Revelation 7:12
“Amen!” they cried out.
“Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanks
and honor and power and strength
be to our God for ever and ever!
Amen!”
Today is Thanksgiving Sunday. Well...technically it is Christ the King Sunday by most lectionaries. I don’t find royal imagery particularly helpful in my understanding of Jesus but I do, definitely, find gratitude to be both helpful and necessary ... so today is Thanksgiving Sunday.
Most of us find it fairly easy to come up with a list of things for which to offer our thanks to God. We share our gratitude each week along with our offerings, as part of our worship, and, even in troubled times I would guess that most of us could come up with a sizeable list of things to be grateful for. We live here in peace and plenty, in comfort and cleanliness. We go to bed at night without fear of bombs falling on our homes. We may not be rich, but we generally have enough for our needs.
We are a blessed people – and we acknowledge that our blessing is largely a matter of geography and luck – nothing that we deserve more than any other being on this planet. And we are duly grateful and we do give thanks and we do try to share our blessings with others.
We share food, we share clothing, we support various local agencies and help enable them in their various tasks to make things better for those in need. We do pretty well, I’d say – as individuals and as a church. Could we so better? Of course, but we do try to show our gratitude in concrete forms.
But – counting our blessings is not all that Thanksgiving is about. There are “blessings,” in the form of ‘things’, and there is “blessing” – a verb, an act of bestowing our wishes and prayers for goodness and favor and well-being for the person being blessed.
In the Old Testament especially, blessing often appears to involve a transference of something – something spiritual, a special sense that something important is taking place.
When the aging Isaac, for instance, intends to give his special father’s blessing to his eldest son, Esau, and that blessing is “high-jacked” by the conniving younger son, Jacob, along with his equally conniving mother Rebecca, the theft of this important blessing destroys the family. This blessing once given was irrevocable - it could not be taken back – this theft could not be made right.
In this particular story this is a “one-time-only” blessing, but other blessings are less restricted and can apparently be given at will. These are the blessings we offer each other – often casually, but other times quite seriously. These blessings are still in some way a recognition that someone is worthy of, or in need of a blessing. And this, I think, is the power we hold with a blessing.
When we offer a blessing, unless we are just mechanically voicing words we don’t really understand, we are forced to actually see the one being blessed – and our blessing becomes an acknowledgment that its recipient is worthy of such blessing – if only by virtue of God’s will for blessing for us all (which has nothing to do with our world's judgment of worth).
What if we were to practice blessing others? These blessings don’t have to be spoken out loud, even – just sincerely thinking about what we are doing, and meaning it -- truly intending that the power of God’s goodwill pass through us to whomever. This is pretty easy when we are thinking of blessing those we love - family and friends – or even the "deserving" poor. But what about strangers? Loud, undeserving, obnoxious strangers?
What about people who steal from us? Or do us violence? What about politicians advocating horrifying, dehumanizing, wicked public policies? Are these not the very people who most need a blessing? A healing? A turn to the right direction? Can we manage to bless them – not the annoying or outright evil things they are doing, but they themselves, the pieces of God’s creation that they are – because -- try as we might want to deny it, these, too, are God’s beloved children?
And here we end up back where we started – any blessing we have to give was first given to us – freely and open handedly – by God. And I don’t believe God blesses us without hoping we will share that blessing in our turn. We understand this more easily with “things” -- if we have plenty of food and warm clothing it is no hardship to pass some on to others -- but this also applies to any blessings of understanding or kindness or love that we may possess. If I have an open and welcoming heart, it is because God gave me that heart. That blesses me and so I can, in turn, offer the same blessing to others who need it. To all who need it.
Is a blessing from me really that big a deal? It is, in a couple of ways. First, in that I recognize the other person as a fellow child of God – whether I “like” them or not; and second, that seeing them, whether the person I see is whole or broken, I can honestly bless them. I can wish them wholeness and healing and hope and God’s active, on-going, life-giving role in their lives. That's when it's a big deal for me -- when I recognize the blessings is from God and my job is not judging, but simply to pass it on to the one who needs it.
I have a feeling there is much more power in our blessings than we might be comfortable with, and that’s why we toss the word around so casually. If that's so, get over it. Our job is to bless each other, so go out into the world and do so.
Truly see and truly bless God’s realm and all that dwells within it.
Bless this world -- and give thanks.
Most of us find it fairly easy to come up with a list of things for which to offer our thanks to God. We share our gratitude each week along with our offerings, as part of our worship, and, even in troubled times I would guess that most of us could come up with a sizeable list of things to be grateful for. We live here in peace and plenty, in comfort and cleanliness. We go to bed at night without fear of bombs falling on our homes. We may not be rich, but we generally have enough for our needs.
We are a blessed people – and we acknowledge that our blessing is largely a matter of geography and luck – nothing that we deserve more than any other being on this planet. And we are duly grateful and we do give thanks and we do try to share our blessings with others.
We share food, we share clothing, we support various local agencies and help enable them in their various tasks to make things better for those in need. We do pretty well, I’d say – as individuals and as a church. Could we so better? Of course, but we do try to show our gratitude in concrete forms.
But – counting our blessings is not all that Thanksgiving is about. There are “blessings,” in the form of ‘things’, and there is “blessing” – a verb, an act of bestowing our wishes and prayers for goodness and favor and well-being for the person being blessed.
In the Old Testament especially, blessing often appears to involve a transference of something – something spiritual, a special sense that something important is taking place.
When the aging Isaac, for instance, intends to give his special father’s blessing to his eldest son, Esau, and that blessing is “high-jacked” by the conniving younger son, Jacob, along with his equally conniving mother Rebecca, the theft of this important blessing destroys the family. This blessing once given was irrevocable - it could not be taken back – this theft could not be made right.
In this particular story this is a “one-time-only” blessing, but other blessings are less restricted and can apparently be given at will. These are the blessings we offer each other – often casually, but other times quite seriously. These blessings are still in some way a recognition that someone is worthy of, or in need of a blessing. And this, I think, is the power we hold with a blessing.
When we offer a blessing, unless we are just mechanically voicing words we don’t really understand, we are forced to actually see the one being blessed – and our blessing becomes an acknowledgment that its recipient is worthy of such blessing – if only by virtue of God’s will for blessing for us all (which has nothing to do with our world's judgment of worth).
What if we were to practice blessing others? These blessings don’t have to be spoken out loud, even – just sincerely thinking about what we are doing, and meaning it -- truly intending that the power of God’s goodwill pass through us to whomever. This is pretty easy when we are thinking of blessing those we love - family and friends – or even the "deserving" poor. But what about strangers? Loud, undeserving, obnoxious strangers?
What about people who steal from us? Or do us violence? What about politicians advocating horrifying, dehumanizing, wicked public policies? Are these not the very people who most need a blessing? A healing? A turn to the right direction? Can we manage to bless them – not the annoying or outright evil things they are doing, but they themselves, the pieces of God’s creation that they are – because -- try as we might want to deny it, these, too, are God’s beloved children?
And here we end up back where we started – any blessing we have to give was first given to us – freely and open handedly – by God. And I don’t believe God blesses us without hoping we will share that blessing in our turn. We understand this more easily with “things” -- if we have plenty of food and warm clothing it is no hardship to pass some on to others -- but this also applies to any blessings of understanding or kindness or love that we may possess. If I have an open and welcoming heart, it is because God gave me that heart. That blesses me and so I can, in turn, offer the same blessing to others who need it. To all who need it.
Is a blessing from me really that big a deal? It is, in a couple of ways. First, in that I recognize the other person as a fellow child of God – whether I “like” them or not; and second, that seeing them, whether the person I see is whole or broken, I can honestly bless them. I can wish them wholeness and healing and hope and God’s active, on-going, life-giving role in their lives. That's when it's a big deal for me -- when I recognize the blessings is from God and my job is not judging, but simply to pass it on to the one who needs it.
I have a feeling there is much more power in our blessings than we might be comfortable with, and that’s why we toss the word around so casually. If that's so, get over it. Our job is to bless each other, so go out into the world and do so.
Truly see and truly bless God’s realm and all that dwells within it.
Bless this world -- and give thanks.
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