Chapter 2

     I imagine the rueful laughter as pastors read Rev. Copenhaver’s heart-pounding, palm-sweating description of trying to greet (and remember the name of!) a new member in the odd and wondrous commotion of shaking hands following worship.

     I remember saying that if I ever bought a new alb, I was going to have great big Captain Kangaroo pockets sewn onto the front – to hold a big tablet for writing down all the “Pastor Jonna, don’t forgets” that came with handshakes after worship and to capture all the notes and scraps and clippings and drawings and single gloves and earrings handed to me after the benediction.    

    

     When I had read nothing more than the title, I remembered a saint from my last parish, Virgil McArthur.  He was faithful in worship (and in life) and always came dressed in his Sunday best.  Each Sunday, it was a gift to shake hands with him and to hear him say – simply, always, “Thank you, Pastor.”  If you will be shaking hands with your pastor this Sunday, I commend to you dear Virgil’s gift!

   Shaking hands.  I never know how much belief to invest in reference pieces explaining the origins of long-practiced customs.  But sometimes even when the explanations are uncertain, they point us toward other truths.  A common explanation for handshaking is that it began as a way for two men to show one another that they were unarmed.  A picture from days of swords and daggers is not quaint in these days as we Iowans find our way through our state’s new gun laws and as we begin to talk to one another about what we feel and think as we take in the horrible news of shootings in Tucson.     

     A plain and earthy thing – shaking hands – that can be so filled with holy grace in church doorways.  We haven’t seen one another in too long awhile, and we begin our way back to one another with a handshake after worship.  We’ve disagreed with one other.  We’ve ruffled one another’s feathers – both unintentionally and very intentionally.  We don’t see eye to eye and yet we offer one another a moment of hand to hand.  And say in this plain and earthy way that we are – in all ways - unarmed.  We say in this plain and earthy way that we are – beyond all ruffling – brothers and sisters in Christ. 

   

      I expect that as we read Pastor Copenhaver’s stories of profound griefs and joys shared in the doorway, we began to recall such doorway moments of our own when heights and depths of human life passed from hand to hand.

     I was especially moved by Martin Copenhaver’s reminder to pastors that the doorway is not the pulpit; that it is the space for more listening than speaking.  If you will be shaking hands with worshippers this Sunday, I commend to you the holy work of listening as hard as you can through all the commotion.

     I’ll watch for you this week to send in your own experiences – odd and wondrous – in the sacred space at the doorway, in the sacred practice of shaking hands.

Jonna Jensen
Associate Conference Minister - Eastern Iowa