A Month of Blessings 3, June 17, 2018, "To be a blessing"

A Month of Blessings 3

2 Corinthians 9:6-12

June 17, 2018

Today we continue a month-long series of sermons, in the midst of so much vile cruelty, pain, and pettiness, to live into blessing.  It is critical that we speak and act justly, that we demand justice from systems and structures, that we step into the maw of violence at times to say, “No more!” and “This shall not be!”

But we also must hold . . . to practice a different way, to offer a blood transfusion into the sick and ravaged collective body.  Sometimes, in a moment, we cannot bring about transformation that is so needed.  We must hold—just keep the violence and cruelty and hatred at bay until the opportunity presents itself.  We practice kindness so that, in our struggle for justice, we do not become the very thing we abhor.  We know ourselves to be blessed by remembering our favorite things.  We practice like the earth does in sharing and giving indiscriminate blessings.  These were our first two Sundays.  We are practicing different sizes and shapes of blessing until it gets into our bloodstream and is typed on every last red blood cell.  We do that until we become what we practice.  We become a blessing. 

This is LGBTQ Pride month.  Big Sky Pride celebration happened this past week in Helena.  And somethings I think we get it all wrong.  We talk about inclusion and the need to see gender and sexuality on a spectrum whereby we might accept everyone on that spectrum.  But here’s what I have told every congregation I have pastored.  It is not about the loss the LGBTQ community will experience if you do not include and accept them.  It is about the blessings people like me will miss out on if they are not a part of my life.  Barb Wenger, Witness for Peace volunteer, saved my life waiting for United Nations busses in Comitán.  Rev.  Timoth Sylvia is not only a great friend but a mentor who teaches me all the creative ways I can do ministry.  And Aaron Blakeslee not only is a wonderful truth-teller for this congregation but an amazing gift for our daughter.  I cannot imagine my life without these incarnated blessings, that the Divine was and is brought close to me through them.

It was Dietrich Bonhoeffer, German pastor and anti-Nazi dissident, who wrote, “A blessing is a visible, perceptible, effective proximity of God.  A blessing demands to be passed on—it communicates itself to other people.  To be blessed is to be oneself a blessing,”[1] 

“Blessing has a long history of meanings and roots. The Old English blēdsian based on blōd ‘blood’ (originally to ‘mark or consecrate with blood’) was used to translate the Latin benedicere ‘to praise or worship,’ or ‘to speak well of.’[2] The meaning shifted in late Old English toward ‘pronounce or make happy, prosperous, or fortunate.’ In the Semitic language of Aramaic, the phrase translated as ‘Blessed’ in the Beatitudes was actually tubwayhun which refers to being ripe, mature; having reached a stage of the fullness of the person I am meant to be.”[3]

“So what, then, does it mean to offer a blessing, to be a blessing? To bless something or someone is to invoke its wholeness, to help remind the person or thing you are blessing of its essence, its sacredness, its beauty, and to help remind yourself of that, too. Blessing does not fix anything. It is not a cure… It does not instill health or well-being or strength. Instead, it reminds us that those things are already there, [present].”[4]

At the Conference Meeting in Great Falls this weekend, Rev. Dwight Welch shared one of the things he enjoyed about the Pavlovitiz book study we did this past spring.  Ending each class, everyone in the room was to share something they wanted to bless or were going to bless.  These were powerful moments as everyone in the room, some people unchurched or who had been away from the church for years, suddenly saw themselves with this sacred power available to them.  What are we going to pass on from the Divine that has been shared with us? 

The ability to bless assumes that we are already powerful spiritual beings.  We don’t become that.  We are that.  I don’t think we countenance that too often . . . the kind of power we have—deep, spiritual power.  Henri Nouwen wrote, “To give someone a blessing is the most significant affirmation we can offer.  To give a blessing is to affirm, to say ‘yes’ to a person's Belovedness.”[5]

          This week I am going to send you out into the world to say “yes” to a person’s Belovedness again and again and again, to recognize your own power to bless.  I want all of us to work on making it a spiritual practice.  I want you to share secret blessings, to bless strangers quietly.  Offer it to people you see as you pass them in the supermarket, at the library, out on the street.  Just silently say to yourself, “My you be happy.  May you be at peace.”  Feel that blessing course through your body and out into the person intended.  Recognize that the blessing not only benefits the person intended but also how it moves through you and then multiplies in your body.[6]  Once you start sharing them, blessings grow like a muscle within you. 

          What this blessing practice does is “it alters our attention, making us scan and become more aware of our surroundings.  It changes our attitude toward others.  Just image going through your day looking for excuses to wish people well or think the best of them rather than looking for threats and assuming ill intent.  The practice connects us to others, helping us acknowledge common struggles and hungers.”[7]

          Keep the practice simple.  Do not get too involved or too wordy with your blessings.  “May you be happy.  May you be at peace.”  Or something simple like that. 

          But be disciplined about it.  Try for at least two days to offer at least ten blessings to ten different people.  Then, at the end of the day, meditate on what happened as you blessed and after you blessed.  How did blessing others alter your day?  Or how did blessing others bless you?  If you can write it down[8], journal about it, I’d love to have you share it in worship next week as we bring this month of blessings to a close, only to be repeated again and again without instruction from the pastor.  Ten blessings for ten different people for at least two consecutive days.  “May you be happy.  May you be at peace.”

          You, all of you, are spiritually powerful people.  Affirm that with a spiritual practice of blessing this week.  Amen. 

---

[1] “Blessing,” Healthy Congregations:  Facilitators Manual, p. 109. 

[2] Ibid.

[3] “Life’s Calling:  Listening to God’s Voice in the World:  June 2018, The Call of Blessing,” Faith Works, p. 7

[4] “Rev. Elea Kemler, Life’s Calling:  Listening to God’s Voice in the World:  June 2018, The Call of Blessing,” Faith Works, p. 7

[5] Henri J.M. Nouwen, Life’s Calling:  Listening to God’s Voice in the World:  June 2018, The Call of Blessing,” Faith Works, p. 7.

[6] Wayne Muller, Sabbath:  Finding Rest, Renewal, and Delight in our Busy Lives (New York:  Bantaam, 1999), p. 47.

[7] “Life’s Calling:  Listening to God’s Voice in the World:  June 2018, The Call of Blessing,” Faith Works, p. 2.

[8]Ibid.

A Month of Blessings 1, June 3, 2018, "My favorite things"

A Month of Blessings 1 (Narrative) BFC 2018

Deuteronomy 8:7-10, 17-18

June 3, 2018

“When I Am Among the Trees”

When I am among the trees,

especially the willows and the honey locust,

equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,

they give off such hints of gladness

I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,

in which I have goodness, and discernment,

and never hurry through the world

          but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves

and call out, “Stay awhile.”

The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,

“and you too have come

into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled

with light, and to shine.”[1]

          “Blessing has a long history of meanings and roots. The Old English blēdsian based on blōd ‘blood’ (originally to ‘mark or consecrate with blood’) was used to translate the Latin benedicere ‘to praise or worship.’ The meaning shifted in late Old English toward ‘pronounce or make happy, prosperous, or fortunate.’ In the Semitic language of Aramaic, the phrase translated as ‘Blessed’ in the Beatitudes was actually tubwayhun which refers to being ripe, mature; having reached a stage of the fullness of the person I am meant to be.”[2]

“So what, then, does it mean to offer a blessing, to be a blessing? To bless something or someone is to invoke its wholeness, to help remind the person or thing you are blessing of its essence, its sacredness, its beauty, and to help remind yourself of that, too. Blessing does not fix anything. It is not a cure… It does not instill health or well-being or strength. Instead, it reminds us that those things are already there, [present].”[3]

These days I am regularly reading poetry from Mary Oliver because she regularly writes out of a sense of gratitude—seeing nature all around her as a gift, a sign of God’s love and care.   She sees the song of the bird, the grass, the trees as blessings in which she sees her own life.  Ordinary blessings. 

          You all related to me that probably the most meaningful sermon I preached was one about Brother David Steindl-Rast, how to live a happy life, gratitude, and the spiritual practice of examen.   I thought quite a bit about that and, how we are constantly hearing messages that tell us the universe is not friendly and the world is a scary place.  We are inundated with fear. 

          In contrast, we are called on to count our blessings, our ordinary, everyday blessings.  Perhaps the most famous song that teaches us this is from the musical, The Sound of Music, the song, “My Favorite Things.”

Raindrops on roses
And whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things

Cream-colored ponies and crisp apple strudels
Doorbells and sleigh bells
And schnitzel with noodles
Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings
These are a few of my favorite things

Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes
Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes
Silver-white winters that melt into springs
These are a few of my favorite things[4]

 “The point of the song is that ordinary blessings save us. ‘We don’t feel so sad’ the song says. We also don’t feel so isolated, anxious or disconnected from life. As we notice the ordinary blessings around us, we experience life as a generous friend not a threatening foe. Or to use theological language, ordinary blessings communicate to us that in some mysterious way we are the beloved of the Spirit at the heart of life. When we focus on our favorite things, it can feel like these blessings were created just for us.”[5]

          I have placed a list you can use to write down some of those ordinary blessings right now.  Just write two or three now to get started.   Let me give you a couple minutes just to think of those ordinary blessings. 

Then take a week and connect to your belovedness by making a list of “your favorite things.” Add at least 2-3 each day.  And yes, make it a literal list.

“Put the list in a place you will see it each day: by your bed, on your desk, on the fridge. It’s important to watch it fill up so you can more easily see connections and themes. Don’t worry about being profound. Think of the Sound of Music song: it was full of simple things. Similarly, the point of this exercise is to identify YOUR favorite simple things: French press coffee rather than automatic drip; the way the cat curls up on your lap in the evening when you are watching TV; the way your son unconsciously sticks his tongue out when he’s concentrating; the sound of your best friend's laugh; the Saturday morning reruns of car-talk on NPR.”[6]

“It’s simple,” the trees say, “and you too have come into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled with light, and to shine.”  May we all become aware of the ordinary blessings that are a part of our life so that we might filled with light and shine.  Amen.

---

[1] Mary Oliver, Devotions, (New York:  Penguin Press, 2017), p. 123.

[2] “Life’s Calling:  Listening to God’s Voice in the World:  June 2018, The Call of Blessing,” Faith Works, p. 7

[3] “Rev. Elea Kemler, Life’s Calling:  Listening to God’s Voice in the World:  June 2018, The Call of Blessing,” Faith Works, p. 7

[4] Richard Rogers, “My Favorite Things,” The Sound of Music, https://genius.com/Richard-rodgers-my-favorite-things-lyrics.

[5] “Life’s Calling:  Listening to God’s Voice in the World:  June 2018, The Call of Blessing,” Faith Works, pp. 2-3.

[6] Ibid.