First Church in Cambridge, Congregational UCC
12 September 2004
Signs of Hospitality
Show of hands: How many of you took a walk to school this last week, or to the bus stop, or maybe even right into the classroom, holding the hand of your child, grandchild or parent or grandparent? How many of you can remember when you let go of that hand? For some of you kids, letting go of that comforting hand may have been a little scary. For some of you adults, letting go of that hand may have been a lot scary.
Whether it is the first day of school, dropping a kid off at college, or holding the hand of a friend or loved one for the first time—or the last, there is something incredibly special about hand-holding, don't you think? Although some people can't use their hands and find other ways to say hello and good-bye, those of us who are able use our hands to say goodbye, and to say hello, and to reach out to greet family, friends and strangers. In church, we may also use our hands to show people the signs of Christ's peace, and what's more, the signs of Christian Hospitality.
This is a church that knows something about Christian Hospitality. One the first things Dan Smith noticed on the First Church website, when he found out about his Minister of Christian Discipleship position a few months ago, was our vision statement—A Way of Hospitality. "Imagine a church that is glad you're here no matter where you come from, what you look like, how old or young you are, how much money you have, where you are on the journey of life, or where you are on the journey of faith. Imagine a church that loves its heritage, yet flexibly entertains new people, new ideas, and new ways too. Imagine a church that is amazed by the wonderful gifts God gave you for service, wants to receive them, and is eager to help you use them for the good of the world…Imagine First Church in Cambridge."
Such beautiful words and such powerful language. And…as people often do when they read a bold vision statement, I (Dan) wondered, "So do they walk the talk?" Are these just words on a page, or have they translated these words into the language of their everyday interactions?" I'm delighted to say that so far it seems to me that First Church is walking the talk of that gorgeous, God-given vision, even though we still have a long ways to go.
On this Regathering Sunday, the time every September when First Church says "Welcome!" and "Welcome Back!", we would like to offer you yet another way to bring the words off the page of our vision statement, and in so doing, we hope to bring the words of our gospel off the page as well. Amateurs that we may be, we would like to try to teach you all, kids and adults alike, a little theological sign language that is rooted in American Sign Language.
Sounds interesting you may say but no doubt some of you are wondering why choose Sign Language? Well, we're glad you asked. There are a few reasons. Believe it or not, some would say that we in the congregational tradition worship from the neck up. Maybe not so much here at First Church where just last week we literally were leaning on the everlasting arms of God as we sang. But, there is a way in which we could all do a better job of welcoming our bodies into the discovery and appreciation of our Way of Hospitality—to feel and to honor with our hands the gift of that vision that has been entrusted into our hands by the Spirit. In our culture, we are so accustomed to the spoken word that we thought it would be good for us to welcome a different way to experience and to express our faith, a way that is in use by a large segment of God's people who "speak" and "hear" in this most beautiful and expressive way. Finally, as we hope you'll see, some of these signs are quite beautiful, and the presence of beauty is surely a sign of the goodness of God.
One final note: were Holly Marple here today, as she almost always is, we assure you she would be standing next us. She is a member of this community who regularly sits in the front pew, and whenever she can, she translates our words of worship and song and prayer into American Sign Language. In addition to the First Church vision, her sign language was one of the other first things I(Dan) noticed when I was here in May for my candidating sermon. Though she is away this weekend at a fundraiser, she is a part of the inspiration for what follows. If there are any others in the congregation today who happen to know Sign Language, please join us up here. We would welcome the help.
So, no matter how old or young you are, let's see what these hands in motions might move within each of you. When we start teaching you the signs, if you are able, be all means try feel free to try them out along with us while you are sitting in your pews. We'd especially love it if the kids would help us out this morning. We know you get fidgety sitting in church for too long so we thought we'd give you all something to do with your hands. We'll introduce a bunch of signs. Don't worry about remembering them all. You may find you have a few favorites, and if so, try to remember one or two them to take them with you when you leave today and practice when you get home.
Ready…let's begin with a few basic signs.
For starters, we want to teach you the signs for "You", "Me", "The World", "God". What is else is there, right?
You and Me: Just point!
World: Make two W's (for water) with middle three fingers on both hands and roll your hands around each other once, like the world turns.
God: A simple sign. Hold your palm above your head, facing to the right and draw it down to your brow.
And, we are all—the world, you, me, God—in relationship with each other. The sign for relationship is this:
Relationship: With your index fingers and thumbs interlocked, move them back and forth once to and from the chest
And, the crucial ingredient in our relationship to God is—does anybody know? The sign looks like this:
Love: Cross your fists at your wrist and draw them to your heart.
We'd like for everyone to try that one.
So now the fun starts. We can make sentences. God loves. God loves me. God loves you. God loves us.
A sign that goes hand in hand with God's love is God's forgiveness.
Forgive: With left palm lying flat and facing the sky, the right palm brushes over it and keeps moving away from the body. The hand seems to brush away our mistakes. If we've done something wrong and we know it and we are feeling badly about it, God will forgive us and tell us its OK, and treat us as if all our mistakes were never there.
And another great sign:
Grace: With your right hand held above your head, and your fingers touching your thumb, move your hand closer to your head as you open your hand. God's love pours down on us, whether we know it or not, and whether we think we deserve it or not. It's kind of like a warm shower, or the sun's rays. God is always pouring grace on us. Whenever you feel alone or scared, this is a good sign to remember.
We are always receiving God's Grace and plenty of it.
Plenty/Abundance: The sign for abundance or plenty is like this—a flat right hand with fingers pointing forward, crosses over the left fist curving downward towards the knuckles, like a cup that is full and overflowing.
God also gives us Jesus.
Jesus: To make the sign for Jesus, just touch both of your palms with your middle finger, right where Jesus was nailed to the cross.
God sent Jesus to us to teach us a few very important lessons about God and how we should act toward each other:
Through Jesus, we know that God comforts people. The sign here is left hand over the right, brushing down on it. We know that Jesus is Emmanuel, which means, God with us.
With: Two fists coming together at knuckles
Us: With index and middle fingers together pointing up, move your hands in an arch across your chest from shoulder to shouler.
We know in part from our scriptures like our gospel lesson this morning that God especially welcomes and is with those who are:
Poor: The left hand pulls away from the right elbow with the right forearm up. Its intended to show the worn out elbows on the clothes of someone without much money.
Suffering: Right thumb turning across your lips from right to left, maybe making it harder to smile.
Grief/Mourning: Middle finger points to heart and a then one hand over another makes a wringing motion, suggesting that our hearts are squeezed and twisted.
God is with us through all of these hard times and through the good ones as well.
So, now that we've warmed you all up with signs of how we can love God and how God loves us, there are just a few more signs we'd like to teach. These are the signs of hospitality that we hope move off the pages of our vision statement, and more than ever before become the work of our hearts and our hands this year.
Now, our vision statement invites us to "imagine a church".
Imagine: Pointing to your head with your right pinky and letting your finger roll off in circles towards the sky.
Church: The sign for church is made by making a C with your right hand and touching it down on your on your flattened left palm, which itself is the sign for stone . The church is our rock foundation in which and on which we can stand.
But then Imagine a Church that is Open.
Open: Place the thumbs and index fingers of together, palms down, fingers pointing forward. Move both hands sideways in opposite directions.
We are invited to imagine a church with an
Open Door: Palms facing out, fingers point up, one palm pulls in and swings in to the shoulder (or heart).
Imagine a church with
Open Spirits: With left thumb and middle finger touching and touching the right thumb and middle finger, draw one hand upwards, as if to pull a thread.
Imagine a church on an
Open Road: With palms facing each other, the hands move parallel to each other and show a path or outline of a road zig-zagging away from the body.
Imagine a church with an
Open Table: Forearms lie flat, one on top of the other, like arms resting on top of a table.
To have a church like that would be, as our scripture suggests, like having a banquet and welcoming every part of every person to the feast.
The sign for
Welcome: is an extended arm and open palm facing that is drawn right into our chest. We draw people in where God is with us, close to our hearts.
And the sign for
Banquet: is done by taking both hands thumbs touching fingertips and drawing them to your mouth in repeated fashion, with both hands.
May we be a church whose welcome is abundant and overflowing.
There are just two more signs we have for you:
Bless: Starting with hands in a loose fist at your forehead, you gradually open your first while pushing them down and outstretching your arms.
We hope you will remember and take a sign or two with you, that you can be the hands of Christ and bless the world with signs of hospitality.
The last sign we want to teach you looks like this. I think you can figure out what it means. Cover your one fist with another hand, and push both hands downward. I would ask you all to make it with me now. And all God' people said, Amen.
The following two resources were helpful in our preparation of this sermon:
Elaine Costello, Religious Signing, illustrated by Lois Lehman (New York: Bantam Books, 1997).
The American Sign Language Browser, http://commtechlab.msu.edu/sites/aslweb/browser.htm.
© 2004, J Mary Luti and Dan Smith