1 Blessing s High Call Luke 24:48-53 Binkley Baptist Church June 1, 2014 Blessing is one of those slippery words like nice, love, good you know, one of those words your English teacher told you not to use or if you had to, only sparingly, in the 500-word essay due on Friday. During seminary, I was taught to take care around using bless in my prayers for the same reason my high school English teacher complained: bless may be prayed too casually, giving off a fuzzy kind of sweetness or even falsesounding piety. When offering a prayer or benediction, we were told, better to find words that evoke the senses, imagery, specific feelings. Nevertheless, when I hear an elder, in her kindly southern drawl, saying bless you, child, I am warmed to the very core. Bless is actually a powerful word in Hebrew, first among other words to name, acknowledge, and celebrate the unnamable Holy One, whose energy flows through all creation, before whom we tremble in awe. Barukh atah Adonai Eloheinu! the psalmist shouts, Bless the Lord! Creation sings God s glory, and the poetry of Psalm 104 sings that truth boldly: O God, You are clothed with honor and majesty, wrapped in light as with a garment. You stretch out the heavens like a tent clouds are Your chariot and You ride on the wings of the wind. All physicality is an enrobing of Divinity, Rabbi Marcia Prager says, each subatomic particle of Creation housing a spark of God. i Berekh in Hebrew means knee : indeed, to bless God is to fall upon your knees, filled with wonder and deep humility before the Holy Mystery. In the idiom of Judaism, to bless is also a summons to mindfulness, to see the miracle of the everyday We awaken, thanks be to God; we hear birdsong, bless the Lord; we wash our face and feel the soft, cool water on our cheeks and praise our Creator. We recognize God as the source of all. Of course, this can become rote, like a table grace when we re very hungry and the basketball game is about to start but through such spiritual practice, day by day, habitual blessing can open mind and heart to the gift
of being here, now, crunching this crisp apple, sensing the warm sunshine on our back, smiling at a joke just remembered. Then there is that special use of Barukh atah Adonai Eloheinu, when a woman lights the candles to welcome the Sabbath before dusk settles on a Friday evening, or when we offer the invocation, a prayer at the beginning of our Sunday worship service just before the Lord s Prayer. We want to invite God to our gathering, or somehow infuse the moment with the Holy, even though we know God is already here moving among us, whether or not we say anything. Though we want to reason it out, Rabbi Prager asks us to think about the empowering nature of language. The first job God gave to Adam, the earthling, was to name the creatures. When God said, Let there be light, the words sparked with energy and command, more like an imperative, Light! Exist! Humble though we are, our first human task was to use our own words to call forth the power of God s Spirit, naming sheep and porcupine. No matter what we think about what God does with an invocation, perhaps we can say that our souls need to be reminded of the power of the divine Word within, like our first yes to God s call at our own birth. Even though we could not see it exactly, God s face shone upon us in blessing as we opened our eyes that first time, dazed and unsure. Before Jesus ascended to heaven, he blessed his disciples, and so we consider yet another kind of blessing the kind when one pours a part of oneself, one s essence, into one s beloved child or friend, disciple or student, imparting, if you will, a legacy that is spirit-filled, rather than material. Such a blessing also evokes the character, spirit, and calling of the bles-ee. In the Luke passage, Jesus had already appeared to Mary and the disciples, calming their troubled hearts, inviting them to trust a new reality. Luke never mentions sadness in this final good-bye of ascension; instead, with the disciples we are lost in awestruck wonder: Jesus lifts up his arms like Moses at the exodus, inspiriting his followers (and so us) with words we cannot hear, but imagine before he is carried into heaven. We all need such blessings, moments when we are empowered to go forward, to trust, to risk. I also like to think that Jesus had other conversations, something akin to a parent with her child, perhaps speaking 2
to his disciples individually, naming their gifts. Andrew, you have a practical bent; look how you ve kept us organized, moving from town to town. You also have a way with people, making friends wherever you go. Trust yourself. I am with you in spirit and I love you always. At 22, Maya Angelou had a five-year-old son, two jobs, and was renting two rooms in San Francisco. Her mother lived in a large, elegant home on Fulton Street, but honored Maya s desire for independence. They had a standing appointment: once a month, Vivian would cook her daughter s favorite dishes, and they would dine together. One afternoon, after a sumptuous lunch that included her favorite, Red Rice, Maya was heading down the street, when her mother called out after her, Baby. Maya turned back and came close. Baby, her mother said, I ve been thinking and now I am sure. You are the greatest woman I ve ever met You are very kind and very intelligent and those elements are not always found together. Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune, and my mother yes, you belong in that category. Here, give me a kiss. Maya describes the thoughts that ran through her head after she kissed her mother, Suppose she is right. She s very intelligent and she often said the she didn t fear anyone enough to lie. Suppose I am going to become somebody. Imagine. ii A blessing may also come in the form of a question or maybe as a challenge, something that gets to you, lingering like an ear worm in your head, making you listen intently to what God is speaking within you. Anne Neil, a former missionary to Nigeria, teacher, spiritual guide, and caller forth of women in Baptist ministry, has mentored me for nearly 30 years. In the early 1990s, every month or so, I used to drive up from Raleigh to her home in Wake Forest, for her counsel and listening ear. Anne rarely pushed me, but her very being, a feminist intellect invested in prayer and ecumenism, challenged me at every turn. At one of life s junctures, having just finished seminary, I was trying to decide if I should do doctoral work in spirituality at Catholic University in D.C. or stay in Raleigh, and work out my calling there. I kept weighing pros and cons to no avail. So I gathered a group of people, including Anne, for what Quakers call a clearness committee, in which folks ask you questions and help you hear 3
different angles and hopefully, prayerfully, discern God s voice. The circle who gathered with me included two dear friends, who could not help but find ways for me to stay in North Carolina. Others had hard practical questions about future jobs and the like. I left discouraged and even more muddled than before, to drive Anne back up home to Wake Forest. She was pretty quiet on the ride, as I tried to make sense of it all. Finally, as I let Anne out back at home, she paused, You know, it s easy to be swayed by others; listen to what your heart is telling you. As I drove back to my apartment, the words were clear within me, I will go to Catholic. How have you been blessed, called forward by the Divine voice within, asked to do something hard, but right; heard that yes resound within, even as you doubted? Being blessed does not mean you have it all together, that your children are perfect, that you keep your budget every month, or even that you know exactly what you are supposed to do. It means that you have said yes to the Divine Voice that gave you birth, that you are willing to risk the next step on behalf of what is just and compassionate, and thus holy Being blessed happens when you claim your own spark of the Divinity. Today, we at Binkley are summoned to consecrate, and thus bless, six newly called deacons to their ministry at Binkley. Having heard something of their stories, I am moved with joy at their willingness to offer their gifts as vessels of pastoral care among us. In answering this call, they have each said yes to three years of their lives, reaching out in concern for individuals and families. They have said yes to you, to me, to our wellbeing spiritually, mentally, and physically. It was the genius of the Early Church to realize that no one person or even a select few could preach, teach, visit all who were sick, take care of the widows and orphans, go on mission trips, handle the finances, and minister to the hungry and tired at the doorstep. Deacons were called to care for the community as it sought to live out the way of Christ. These here today are joining a long lineage. They answered the call to the diaconate, saying yes, they want to be there when our partner undergoes surgery, or our sister dies, or when we don t know how we can pay the mortgage or rent and the medical bills. They are saying yes joyfully 4
5 when our grandson is born or our daughter graduates. It s not that these newly elected deacons have it all together all the time; rather they have opened their hearts to the Holy Spirit, to be vessels of care, even when they don t know exactly what to say. Presence, sensitivity, care, practical service are what they pray to offer. In a moment, we will share in the memorial feast of the Lord s Supper, remembering our essential connection to Christ and to one another, which is to say to remember that we are blessed! We will also offer particular words of blessing to these deacons, ordaining them, which means setting them apart, consecrating their service of love among us. Barukh atah Adonai Eloheinu, amen. i Rabbi Marcia Prager, The Path of Blessing (Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights, 2003), p. 17. ii Maya Angelou, Letter to My Daughter (New York: Random House, 2008), pp. 53-4.