SPEAKER_00: There's something fascinating about the human hand.
SPEAKER_00: You can learn a great deal about a person simply by watching what they do with their hands.
SPEAKER_00: A newborn reaches for his mother's fingers.
SPEAKER_00: A father takes his son's hand as they cross the street.
SPEAKER_00: A bride places her hand into the hand of the man she loves.
SPEAKER_00: Hands can bless.
SPEAKER_00: Hands can heal, hands can comfort.
SPEAKER_00: But hands also reveal something else.
SPEAKER_00: They reveal our fears.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever noticed someone sitting outside an operating room while a loved one is in surgery?
SPEAKER_00: Without even realizing their fists are clenched.
SPEAKER_00: Fear does that.
SPEAKER_00: Fear closes the hand.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to Jesus' words in the gospel today.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.
SPEAKER_00: Those words should disturb us.
SPEAKER_00: Because they force us to ask an important question.
SPEAKER_00: Who speaks like this?
SPEAKER_00: Who stands between a mother and her child and says, Love me more?
SPEAKER_00: While only God has the right to say those words.
SPEAKER_00: And that's exactly what Jesus is claiming.
SPEAKER_00: But here is what we often misunderstand Jesus is not asking us to love our families less.
SPEAKER_00: He's asking us to stop possessing them.
SPEAKER_00: There's a world of difference.
SPEAKER_00: Because the moment that love becomes possession, it stops being love.
SPEAKER_00: Every parent knows this.
SPEAKER_00: When your child is born, you hold on to them tightly because he cannot survive without you.
SPEAKER_00: But if twenty five years later you're still holding on to him in that same way, well, that's possession.
SPEAKER_00: Something has gone terribly wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Love protects, possession controls.
SPEAKER_00: Love gives life.
SPEAKER_00: Possession refuses to let go.
SPEAKER_00: How many parents have unintentionally wounded their very children they love because they could not stop holding on?
SPEAKER_00: How many marriages have slowly suffocated because one spouse is confusing confuses love with ownership?
SPEAKER_00: How many friendships have collapsed because affection quietly turned down into control?
SPEAKER_00: A closed hand always becomes a cage.
SPEAKER_00: But an open hand says something completely different.
SPEAKER_00: It says, You belong first to God.
SPEAKER_00: I thank God for you.
SPEAKER_00: I will sacrifice for you.
SPEAKER_00: I will pray for you.
SPEAKER_00: But I will never pretend that you belong to me.
SPEAKER_00: Saint Augustine's once said that we never truly love another person until we love them in God for God.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, when God comes first, everything else falls into its proper place.
SPEAKER_00: Not less, better.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if we turn to the first reading, it gives us this remarkable image.
SPEAKER_00: A woman sees the prophet Elisha passing through town.
SPEAKER_00: She could have admired him, she could have thanked him, she could have waved him down.
SPEAKER_00: But instead she makes a room.
SPEAKER_00: She tells her husband, let us build a little room for the man of God.
SPEAKER_00: A bed, a table, a chair, a lamp, nothing extravagant, just enough room.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever noticed what she had to do before God worked his miracle?
SPEAKER_00: She had to give up something.
SPEAKER_00: Part of her home, part of her comfort, part of her privacy.
SPEAKER_00: She literally surrendered her space.
SPEAKER_00: She opened up her home.
SPEAKER_00: And because she made room for God, God made room for life.
SPEAKER_00: She had been barren, her future looked closed, hope had quietly died years before.
SPEAKER_00: But God filled the space she had opened.
SPEAKER_00: That's how God works.
SPEAKER_00: He fills what we're willing to surrender.
SPEAKER_00: Which leads us to a difficult question.
SPEAKER_00: Is there any room left in your life for God?
SPEAKER_00: Or have you filled every room already?
SPEAKER_00: Every hour, every thought, every ambition, every desire, so much work, so much to do, so much busyness, so much noise, so much distraction, the anxiety, the possessions, so many plans.
SPEAKER_00: Well, until God opens and stands at the door of your heart.
SPEAKER_00: And there's simply no room.
SPEAKER_00: Because God has become one of the many things in your life.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps that's why Jesus says, Whoever finds his life will lose it.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
SPEAKER_00: The world will say to you, Close your hand, protect, keep what's yours, keep it close, hold tight, don't let go.
SPEAKER_00: What does Jesus say?
SPEAKER_00: He says the opposite.
SPEAKER_00: Open your hand.
SPEAKER_00: Trust me.
SPEAKER_00: Because you cannot receive with a clenched fist.
SPEAKER_00: Because you cannot receive.
SPEAKER_00: And at the very end of the gospel, Jesus something almost surprising.
SPEAKER_00: After speaking about the cross, after speaking about losing your life, he speaks about giving someone a cold cup of water.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Well, because open hands always become serving hands.
SPEAKER_00: If your hands are open, you can serve.
SPEAKER_00: A saint is simply someone whose hands remain open long enough for God to use them.
SPEAKER_00: What are you holding on so tightly?
SPEAKER_00: What's going on in your life right now that has your hands clenched?
SPEAKER_00: Your plans, your success, your future, your overworked, your money, your fears, your anxieties, what you're trying to possess, or perhaps someone that you love.
SPEAKER_00: The safest place for the people that you love has never been in your hands.
SPEAKER_00: It has always been in God's hands.
SPEAKER_00: And now in a few moments, without even thinking about it, you're going to preach this gospel with your body.
SPEAKER_00: You will walk down the aisle, you will not make a fist, you will not grab at Jesus, you will not seize him, you will all simply open your hand like a child, empty, waiting, trusting.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps we've done these gestures thousands of times without realizing what we're seeing.
SPEAKER_00: An act of humility with open hands says, Lord, everything I have comes from you.
SPEAKER_00: Everything that I am is because of you.
SPEAKER_00: Everything I love belongs to you.
SPEAKER_00: Everything I fear losing I place into your hands.
SPEAKER_00: Take whatever you wish.
SPEAKER_00: Give whatever you desire.
SPEAKER_00: Only let me close my hands, never let me close my hands against you.
SPEAKER_00: Because here's the great secret of the Christian life.
SPEAKER_00: A closed hand can hold on to what it already has.
SPEAKER_00: But it can never receive anything new.
SPEAKER_00: Only an open hand can receive Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Only an open heart can receive his grace.
SPEAKER_00: Only an open life can receive joy.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps the holiest thing you will do today will not be saying amen.
SPEAKER_00: It will be opening your hands in trust.
SPEAKER_00: Because God has never failed to fill your hands.
SPEAKER_00: What his children are willing to open, he will give.
SPEAKER_00: Surrender your complete and total trust to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Live your life with open hands.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.