it is the prayer of one who knew that when he stretched out his hand
          across the sea
          or over the battlefield
          to strike the rock
          gather manna
          or receive the tablets of stone
he was reaching for the very hand of God.  And that’s precisely where all work prospers.

This (Michelangelo’s picture of hands at Adam’s Creation) is where all work prospers.  We like to think that we can let go of God’s hand now and then.  And you can, for awhile.  You can run on your own energy, for awhile.  But sooner or later you find yourself drained, exhausted, and depleted.  Sooner or later you find yourself right where humanity was in the very beginning—a lifeless form desperate for the touch of God.  

The Psalmist says,
          Prosper the work of our hands.
The Bible says you’ve got to reach out your hand to God for life
          to prosper
          be established
          fulfilled;
for your life to have purpose and meaning,
          to count for something,
          to make a difference.
You’ve got to always reach out your hand to God in all you do.

That’s what Jesus is talking about when he answered that famous question about the greatest commandment when he said:
          You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all
          your soul, and with all your mind.  That is the greatest and
         first commandment.
When you love God with all your being your hand is always reaching for the hand of God.  When God has you by the hand, don’t ever let go again!

We human beings have always got to have something to do with our hands.  With one hand we must always reach out to God if we want life to prosper,
         be established
         fulfilled
         have meaning and purpose
         count for something
         make a difference.
What do you do with the other hand?  

Well, that’s what Jesus is talking about when he said:
          The second (commandment) is like (the first):  You shall love
          your neighbor as yourself.  On these two commandments hang
         all the law and the prophets.
Jesus cannot make it any clearer than that.  Now you can reach out to God with one hand and keep the other in your pocket, or inside your coat, or behind your back.  You can do all kinds of things to keep it to yourself.  But Jesus says everything, absolutely everything depends on what you do with your other hand.  Jesus says all the law and the prophets depend on this.  So, if you always need to reach to God with one hand reach out in love with the other.  

When you’re standing at a crosswalk with your children or your grandchildren about to cross a dangerous intersection, what is it that you instinctively require of every one of them before you even think about crossing the street?  What do you ask them?  “Here, hold hands!”  

We human beings always have to find something to do with our hands.  It’s just part of our nature.  If you want life to prosper, if you want your life
          established
          fulfilled
          have meaning and purpose
          count for something
          make a difference
you’ve got to reach out to God with one hand and reach out in love with the other.  Then the prayer of the Psalmist will be fulfilled, “Prosper the work of our hands!”