Being Blessed

 

Genesis 27:1-4, 15-23; 28:10-17

Mark 9:38-50

John 1:50-51

               Today we hear a story about Jacob stealing his brother Jacob’s blessing from his father.  This follows after Jacob has stolen Esau’s birthright, too.  Jacob is a trickster, he is a con.  He lies, is disrespectful to his father, cheats his brother, schemes and steals and in every way is NOT the hero we would expect to be the patriarch of Israel, but in fact he is exactly that: the patriarch of Israel.  It is later in Genesis that Jacob’s name is changed, in fact, TO Israel. 

The truth is this whole story may seem very strange to us.  It may seem strange to us at many, many levels.  First of all, why can’t Isaac bless BOTH sons?  After all, they are twins.  Esau was born only minutes before Jacob.  What is this blessing that is so important but also so limited in who is to receive it and who can receive it?  And if it is created simply by a word, why can’t Isaac take back those words, change those words, amend those words?  If he was tricked by lies, why can’t he reciprocate and say the words spoken in response to a falsehood are therefore themselves false?  And then, why is it that God seems to bless Jacob, this trickster, to choose him to become Israel, to BE Israel and to lead the people forward?

These are all legitimate questions.  Real questions.  Some of which can be answered by saying that these ideas of blessings rested on social conventions which were difficult to challenge.  That the blessing was a promise of inheritance, in this case land and power.  That once those promises were made, the only thing that Isaac could then do would be to offer mitigating promises in addition. 

In terms of God’s response, Lewis Hyde stated, “Tricksters always appear where cultures are trying to guard their eternal truths, their sacred cows. New cultures spring up whenever some trickster gets past the guard dogs and steals those cows.”  And this is what Jacob does — He breaks the rules, creates a new pathway and therefore opens up possibilities.  The implication here, then, is that God uses tricksters to break us out of our cultural ruts, to challenge the paths we have gotten stuck on and to encourage us to see life and rules and even conventions from a new vantage point, one that is willing to alter, change and amend things.  In this case, Jacob actually challenges the idea that it is always the first son who gets everything.  In this case, Jacob and Esau were twins, born moments apart, so the idea that one son gets it all and the other nothing appears especially ridiculous.

But I think the bigger question for us today is what does it really mean to be blessed, in the first place?  I don’t mean what was this blessing that Jacob stole.  I mean, we all seek blessings, God’s blessings.  We want them.  We invoke them for others, “Bless you” we say when someone sneezes, which was supposed to be a way to ward off death.  But we also use it in other ways. “God bless you!” we say when we are leaving or sending someone off.  “Blessings,” we may say to sign our names at the end of correspondence.   We also use it in sentences such as “bless his heart” by which we often mean, “That person can’t change, won’t change, so the best we can do is bless him and send him on his way.”  

But again, what do we really mean by that?  And what really is a blessing?  We experience God’s blessing in places that we don’t expect, in places that don’t look familiar to us.  We also experience God’s blessings in ways that we don’t usually call blessings.  Jacob, though he stole the “blessing” from his brother, ended up out in the wilderness: running away from his family out of fear that Esau, out of anger, will hurt him.  He struggles, he does not have an easy life.  The “blessing” that he stole cost him everything that he valued, at least for a time.  And we know this often plays out for us as well: that which we strive for, work for the most, sometimes ends up costing us a great deal, costing us everything we thought we valued most. 

I remember reading this wondering article by Scott Dannemiller entitled, “The one thing Christian’s should stop saying” (click to read article):

Whew.  And Amen!

But it is also important to note that “blessing” does not mean ease of Life.  Jacob’s life after this is not easy.  Just as he tricked, so too will he be tricked.  He will be tricked by his uncle in trying to marry Rachel.  He will wrestle with God and be forever limping afterwards.  He will be tricked by his own sons who will try to kill his favorite, Joseph, and sell him into slavery instead, telling their father only that he has died.   

But still, is he blessed? 

Yes.  And not only by his father.  He is blessed by God’s presence with him, and that takes many forms.  Sometimes it is God’s presence in the struggles.  Sometimes it is God’s presence in the good times.  The blessing is the ability to experience God in those times, to hear God, to see God and to choose healing and growing that God offers.  The alternative is to become bitter, cynical, angry, cranky.

“Experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want.”  Well, isn’t that an incredible blessing?

 

I think the bottom line is that when we say “blessing” what we mean is “gift”.  But our ideas of what are gifts, what comes to us through grace and not just LIFE, has to grow, has to expand a bit.  And the lesson for us today in this is that we should not miss out on a blessing because it isn't packaged the way that we expect.

I’m reminded of a lovely poem by an unknown confederate soldier:

I asked God for strength that I might achieve.

I was made weak that I might learn humbly to obey.

I asked for health that I might do greater things.

I was given infirmity that I might do better things.

I asked for riches that I might be happy.

I was given poverty that I might be wise.

I asked for power that I might have the praise of men.

I was given weakness that I might feel the need of God.

I asked for all things that I might enjoy life.

I was given life that I might enjoy all things.

I got nothing that I asked for, but everything I hoped for.

Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered.

I am, among all men, most richly blessed.

 

I want to end with a poem by Jan Richardson called

 

Blessed Are You Who Bear the Light

Blessed are you

who bear the light

in unbearable times,

who testify

to its endurance

amid the unendurable,

who bear witness

to its persistence

when everything seems

in shadow

and grief.

 

Blessed are you

in whom

the light lives,

in whom

the brightness blazes --

your heart

a chapel,

an altar where

in the deepest night

can be seen

the fire that

shines forth in you

in unaccountable faith,

in stubborn hope,

in love that illumines

every broken thing

it finds.

 

- Jan Richardson

 

The thing is, we are most richly blessed when we are giving and caring and loving others.  That is when we are most richly and most meaningfully blessed.  And that is a blessing we bring to and on ourselves through our own choices and our own decisions to care for and offer care for others.  This is a blessing we can claim for ourselves, not through the trickery of Jacob, not through the anger of Esau, but through the decision to love.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

Blessings

(For those actually in service yesterday, you will notice that I really didn't preach this... but here is a part of what I intended to say...edited so it is slightly closer to what I actually preached.  (sigh).  The challenges of not reading a manuscript...)

Luke 6:20-26  

Luke 18: 9-14

               Life is a circle, we have times that are full of joys and times that are full of pain.  Which of these are the blessings?

               I want to read to you an article that I found that I think says it better than I could:  (Scott Dannemiller article).

               I say the same thing pretty regularly – that our challenges are also blessings, though this can be hard to recognize. 

               But I also want to say what I have said many times before and that is that this doesn’t mean that I think God intentionally causes us hurt.  I think hurt happens in this world and God wants to bring the highest growth and highest good out of that.  But I don’t experience God as Santa Claus rewarding the good and punishing the bad. I also don’t believe God is just a mean school teacher, testing us, and sitting up there somewhere saying, “Oh, you thought you could handle that?  Well let’s see how you handle this!”  though I’ll admit sometimes it sure has FELT that way to me.  And while I think the beatitudes are an accurate description of what happens to us in life – those who are in pain will find comfort, those who are comfortable will find pain – I don’t believe this is because God is wielding out punishments and rewards.  I think, instead, that it is an accurate description of life. 

               But God in this is about teaching, healing, growing us into the most whole people we can be, if we are open to that.

               Frankly, it is really bad theology that describes God as a kind of Santa Claus, rewarding the good and punishing the bad.  And scripture shows us something very different.  We have the beatitudes, which do not discuss deserving and people getting what they deserve, but rather describes that those who are in pain will feel joy, and the reverse.  We have the story of Job, who, despite his righteousness, lost everything that mattered to him.  We have Jesus reminding us that the rain falls on both the righteous and the unrighteous.  We also have passages such as Mark 10:17-31: As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honor your father and mother.’”  “Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.”  Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.  Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!”  The disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God!  It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”  The disciples were even more amazed, and said to each other, “Who then can be saved?”  Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.” Then Peter spoke up, “We have left everything to follow you!” “Truly I tell you,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”  This shows that it is not God rewarding us with riches.  Those riches come, and will be taken away.  They impede our ability to connect with God.  They themselves are not blessings from God.

               The reality is that we who are comfortable have a hard time feeling, knowing, experiencing our real dependence on God.  It is often only through the struggles, through the times of difficulty, the times of loss, that we learn to experience God fully and to depend on God for everything.  But it is hard for us to feel blessed by those hard times.  I understand this.  It is tough.

               We celebrate the good things, calling them our blessings.  But when it comes to the hard times, we complain and feel life is unfair.  We focus on the pain and forget to be grateful for the challenges or to seek out the possible gifts or learning or growing that we can do through the pain.

It is hard for us to rejoice in, learn from, or really self-reflect and grow into the challenges.  But that is the call.

               So we can take the beatitudes as a message of fear: only if you really suffer will you then find “blessings” by which we mean good things, riches, comforts, luxuries.  Or we can take them as a description of life, reminding us that God is with us whether we are focused on the joys or focused on the pains. We can take them as a reminder that often it is through the gift of the hard and painful times that we remember to turn to God and to really come to trust God and the deeper gifts of community, support, and help that are available.  We can remember that in being in solidarity with others who are struggling, as well as through helping to empower others and improve the lives of others, that we come to know and experience God at deeper levels. We can learn to let go and to truly depend on God.  But we also learn that blessings can come in many forms and that we are surrounded by them every single day, just as in every moment we are surrounded by God’s love. 

               Those blessings we experience in this way, in times of great need, are often the ones that we also learn most deeply to share with others.  There was a social experiment done a few years back in which a man went around asking strangers for hugs.  “Normal” people would not hug strangers.  But when the homeless were asked, none said “no”.  They gave to others, probably from that place of knowing their own lacking, experiencing their own rejection, knowing what it was to not “have” what many of us take for granted.  From that place, then, they were able to bless others.

               Henri Nouwen also tells the story of coming to understand blessings differently when he began to serve as a chaplain for a community of people with intellectual disabilities.  He talks about a woman, Janet, who was struggling and came to him asking for a blessing.  He tried to make the sign of the cross on her forehead, but she wouldn’t accept it and said, “I want a real blessing!”  He didn’t know what to do but that evening at their prayer service, he told the community that Janet had asked for a special blessing and he invited her to come forward.  She came forward and wrapped her arms around him, giving him a tight hug.  He was surprised but hugged her back and said to her, “Janet, I want you to know that you are God’s beloved daughter.  You are precious in God’s eyes.  Your beautiful smile, your kindness to the people in your house, and all the good things you do show us what a beautiful human being you are.  I know you feel a little low these days and that there is some sadness in your heart, but I want you to remember who you are: a very special person, deeply loved by God and all the people who are here with you.”  Janet left with a huge, satisfied smile. Afterwards the other members of the community all raised their hands asking for a “blessing” too.  That giving of love; that giving of time, and care, and attention; that seeing of one another; that appreciating one another – those are the blessings that God has given to us and that we can pass on to others.

               Going back to the first article.  I don’t believe it is wrong to say, “I have been blessed” or “I am having a blessed day.”  When I am challenging here is the idea that “blessings” are only the good things we experience and have in life.  In many ways, as the scriptures we have read today and the stories I have shared point out, the greatest blessings we can have and experience are the challenges we face in life.  I remember a wise woman once saying to me, “A blessing is something that brings you closer to God.  It is not something that brings you closer to fulfilling American cultural values.”  Material wealth is not a blessing, your car and your house – these are not your blessings, your gifts from God.  What are your blessings your gifts from God, are the times you have with God, the opportunities to grow, the gifts of love, faith, appreciation, gratitude, peace, hope, compassion, grace, trust.  These are the blessings that God gives so freely.   

Goodbye Ohio

I've had numerous people asking me why I haven't posted anything lately.  It's not that I haven't written.  But I've found that it's been hard to actually post what I have written.  The goodbye sermons for my church here felt too private for public viewing.  And I'm grieving.  Every change, whether good or bad or a mixture involves grief and involves loss.  And grief is a complicated thing.  Grief involves all kinds of emotions from sadness and depression to anxiety, denial and even anger. Additionally, I find that every loss brings up all the past losses that have also been experienced.  So as I've grieved this place, I've found myself reliving my time here in Ohio, and re-grieving in particular many of the losses I experienced here. As part of that, many feelings have come up again including a resurgence of anger, sorrow and regret.  I have learned, in some cases the hard way, that expressing those feelings in writing is not very helpful.  It's not helpful to me, it's not helpful to those who read it, and it burns more bridges than it heals.

So, in order to properly say goodbye to Ohio, I think I have to start by just owning that my time here has been complicated, and that as I've reflected on it, some of the anger and much of the regret that was created over the last 6 1/2 years has risen once more, along with some sadness.  Things that I have forgiven I am needing to forgive again.  Hurts that I dealt with I am needing to heal once more. We experienced a great deal here, and much of it was hard. I'm naming it for what it is.  But I don't need to say more about that.

What I do need to say is that despite the horrors and traumas and regrets that come from my time here, there is also much that I am deeply thankful for and much that we will miss.  I have met some of the most wonderful people in the world, and made some friendships that I know will be lifetime friendships. For those I am deeply grateful. There are amazing people in my congregation here, and I was blessed to be part of a Presbytery full of truly gifted pastors, many who became close friends. I have made friends outside of my church life as well and those friends too have been such great gifts to me.  These are all people who saw us through these hard times, have stayed the long-haul, have given me their trust and shared with me their stories. They have allowed me to cry, allowed me to vent, have taken the kids places, have made me laugh again and again. They have proven themselves to be incredibly faithful, strong, loving, supportive, forgiving and gracious people.  I am so thankful for each one of you who contributed to my life and the lives of my kids. I cannot say this strongly enough. Each of you are a gift and I love each one of you. Thank you!

There is more, too, that I will miss about Ohio.  I have treasured the slower pace, the friendly openness, the "live and let live" lack of judgmental-ness, the fact that people here are slower to become enraged (especially true in their cars!!).  I have found comfort in being in a place that is not as quick to condemn or "box" all clergy persons or people of faith.  It has been wonderful to be in a community where people value family so deeply and spend their holidays, ALL of them, with their families.  We have been blessed by people who have included my family as part of their own and have invited us to join them for holidays.

While Cleveland has a "low self-esteem" in many respects (I still experience people asking why I ever would have left CA to come here, for example), this is an insecurity that they don't need to have. The cultural opportunities here are AMAZING.  Everything from a world-renown FREE national art museum (truly an amazing gift!!), to the Cleveland Orchestra, Playhouse square which is second in the country only to Broadway in terms of quality of dramas and musicals offered, an outstanding science center, botanical gardens, natural history museum, etc make this a great place for people of all ages.  But for me, the jewel in the crown of Cleveland is the Metroparks system, 119 acres of pathways through beautiful woods and over rivers, with horse trails and bicycle/foot paths.  The Cleveland Metroparks also offers other amazing opportunities year round.  From an incredible zoo, to canoe trips at night, to the Train, to free dancing opportunities, to historical recreations and events, to story telling in the evenings, to nature hikes to the Nature Centers, my family has so enjoyed these parks.  And so, on days like today when I am feeling the grief, a walk through the woods and time in these amazing parks calms me, centers me, and reminds me of what is really important in this life.

I have been blessed by my time here.  And I will carry the lessons I've learned, the friends I've made, and the experiences we've had close to my heart, no matter where I go.