Scripture: Psalm 67, Matthew 5:1-12
As a pastor, I have shared and offered many blessings over the years. Blessings for food, blessings for health and encouragement, blessings for travellers, blessings for students, blessings for teachers, blessings for a marriage, blessings for children, blessings for the passage from life to death. When in doubt, that’s what we pastors have to offer. We probably can’t fix your car or even your lawn mower, and we certainly can’t diagnose the recurring pain on your left side, but we can offer a blessing. It seems a poor talent, in many ways. Particularly if you read the letter of James, who reminds us that telling someone who is cold and hungry: “Go in peace: keep warm and eat your fill” is really of very little help if it does not also come with food and warm clothing. A wise warning to spiritualists everywhere.
But blessings also take no special skill or training to share. Offering a blessing is not the sole purview of ordained ministers. Anyone can do it. It’s not about making anything special happen – most of the time, it’s just a matter of opening our eyes to what’s already there around us.
Maybe a definition would be helpful before we go much farther. What is a blessing, anyway? It’s a word sprinkled all over the bible, from Genesis to Revelation. But it’s a little bit slippery too. These days, “blessing” is used more often than not as a loophole for bragging in a socially acceptable manner. If #Blessed trends on social media, we’re generally in for carefully curated images of dream homes, lavish vacations and highly improbable family bliss. We’ll probably have to turn elsewhere for help on this one.
In her Pastor’s Pen article in the Winter edition of Life Together, Janet shared a nice description that she had found: Blessings are places where the divine peeks through into our broken world. A blessing is a place or a moment where the divine peeks through into our broken world. Here are a few things that I take from this:
1. If blessings are places where the divine peeks through, there’s not a whole lot that I can do to make them happen. A blessing really is a God thing.
2. If the divine peeks through in certain places, that suggests the divine is there in much greater ways that we just don’t recognize most of the time. A blessing is about having our eyes opened even just a little to God’s presence around us.
3. If blessings peek into a broken world, they don’t necessarily lift us out of pain and struggle. But they do offer something in the midst of it – a blessing offers hope in God’s presence even in the midst of brokenness.
The bottom line, I think, is that a blessing is a gift. A blessing is a kind of grace. It comes not because we deserve it or because we’ve cleared the way properly. A blessing meets us where we’re at and shares a peek into the beauty and wonder of God that’s always all around.
When we share a blessing, all we’re really doing is pointing out what’s already there. We’re just reminding ourselves of the gifts that God has showered upon the world right from creation as God blessed all living things to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.
So it’s really not much that we do when offering a blessing. But somehow it is still really powerful and important. I know, because I have also received my share of blessings over the years. I have been prayed for and over, and reminded to remove my shoes because this familiar ground I’m standing on is actually and blindingly holy. All this time, and I didn’t know it. On some occasions the blessing has come as someone lays on hands and names the truth of God’s presence for me. But other times the blessing has revealed itself on its own, by the slow workings of my heart or by a sudden flash of light that illuminates things I just wasn’t seeing before. A blessing can be life-changing and critically important.
Just ask the family tree that we read about in the book of Genesis. After the flood, God tries something new and calls an aging couple with the promise of blessing. To Abram and Sarai, God says: “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” The generations that follow carry this blessing as a sacred task, but also as a powerful reality. You might remember the fight between Jacob and Esau, twin grandsons of Abram and Sarai, both wishing for their father to pass this blessing on to them. Jacob, younger by mere moments, steals the father’s blessing out from under firstborn Esau’s nose. And Esau is both livid and inconsolable. But the die is cast. The blessing cannot be moved or changed. What has been revealed cannot be covered up again.
The power of this blessing links generation to generation, and animates the Hebrew people in their quest for land and prosperity. We will be a great nation, blessed by God. Though as it happened, the second half of God’s promise was often forgotten: I will bless you so that you will be a blessing to others. In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.
This blessing is intended for all people. This delightful and often unexpected experience of God’s presence, this glimpse of the divine in a broken world, it’s a gift meant for everyone. It is by its very nature a reminder that the world sparkles with divinity in every corner if we can but open our eyes to see it. And anyone can. God’s grace saturates our every moment, even if it’s only the rare one that we manage to recognize for what it is. And so it’s important to have the blessing pronounced from time to time – for us, with us, among us – so we can again see what is there.
Jesus pronounced blessings too. A whole bunch of them. But the ones we know best come at the beginning of his Sermon on the Mount. These are the Beatitudes, which Mark read for us, and they probably sound at least somewhat familiar: Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who mourn, blessed are the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake.
I do think Jesus’ beatitudes are in keeping with the blessing that called Abram out of the land of his ancestors, but his blessings sure seem to sound a different note. It’s not the firstborns that receive a blessing here, nor the strongest. These aren’t blessings for wealth and prosperity or for power and standing. Instead they appear to be blessings upon the last and the least. The poor in spirit, the meek, the merciful, those who mourn. Those who are hated and persecuted. It’s a topsy-turvy world Jesus blesses into being, with those at the bottom seeming to come out on top.
But it’s easy to forget that the beatitudes are still blessings. That is, they are gifts of grace and glimpses of the divine in the midst of a broken world. Which in turn suggests what they are not:
1. The beatitudes are not instructions or commands. Their first intent is not to provide an ethical imperative. Jesus is not telling us how to be in order to win God’s favour. But he is speaking a word of grace to the many who find themselves mired in the tough things of life. Maybe it’s a subtle distinction, but I think important. And true to our working definition. If blessings are places where the divine peeks into our broken world, then we’re likely to discover them in our places of brokenness. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. And that is exactly the gift.
Of course, oftentimes a blessing will be received through something concrete that actually meets our material needs. Food, a warm and prayerfully knit shawl, help with a particular job, moral support through a difficult time. We experience the divine peeking through in the ways we help and support each other both within and beyond our community. The reminder from James is important – blessings that sidestep our real human needs may not be blessings at all. But however they appear, they come as delightful gifts in the places where we find ourselves. The Beatitudes aren’t about becoming the kind of people worthy of a blessing, but about finding ourselves blessed even when it might not otherwise seem that way.
How interesting that this is how the Sermon on the Mount begins. This passage of scripture that Mennonites have so often revered as a clear call to the hard work of daily discipleship – it starts with a blessing. Not a call to work, but a call grace. Look – there’s a special gift for you when life gets real. When you’re in need or feeling small and insignificant. When you’ve opened your heart and it’s been broken. When you don’t have much to offer anymore. Blessed are you because your eyes are being opened to something others may struggle to see. To the Kingdom of heaven, which is here wherever the measureless divine breaks into our troubled world. The beatitudes are not exhortations, but delightful gifts.
2. And on the flip side, the beatitudes are not guarantees either. At least not in the ways we might want or expect them to be. Not every hard time will be “rewarded” in any straightforward sense. Sometimes things will just be hard, and we’ll wait and watch for some kind of redemptive blessing and struggle to see it. Sometimes things will make no sense and we won’t find even a peek of the divine breaking through the troubles. The beatitudes are not commandments, but they aren’t rewards either. They are gifts of God. Blessings. Grace beyond explanation or reciprocity.
And yet, gifts of God as they are, I think blessings are meant to be shared. We are blessed so that we might also become a blessing to others. We catch our glimpses of the divine breaking into our world, and we encourage others to see them too. We bless our children, staking our hope in God’s love that will accompany them through every unknown ahead. We bless our food, trusting that all will taste and see that God is good. We bless our friends, our partners, our leaders, our neighbourhoods, our good earth and with the Psalmist we bless the name of our God, whose gifts surprise and sustain us day by day.
Let’s listen one more time and receive the blessing of Psalm 67:
May you, O God be gracious to us and bless us
and make your face to shine upon us,
2 that your way may be known upon the earth,
your saving power among all nations.
3 Let the peoples praise you, O God;
let all the peoples bless your name.
4 Let the nations be glad and sing for joy,
for you judge the peoples with equity
and guide the nations upon earth.
5 Let the peoples praise you, O God;
let all the peoples bless your name.
6 The earth has yielded its increase;
You, our God, have blessed us.
7 May God continue to bless us;
may all the ends of the earth revere your name.
Amen.