THE POWER AND THE BLESSING, A Sermon delivered by the Reverend Geoffrey G. Drutchas, St. Paul United Church of Christ, Taylor, March 12, 2017

Transcription

1 THE POWER AND THE BLESSING, A Sermon delivered by the Reverend Geoffrey G. Drutchas, St. Paul United Church of Christ, Taylor, March 12, 2017 This morning, congregation, I want to go back. I want to return to a moment that we contemplated a couple of weeks ago as our Lenten season was getting launched. The moment I have in mind is Jesus baptism at the River Jordan. It s a very precious moment, described in some detail by three of the gospels Matthew, Mark, and Luke. (Matthew 3:11-17; Mark 1:9-11; and Luke 3:21-22) And even the Gospel of John alludes to it. (John 1:29-34) In the three detailed gospel accounts, Jesus emerges from the waters of the River Jordan after being baptized by John the Baptist and experiences two things almost simultaneously. The Holy Spirit, which we can also call the Spirit of God, descends upon Jesus like a dove. In other words, the Holy Spirit enters Jesus and thereafter animates his whole life as never before. Also, Jesus hears a voice from heaven loudly and clearly saying to him and anyone else who has the spiritual ears to hear in witness: This is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. (Matthew 3:17) Congregation, I can t tell you the number of times I have read the parallel scriptures about Jesus baptism over the course of my own lifetime. Yet in this Lenten season I feel as if I am reading them all for the first time. Why? Because I am seeing things in them I didn t see before and appreciating and valuing what I didn t previously recognize. Obviously, it s so important that the Holy Spirit descends upon Jesus in the moments of his baptism. This is what gives him the extraordinary power to preach, teach, and heal that we observe throughout his ministry leading all the way to the cross at Calvary. But not to be slighted is the divine declaration pronounced as the Holy Spirit arrives and which bears repeating again: This is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. In this extraordinary and wonderful proclamation God was blessing Jesus as his son. Yes, the Holy Spirit bestowed power upon Jesus. However, the words of God conferred blessing. Contrary to what I might have once thought, these divine words are no mere afterthought on 1 P a g e

2 God s part after gracing Jesus with the Holy Spirit. Instead, they are of vital significance for Jesus and for us. Congregation, I don t think we understand the significance of blessings very well anymore. Ancient peoples prized them. We certainly see this in the Old Testament Biblical story of brothers Jacob and Esau and their father Isaac. (Genesis 27: 1 28:9) Both of Isaac s sons wanted his blessing. Sad to say, Jacob was even willing to beg, borrow, and steal for it over and against a brother who took it over-much for granted as the older son. What exactly is a blessing? In traditional terms, it a sign or mark of favor. Using more contemporary terminology, we might also describe a blessing as an expression of profound acceptance, deep respect, and loving affirmation. Borrowing a phrase from the late psychologist Carl Rogers, I also like to think of a blessing as unconditional positive regard. All these beautiful elements of blessing are embedded in God s ten or so words to Jesus at the River Jordan when he says: You are my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. Receiving the Holy Spirit at the River Jordan, Jesus certainly gains great power. But as we all know, power even good power, the best power can be abused and perverted. This is fundamentally what the old legend of Lucifer as a fallen angel is all about. Yet an empowered Jesus never strays from God. No one can turn Jesus head and heart from the righteous, loving, and unselfish purposes that God calls him to serve and uphold. Indeed, after being affirmed by God as a beloved son whose very existence gives pleasure to a divine father, Jesus knows who he is. Because of God s blessing and all the acceptance, affirmation, and love that go with it, Jesus is able to face down whatever comes, which is a lot! Three times over in the desert wilderness, the devil tempts Jesus to prove himself and exploit his power. (Matthew 4:1-11) However, each time, Jesus, fortified by his blessing from God, is able to avoid being trapped and manipulated. Then Jesus goes home to Nazareth, which proves to be its own kind of trial. Nobody wants to believe that he is anything but Joseph s son. (Luke 4:14-30) 2 P a g e

3 As later becomes clear, even Jesus own biological family has doubts about his divine mission. (Mark 3:21-35) But God s blessing holds. Jesus keeps his cool amid his encounter with disbelieving fellow Jews in the local synagogue and also with his family. More importantly, he doesn t lose the sense of who he is and what God s called him to do for all of us. God s blessing at the River Jordan upon his son Jesus continues to sustain our Savior through the vicious attacks of enemies and pathetic betrayals by his own apostles and friends. God s blessing remains with Jesus even upon Calvary s brutal cross. Yes, Jesus does cry out: O God, O God, why have you forsaken me? (Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34) But we should not forget that those anguished words are actually a recital by Jesus of the opening of Psalm 22, which culminates with the reassurance of God s help and deliverance. (Psalm 22:1) God s blessing at the earlier moment of baptism saved Jesus from total despair and enabled him to remain gracious and loving to his last hours when he asks God to forgive his own persecutors for they know not what they do. (Luke 23:34) Yes, God s blessing goes a very long way and makes a very big difference for Jesus. Congregation, there s a lesson in this for us. We re not God. We re not divine. But each of us as men and women nevertheless have the capacity to bless. And to make a huge difference in the lives of families, friends, neighbors, and even strangers. We bless others when we share with them our respect, our acceptance, our affirming love, and our unconditional positive regard for who they are as God has made them. The blessing we confer can brighten and transform lives for the good. A genuine, bona-fide blessing is a beautiful thing in every way. Ironically, as I look around today, I see so many parents focused on empowering their kids. They move heaven and earth to create opportunities for their sons and daughters to enjoy success, now and later. But in many instances there is a preconceived notion of who their child is and what their child should be doing, perhaps in fulfillment of what they, now parents, weren t able to accomplish for themselves as youth. This is the kind of scenario that produces so-called trophy kids where sons and daughters are expected to bring glory to their parents. Kids 3 P a g e

4 in these situations have all kinds of power and resources, so-to-speak, but no blessing no one trusting and believing in them for who they are. Hopefully, if they don t find a blessing at home they will know and receive from someone else important in their lives. This past week, our Tuesday morning Bible Study group was talking about power and blessing. One of our participants, a retired schoolteacher, who had once worked with developmentally challenged students, remembered a call she received from someone she had taught years before. He was in a high school play and invited her to attend. The invitation was a surprise. But the night of the performance, the retired schoolteacher found out why her former student had felt prompted to invite her after all those years. She was, the student explained, the only person who had ever believed in him. Our church member had blessed that boy, perhaps without ever realizing it, by her quiet but steadfast acceptance, respect, and unconditional positive regard for him which he was not experiencing anywhere else in his life. As our own church member discovered, the person who blesses can find themselves richly blessed too. It s good to want the best for others--to see folks use their talents well and to live up to their potential. Yet it becomes a terrible thing if we are always pushing others to be their best because who they are just isn t good enough for us and we can t fundamentally love and accept them just the way they are. Sometimes, too, our admiration for others can be so shallow and lopsided that what appears to be a blessing can actually be a curse. I once attended a conference at a Quaker retreat house with a philosopher named Maurice Friedman, who had recently written a book entitled, Confirmation of Otherness. Over lunch between conference sessions, Friedman talked with me about a reallife situation he had encountered as a professor at Sarah Lawrence College in New York where he had previously taught. He had in one of his classes an astonishingly beautiful young woman who was having some serious academic problems. When he met one-one-one with her Friedman discovered that her academic problems weren t for lack of smarts. Instead, the young woman was in throes of a lot of emotional problems that were impeding her studies and those emotional problems had a tie-in with her looks. It turned out that so many 4 P a g e

5 people were oohing and aahing over the young woman s beautiful looks that she felt discounted in every other way. She didn t feel that she could have a serious relationship with anyone. It was a case of Poor Little Rich Girl all over again. This beautiful young woman felt lonely all the time and unappreciated and never blessed for the deeper person she knew she could be. I don t know if there was a happy ending for Friedman s student. Our own conversation was interrupted and we had to get back to the conference. But the true tale Friedman told was an eye-opener for me. Whenever I see Hollywood s handsomest actors putting on a grub act I realize that they too may be struggling with self-confirmation issues and live in need of a deeper acceptance of who they are above and beyond an admiration that goes only skin-deep. Admittedly, in this life some people may be harder to love and to bless because of contrary personalities or special needs that stem from the jumble of our genes or the environments of our upbringings over which we exercise little or no control. Yet here in response we have to model ourselves after Jesus who always loves us in spite of ourselves. I especially cherish Jesus words of good counsel from the Sermon on the Mount on this score. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus says: You have heard it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even tax collectors do the same? And if you salute only your brethren, what more are you doing than others. Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You, therefore, must be perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matthew 5:43-48) In this passage, talking about love for enemies, Jesus is calling upon us to strive for unconditional positive regard even for toxic people that we meet. As we have noted already, blessings are powerful. When we affirm and accept others at a fundamental core level as Jesus affirms and accepts us, we help them find the courage to accept themselves and not act out in ways so hurtful and destructive for others. Someone who did as Jesus did was a woman named Dorothy Day who lived through much of the 20 th century. She gave up everything she had to serve the poor as she felt Jesus was commanding her to do. Equally 5 P a g e

6 important, Dorothy Day sought to model all her human interactions in keeping with the wisdom and truth of Jesus. Today, Dorothy Day is remembered for some of her own Christ-like sayings. Do small things with great love, she once advised. At another moment she remarked: The Gospel takes away our right forever to discriminate between the deserving and undeserving poor. Dorothy Day was also very pragmatic in her Christian faith. Accordingly, she once declared: I have since come to believe that people never mean half of what they say and that it is best to disregard their talk and judge only their actions. At the same time, Dorothy Day struggled on her own part to be consistently faithful in what she said and did as a Christian. For many years she lived in a Christian settlement house in New York City which welcomed all kinds of troubled people. Whenever Dorothy Day was confronted with a particularly difficult person, she chose to regard them as a challenge to her own faith a test of her patience and fortitude that she had to meet. In Christ s name, she was committed to loving the unlovable and blessing those who, perhaps, had never been blessed. Onlookers would often praise her. Many in the media would often cite her as a paragon of moral virtue. But invariably Dorothy Day would wave all such adulation away, saying: Don t call me a saint. I don t want to be dismissed so easily. Dorothy Day believed that we all need to do our part to bless others, however challenging it may sometimes be. Yes, God so loved the world that he gave his own begotten son, whom he blessed at the River Jordan. That beloved son has blessed us. May we, who are blessed, bless others through our love, respect, acceptance, and unconditional positive regard. Amen. 6 P a g e