Matthew 11:25 When I was younger I didn't give much importance to the power of the tender touch. Oh yes, I knew intellectually about tenderness and the importance of touch. I was aware that if infants are not held and cuddled and stroked often in their early years, their development is likely to be disturbed. And if an infant has no touch at all, is isolated in an incubator or a crib, often the child will become weak and die. I was also aware that a professor on the nursing faculty at New York University had been doing significant research on healing touch, where healing energy flows through the hand and helps heal illness and injury. I knew all about the importance of touch, but I knew it only in my head. It all came home to me, though, some time ago when I was in the hospital going through a procedure which became increasingly painful. I was having difficulty maintaining any sense of calm. Then a nurse, noticing my distress, began very gently to touch my arm and hand. All through the procedure she moved her hand very tenderly along my arm, and I became aware that something was happening to me. The pain did not go away, but it became bearable. A simple, tender touch can be powerful. Many of you know of Morton Kelsey, an Episcopal priest, who for many years was on the faculty of Notre Dame University in South Bend, Indiana. In one of his books, he tells a story of a psychiatrist friend who, at a social occasion one night, noticed one of his former patients across the room. He remembered that early in her therapy she had not done well at all, and then suddenly there was a turning point and she made tremendous progress and soon became well. He was curious about what had caused the change. Why had she suddenly begun to get better? So he went over to her and asked, "When you were my patient and you suddenly turned the corner and began to make progress, could you tell me what happened to you? Was it anything I did?" "I thought you knew," she responded. "Remember the night my son was in the hospital, in the infectious disease ward? I was standing in the corridor and you came by and asked how my son was doing." "Yes," he said, "I do remember that." "As we were talking you put your hand on my shoulder, and I knew that you really cared about me. That was when I felt motivated to get better." Something as simple as a caring, tender touch can transform a life. Are we not a world of people desperately in need of the right kind of touch? Every one of us craves a tender touch, yet we hardly know how to make it happen. One of the most moving phrases in the New Testament, one that speaks to us deeply in ways we can hardly express, is Jesus' invitation, "Come to me, all you who are weary and carrying a heavy load, and I will give you rest." This is the welcoming Christ. This is the story of the tender Christ. How often, upon entering this sanctuary for a worship service, have you felt this kind of welcome? You might have had the feeling that you would like to sit in Jesus' lap like a child. "Just hug me. Just hold me. Just touch me. I need a respite from the struggle and hardship of my life." When you allow yourself to imagine this comforting scene, something of the spirit of Jesus envelops you and gives you peace. We all know the great story where Jesus showed His tender regard for the little children. "Let the children come to me," He said, "and forbid them not. For such is the Kingdom of Heaven." He put them on His lap, He put His hands upon them, and He blessed them. He touched them. In the baptism tradition of this church, as we baptize children we put our hands on their foreheads and bless them. I have been in some Protestant churches where the tradition is to sprinkle water on the child's forehead without touching. This always bothers me. On occasion I have whispered to myself, "I object!  Touch the child. Touch the child." Some might explain, "Oh no, we can't do that. Only Jesus touches them." But I would respond, "Let your hand be the hand of Christ. Touch the child, and bless the child, with the hand of Christ." There are wonderful healing stories in all of the four gospels of the New Testament, when Jesus would touch somebody and they would be healed. You may remember the story of the twelve-year-old girl who appeared to have died, yet Jesus went to her bed and said, "No, she is just sleeping." He touched her hand and said, "Stand up," and she stood up. There is another story about a crippled woman who went to Jesus wanting to be healed. He touched her hand, and she was made well. One of my favorites is the story of Jesus and the blind man. Jesus mixed His saliva with the dirt at His feet, made a paste and put it on the man's eyes, and the man could see.  This is the therapy of a tender touch. Certainly you know the story of the Good Samaritan. A man traveling on a deserted highway was robbed and beaten and left to die. Two travelers passed by, too busy or not wanting to get involved. When someone did stop to help it was a Samaritan. At that time, Samaritans were considered heretics and enemies of the Jews; it was somewhat like the Palestinians and Jews today. But this man didn't care that he was a Samaritan and the injured man was a Jew. He was seeing a fellow human being in need. He had compassion, and he stopped. He cleaned the man's wounds, pouring oil on them and bandaging them. Over the many years that I have been in this church I have been through a few valleys, and because of the loving generosity of my staff and congregation, I have experienced the amazing blessing of being physically surrounded by prayer. The first time, I was going through a personal crisis, and I was afraid my congregation wouldn't accept me if I was having so much trouble in my personal life. I called a meeting of the staff and congregational leaders and shared what was going on. Among those present was Dr. Edwin Mulder, a friend of this church who at that time was the head of our denomination. At the end of the meeting he spoke some very passionate words about understanding the brokenness of the human condition, "We are going to finish tonight by a laying on of hands," he said. He put me in the center of the room and, because there were too many people to make a single circle around me, he instructed those who were close to me to put their hands on my head, and each person to put hands on the head in front of them, and soon I stood in the center of a circle surrounding me with loving prayer. I was overwhelmed by the transcendent presence of Almighty God. If I ever felt the presence of God, if I ever felt loved and supported, it was then. A couple of years ago, a member of our staff, Joanie Collyer, wanted to have a prayer period for me, as I had had a series of health crises. She organized a laying on of hands. It was an incredibly healing experience for me. Some time afterward my younger son died and, at a meeting of the Board of Elders and Deacons, Dorothy Booker, our chairperson, said, "We are going to have a prayer period for Arthur; we are going to lay on hands." Each of the dozen board members stood up and put their hands on my head and they said prayers. I was sobbing. The tears were just rolling down my face. I felt the presence of God coming through their hands and into my life. On any of these occasions where there was a laying on of hands, it would have been fine if somebody had said, "Let's pray for Arthur." That would have been wonderful. But what a difference touch made, as I felt loving hands on my head and I heard their prayers. Touch really brought home to me the overwhelming power of love and grace and peace. There are exceptional souls among us whose eyes are so full of God's love that it feels like a touch. It is a touch to the heart. Jesus was such a soul. One of the stories in the New Testament that awes me every time I read it is the story of the woman taken in adultery. One morning when Jesus was about to start teaching, He was approached by some Scribes and Pharisees from the Temple. As you know the Temple officials were always testing Jesus, trying to embarrass Him by trapping Him on some technicality of religious law. They brought a woman to Him who had just been caught in the act of adultery. "The Law of Moses says she should be stoned. What do you say?" they asked. The moment was very, very tense. There was a great potential for violence; Jesus was faced with a crowd of men with stones in their hands ready to stone the woman to death. He knelt down and with His finger wrote something in the sand. Then He stood up and looked at the crowd. My sense is that He spent considerable time looking each person full in the eye. It was not a hard look, or a vindictive look, or a violent look. It was a look of strength and compassion, of understanding the human condition. It was a look that went straight to their hearts like the most understanding, loving touch. Finally, He spoke. "Those of you who are without sin, you throw the first stone." One by one they dropped their stones and walked away. Jesus and the woman were left standing alone. "Where are your accusers?" He asked her. "Is there no one to condemn you?" "No one," she responded. "Neither do I condemn you. Go, and sin no more." The tender, compassionate, empathetic heart of the Master. He brought a healing touch into a potentially violent moment, and His compassion and tenderness reached out to everyone present. Sometimes we think tenderness is weakness, that we are being too soft. No, you can be strong, you can be firm, but you also can be gentle. In the last century one of the great spiritual pillars of humanity was a Jewish rabbi, a mystic named Martin Buber. When he was in his nineties, he often came to the library at Union Theological Seminary. I was a student there at that time, and occasionally I would see him in there or in the refectory. He was a quiet, shy man, and always sat by himself. I still regret that I didn't have enough courage to walk over to Martin Buber and say, "I want to shake your hand for the way you have blessed my life." The great concept that blessed my life, and that of so many others, was in a little book called I and Thou. We are not its, he said; we are not things, commodities to be used or abused. We have God in us. He described the sacred relationship between two beings, both aspects of God, as I and Thou. I see God in you; you see God in me. It reminds me of the Muslim greeting which translates as: "The God in me salutes the God in you." George Falks, the founder of the Quakers, once said, "Walk cheerfully over the earth, answering the God in every human being." We are souls greeting other souls. A number of years ago, I was having dinner with a physician friend and I was whining and complaining about somebody. Very gently he said to me, "Arthur, I see people as souls." In an instant I was transformed. I saw the whole situation differently. Life is a soul connection. No matter how different, how strange somebody might be, even if they are hostile or frightening, we salute the God in them. We recognize that they are as important to God as we are. Their desires, their dreams, their hopes for their lives are just as important as ours. Each of us is a soul from God, and we relate on a soul-to-soul basis. Everything I have said so far is included in this next story, which appeared in The New Yorker magazine?a remembrance of his wife Alice by Calvin Trillin. Alice, he wrote, was a woman completely committed to the transforming power of pure undiluted love. One year she was a volunteer counselor at the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp in Connecticut for children with cancer and other serious diseases. They were asked to provide anecdotes about experiences they had in the camp and Alice wrote about a little girl who was born with every handicap imaginable. Yet, she was a sunny little girl, an enthusiastic, charming, hopeful, happy child. One day when the children were outside playing games the little girl came up to Alice and asked, "Would you hold my mail for me?" and went back to her games. Alice glanced down at the card in her hand and saw that it was from the little girl's mother. Then she did something she normally wouldn't have. She read the card. She wanted to see what kind of parents would raise a child so handicapped who, nevertheless, would be so optimistic, so enthusiastic and so hopeful. This is what she read: "If God had given us all the children in the world to choose from, we would have chosen you." Alice showed the note to a man sitting next to her. "Quick, read this," she said. "It's the secret of life." God loves us this way. Each of us is a part of God and each of us is uniquely, especially loved. Let us pray. LORD, bless us with Your healing power. Teach us to see one another as souls, and to extend to each other the healing, gentle touch of God's love. Amen.