Bound to our Hands, Feet, and Hearts - May 31
Today’s Reading: AM Psalm 41, 52; PM Psalm 44; Deut. 11:13-19; 2 Cor. 5:11-6:2; Luke 17:1-10
One of the many gifts of seminary was the opportunity to make friends with people from all over the country, and even the world. One of my classmates, Sharon, was from Baltimore, Maryland, an Anglo-Catholic considering the priesthood later in life. She was married to Heber, who was a devout Jewish man, supportive of her Christian faith and journey, who had just retired as a police officer from the Baltimore police force.
In our first year, we took together the Old Testament survey class (we read the entire Old Testament as part of the class) and Sharon invited her husband one evening to come and share about his faith. She helped our class to expand our reading of the Hebrew Scriptures through the lens of a modern practicing Jewish people. There were many aspects of the faith that we would overlook from our Christian viewpoint that were foundational for her husband and his faith tradition. This section of Deuteronomy is one of those passages.
As a devout Jewish man, Heber used a long piece of leather, called ‘tefillin’ that he would wrap around his arm while reciting a prayer, and another long piece of leather with a box that he would wrap around his forehead. In the evening class that he first came to visit, he brought his own ‘tefillin’ and showed us by example how he prayed. I had never seen anything like it before. For me, the most bodily way I pray is to make a sign of a cross, but Heber was actually wrapping leather around his arm, tightly I might add, while praying in Hebrew.
One of the reasons for this kind of prayer comes from the passage from Deuteronomy that is assigned for this morning. The words remind us to ‘bind’ God’s words to our hands, to our hearts, and on our foreheads. This is not just a casual suggestion for how to live, but a tactile example that loving God with our whole heart transforms who we are so much so that we are physically changed and become an outward expression of that love.
The way we live out our faith as Christians often looks and feels different than our sisters and brothers from other faith traditions, but other traditions can often inspire a deeper reflection of our own faith. How is our Christian faith bound to our hands, hearts, and foreheads? This reminds me of one of the old mission statements of Saint Stephen’s: “Let us be the hands, feet, and heart of Jesus Christ in our neighborhood and world.” I’m pretty sure we don’t need to adopt new bodily practices of worship, but it could be worth reflecting on how God’s word can be bound to our hands, feet, and hearts too.
John+
Questions for Self-Reflection: What practices of our faith do you do that help you remember what you believe and live out your faith?
Daily Challenge: What this short video about how our Jewish friends pray with ‘tefillin.’