‘On another sabbath he entered the synagogue and taught, and there was a man there whose right hand was withered’ (Luke 6: 6) … ‘Healing Hands’, a sculpture by Shane Gilmore in Ennis, Co Clare (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Patrick Comerford
We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and the week began with the Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity (8 September 2024).
The calendar of the Church of England in
Common Worship today remembers the life and ministry of Charles Fuge Lowder (1820-1880), priest. Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
A Hamsa Hand from the Old Jewish Quarter in Prague with a prayer attributed to Rabbi Yehuda ben Bezalel Lewa ‘Maharal’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Luke 6: 6-11 (NRSVA):
6 On another sabbath he entered the synagogue and taught, and there was a man there whose right hand was withered. 7 The scribes and the Pharisees watched him to see whether he would cure on the sabbath, so that they might find an accusation against him. 8 Even though he knew what they were thinking, he said to the man who had the withered hand, ‘Come and stand here.’ He got up and stood there. 9 Then Jesus said to them, ‘I ask you, is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to destroy it?’ 10 After looking around at all of them, he said to him, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ He did so, and his hand was restored. 11 But they were filled with fury and discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus.
Father Michael Lapsley standing at the altar and presiding at the Eucharist
Today’s Reflection:
This morning’s Gospel reading (Luke 6: 6-11) tells another story of healing in a synagogue and on the Sabbath.
At one time, not having two functioning hands was an impediment to ordination to the priesthood in the Roman Catholic Church. A priest without hands was regarded as unable to take the bread and wine in his hands at the words of institution, to raise them at the elevation, to distribute them at the Eucharist, to pronounce absolution, or to give a blessing.
In a similar way, not being able to stand on one’s own two legs was also an impediment, seen as stopping a priest from standing at the altar and presiding at the Eucharist.
Father Michael Lapsley, a Facebook friend, is a New Zealand-born Anglican priest in South Africa. At the height of apartheid, he was a university chaplain in Durban. At the time of the Soweto uprising and killings in 1976, he began to speak out on behalf of schoolchildren who were being shot, detained and tortured. His activism resulted in his expulsion from South Africa. He continued his studies in exile in in Lesotho, and became a chaplain to the African National Congress.
He moved to Zimbabwe in 1982, and there in 1990, three months after Nelson Mandela’s release from prison, he was sent a letter bomb. He lost both hands and the sight in one eye in the blast, and was seriously burnt. He was about to become a parish priest in Bulawayo. Instead, he spent months on end in hospitals first in Harare and then in Australia.
When he returned to Zimbabwe, his bishop had given the parish to someone else. ‘He looked at me and said, But you are disabled now. What can you do?’ He replied: ‘I think I can be more of a priest with no hands than I ever was with two hands.’
Archbishop Desmond Tutu invited him to work in his diocese, telling him, ‘I have a priest who’s deaf, one who’s blind, now one with no hands, come and work in my diocese.’
Father Michael has continued as a priest, working with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, helping to set up the Institute for Healing of Memories in Cape Town, and creating the International Network for Peace to promote effective and nonviolent solutions to terrorism.
He has been a canon of the cathedral in both Cape Town and Edmonton, Canada, vice-president of the South African Council of Churches (2014-2017), and has been honoured with honorary doctorates and medals. Nelson Mandela said of him, ‘Michael’s life … is part of the tapestry of the many long journeys and struggles of our people.’
‘I can’t shake hands,’ he once told Chris Chivers of
The Tablet, ‘but I do love hugs.’
I have a Hamsa Hand from Josefov, the Old Jewish Quarter in Prague, hanging above the kitchen door in Stony Stratford. The small Hamsa Hand points down and is decorated with an eye and some fish.
Some years ago, in Hamsa, a kosher and Middle Eastern restaurant in Kraków, I was told how the Hamsa is a popular talisman throughout the Middle East as a sign of protection and blessing. An introductory leaflet said the Hamsa hand ‘helps you make the right choices, find friends and in times of doubt gives us hope that everything will work out.’
The Hamsa Hand is used as a symbol throughout the Middle East, among Jews, Muslims and some Christians as a protective sign. The Hamsa Hand, particularly the open right hand, also represents blessings, power and strength. It is a common symbol in jewellery in the Middle East and is also painted on the walls of houses or on the doorways of rooms.
The Hamsa Hand has a wide variety of names and variant spellings, including
hamesh,
hamsa,
chamsa, and
khamsa. Different Jewish traditions identify it as the ‘Hand of Miriam,’ the sister of Aaron and Moses, while many Muslims refer to it as the ‘Hand of Fatima.’
The Hamsa Hand has two main styles. One is shaped like a regular hand, the other has two symmetrical thumbs. The second style is the most popular, and the hamsa can be worn facing up or down.
It is difficult to pinpoint when the Hamsa Hand emerged in Jewish culture, although it is clearly a symbol that is Sephardic in nature. Jews might have used the hamsa to invoke the hand of God, or to counteract the Evil Eye with the eye embedded in the palm of the hand. It is often worn as a pendant on a necklace but also is found on key chains, house decorations, baby carriages, and other jewellery items.
Some hamsa hands contain images of fish, in accordance a saying in the Talmud by Rabbi Yose son of Hanina that the descendants of Joseph, who received Jacob’s blessing of multiplying like fish in Genesis 48: 16, are protected from the Evil Eye like fish. He explains: ‘the water covers the fish of the sea so the eye has no power over them’ (
Berakhot 55b).
Other images that have found their way into the hamsa include the Star of David, prayers for travellers, the
Shema, the blessing over the house, and the colours red and blue.
The meaning of the Hamsa Hand has a variety of interpretations, but the name
hamsa seems to come from the five fingers of the hand. In Hebrew, the number five is
hamesh and the fifth letter of the Hebrew alphabet,
Hē (ה), is one of God’s holy names, an abbreviation for
Hashem, which means ‘The Name’ and is a way of saying God without actually saying the name of God.
It can also represent the five books of the Torah or the five senses used to praise God.
The symbol of the hand appears in Kabbalistic manuscripts and amulets, doubling also as the Hebrew letter
Shin (ש), the first letter of
Shaddai, one of the names referring to God. In these variations of the
hamsa, the index and middle fingers, and the ring and small finger, are joined, giving three upward strokes and the shape of the letter shin (ש). This calls on the all-sufficiency of
Shaddai, ‘the Almighty,’ a name for God, to impart the blessing.
Some writers say the Hamsa has been present in Judaism since Biblical times, and cite Deuteronomy 5: 15, where it refers to the ‘strong hand’ of God who led the people out of slavery in Egypt.
Later, in late antiquity, the Byzantine period, and even in mediaeval Europe, including mediaeval Spain, the Hamsa Hand is seen in Jewish art as God’s hand reaching down from heaven.
In the Middle Ages, the Hamsa Hand became associated particularly with the medical arts, and was displayed by Maimonides as a token of the healings he sought to obtain from God and the orderly Creation. It has also been traditionally combined with the eye symbol, but this does not add any potency to either symbol used separately.
One of the most prominent early appearances of the Hamsa Hand is the image of a large open hand that appears on the Puerta Judiciaria (Gate of Judgment) of the Alhambra in southern Spain.
Some historians, including Shalom Sabar, argue that after the Jewish expulsion from Spain in 1492, exiled Jews used the hamsa as a sign of protection and ‘as a distinctive sign of the priesthood, especially when they wished to show that a person was of priestly descent ...’
The use of the hamsa in Jewish culture has been intermittent. It was often used by Sephardic Jews in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but it was used less and less over time into the mid-20th century.
Among Jewish people, the hamsa has become a respected, holy and common symbol. It is used in the
ketubot, or marriage contracts, as well as items that dress the Torah such as pointers, and the Passover
Haggadah.
In the kabbalah, the hamsa is the symbol of an extended hand and literally means ‘fivefold,’ from
chamesh, five. It is usually depicted in an artificially stylised form, with the thumb and the small finger at identical lengths and the hand in a symmetrical shape rather than a left or right or right.
The first meaning is extending one’s hand towards another in a gesture of peace, blessing and fellowship. From this meaning is derived its symbolism for communal prayer, one for another, and particularly the two prayers of initiation and restoration.
From these meanings are derived its use as a symbol of welcome and of healing, including physical healing. It is said, therefore, that anyone who display the Hamsa Hand has a responsibility to pray continually for those who may view it.
However, the power of the universal gesture is that the universal energy field, which works through order rather than force, is most easily transmitted through the hands. From this fact is derived the principle that
smikhah (the ‘laying on of hands’) can physically confer benefits. It takes from what belongs to the giver, including status, authority, and leadership among others, health, vitality, and peace within oneself, and gives it to the receiver.
Some interpretations say the hands are depicted with the fingers spread apart to ward off evil, or closed together to bring good luck, that fingers point up to ward off evil and down to bestow blessings.
The left hand is often regarded as unclean in Middle Eastern cultures because of its function in personal cleanliness. The man in this morning’s Gospel reading is not merely ‘down on his luck’ but he is constantly forced into a state of ritual uncleanliness because of his withered right hand.
In his gestures to this man in the synagogue, Jesus uses his hand as a symbol of welcome and of healing, including physical healing.In his invitation to this man, ‘Come and stand here,’ Jesus calls him from the margins into a full place in the heart of the community of faith. Jesus has status, authority, and leadership among others, health, vitality, and peace within himself, and he gives these to those he heals and restore. Through taking his full place, the man finds healing and restoration.
A Hamsa Hand from Prague, decorated with fish (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Today’s Prayers (Monday 9 September 2024):
Each year, on 14 September, the Church celebrates the Feast of the Holy Cross, known as ‘Holy Cross Day’ throughout the majority of the Anglican Communion. The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘What does the holy cross mean to you?’ This theme was introduced yesterday with a reflection by Rachael Anderson, Senior Communications and Engagement Manager, USPG.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Monday 9 September 2024) invites us to pray:
We thank you, Lord, for the hope of the cross.
The Collect:
God, who in generous mercy sent the Holy Spirit
upon your Church in the burning fire of your love:
grant that your people may be fervent
in the fellowship of the gospel
that, always abiding in you,
they may be found steadfast in faith and active in service;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post Communion Prayer:
Keep, O Lord, your Church, with your perpetual mercy;
and, because without you our human frailty cannot but fall,
keep us ever by your help from all things hurtful,
and lead us to all things profitable to our salvation;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
Lord God,
defend your Church from all false teaching
and give to your people knowledge of your truth,
that we may enjoy eternal life
in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Yesterday’s reflection
Continued tomorrow
He said to him, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ He did so, and his hand was restored (Luke 6: 10) … stretching out hands in Rathkeale, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Scripture quotations are from the
New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
http://nrsvbibles.org
A Hamsa Hand used to serve food in the Hamsa restaurant in Kraków (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
