Susan Pendleton Jones - "Blessed Living" (July 4, 1999)
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| - | Let us pray. | 0:05 |
| Spirit of the living God, fall fresh on us. | 0:09 | |
| Melt us, mold us, fill us, use us. | 0:16 | |
| Spirit of the living God, fall fresh on us. | 0:23 | |
| Amen. | 0:32 | |
| Several weeks ago, as I was putting our nine-year-old son | 0:36 | |
| to bed, after we had turned off the lights and said prayers, | 0:40 | |
| I bent down over his bed to kiss him goodnight. | 0:45 | |
| As I did, he reached up and pulled my face toward his. | 0:50 | |
| Seven kisses he gave me. | 0:55 | |
| Four down and three across on my forehead. | 0:59 | |
| And, as he let me go, he looked me in the eye | 1:05 | |
| and he said, "Mom, you are blessed." | 1:08 | |
| "Ben, did you realize that you kissed me | 1:16 | |
| "in the shape of a cross?" I asked him. | 1:19 | |
| "Yup," he answered, "I planned it that way." | 1:23 | |
| Well, over the years, Ben has seen the sign of the cross | 1:28 | |
| made on other people's foreheads as well as his own, | 1:31 | |
| with ashes during Lent and with water | 1:35 | |
| during services of baptismal renewal. | 1:38 | |
| But never before had he seen the sign of the cross | 1:41 | |
| made on the forehead in kisses. | 1:46 | |
| From this little boy, often so full of mischief, | 1:50 | |
| I received an unexpected sign of grace from God. | 1:54 | |
| A reminder of the blessings I have received in life | 1:59 | |
| but also of the price that was paid for them. | 2:03 | |
| Kisses in the form of a cross, a blessing. | 2:09 | |
| Before meals, young children offer them in song. | 2:16 | |
| Every Sunday, worshipers are sent forth with them | 2:20 | |
| from sanctuaries around the world. | 2:23 | |
| Even sneezes elicit them. | 2:26 | |
| Blessings are very much a part of our everyday life. | 2:29 | |
| We give them and we receive them from God | 2:34 | |
| and each other almost on reflex. | 2:37 | |
| A word of grace offered, a sign of forgiveness shared. | 2:41 | |
| We extend a blessing and move on. | 2:45 | |
| We receive a blessing and feel good for the moment. | 2:48 | |
| Blessing is a comfortable noun, particularly when blessing | 2:52 | |
| is a gift and we are on the receiving end. | 2:57 | |
| And we're pretty used to it as individuals and as a nation. | 3:02 | |
| July 4th reminds us of it. | 3:07 | |
| Today, we celebrate being blessed as a nation | 3:10 | |
| and we usually do it up pretty big. | 3:14 | |
| Flags flying, fireworks lighting up the sky, | 3:17 | |
| parades and family picnics all celebrating our blessings | 3:20 | |
| of independence, of freedom, of inalienable rights, | 3:26 | |
| of peace and prosperity. | 3:32 | |
| In many ways, we are a blessed country, | 3:36 | |
| a land flowing with milk and honey, | 3:40 | |
| a land and a people blessed by God. | 3:43 | |
| The Old Testament reading for this morning | 3:48 | |
| describes just such a land. | 3:50 | |
| The richly blessed status of the whole world of Abraham | 3:54 | |
| in a land called Canaan. | 3:59 | |
| Our reading begins, the Lord has greatly blessed my master | 4:03 | |
| and he has become wealthy. | 4:08 | |
| He has given him flocks and herds, silver and gold, | 4:10 | |
| male and female slaves, camels and donkeys. | 4:14 | |
| And Sarah, my master's wife, bore a son to him | 4:18 | |
| when she was very old. | 4:22 | |
| The Hebrew word for blessing, berakah, | 4:25 | |
| is used six times in this 24th chapter of Genesis. | 4:29 | |
| Abraham is blessed, the Lord is blessed, | 4:35 | |
| the servant is blessed, and finally Rebekah, | 4:37 | |
| the focus of this chapter, is blessed. | 4:40 | |
| A suitable wife for Isaac, the long-awaited son of Abraham | 4:45 | |
| and Sarah, needs to be found. | 4:50 | |
| So we hear of the meeting and then the union | 4:53 | |
| of Isaac and Rebekah, and Isaac is comforted | 4:56 | |
| after the death of his mother, Sarah. | 5:01 | |
| The promise made to Abraham by God, back in Genesis 12, | 5:05 | |
| of land, of descendants, of fathering a great nation, | 5:09 | |
| is continued through this marriage, | 5:13 | |
| through the obedience and faithfulness of Rebekah | 5:16 | |
| and the eventual births of Jacob and Esau. | 5:21 | |
| Last month, I helped to lead a group of Duke students | 5:26 | |
| on a work team to the land where this story takes place. | 5:29 | |
| There, we lived and worked among Palestinian | 5:34 | |
| Christians and Muslims who live on this land | 5:37 | |
| once promised by God to Abraham. | 5:40 | |
| Some of the Palestinians we met have deeds to property there | 5:44 | |
| that go back to the Middle Ages. | 5:48 | |
| Their families have been living there | 5:51 | |
| for generation after generation. | 5:53 | |
| These Palestinians say they belong to the land. | 5:56 | |
| Yet, when we met with a Jewish settler from Chicago, | 6:02 | |
| now living outside Bethlehem, the first thing he said | 6:05 | |
| to us was, "This is our land. | 6:09 | |
| "God gave us this land." | 6:12 | |
| As I struggled to understand their very different | 6:16 | |
| perspectives and the complexities that have caused | 6:18 | |
| centuries of conflict over land in the Middle East, | 6:21 | |
| I thought back to that original promise made | 6:25 | |
| to Abraham in Genesis 12. | 6:30 | |
| You heard it read several Sundays ago. | 6:33 | |
| The promise of land to Abraham is directly linked | 6:37 | |
| to this theme of blessing. | 6:42 | |
| Do you remember it? | 6:46 | |
| "Go from your country," God says, "to the land | 6:48 | |
| "that I will show you. | 6:52 | |
| "I will make of you a great nation. | 6:55 | |
| "And I will bless you so that you will be a blessing. | 6:58 | |
| "In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." | 7:05 | |
| The promise of the land to the Jews is linked to Abraham's | 7:13 | |
| descendants being a blessing to others, in God's name. | 7:18 | |
| A light to the nations, a beacon of compassion, | 7:23 | |
| a living witness to social justice. | 7:28 | |
| If discussions between Jews and Palestinians revolve around | 7:32 | |
| prior claim to the land or military might or even whose side | 7:36 | |
| God is on, then there is little or no hope for peace. | 7:41 | |
| But when discussions about the land are set in the context | 7:47 | |
| of blessing, then words like forgiveness, cooperation, | 7:51 | |
| justice, and hope emerge. | 7:57 | |
| And the possibility of a new future is born. | 8:02 | |
| A future shaped by God's call to all of us, | 8:06 | |
| not just to offer and receive blessings, | 8:10 | |
| not just to let blessing be a comfortable noun, | 8:13 | |
| but to live as a blessing to others, | 8:18 | |
| to come to know blessing as a very challenging verb. | 8:22 | |
| On our trip to the Holy Land, we met a Jewish woman | 8:29 | |
| committed to this vision of living as a blessing. | 8:32 | |
| Her name is Gila Svirsky, and she has founded | 8:37 | |
| a group called Bat Shalom, Daughters of Peace. | 8:41 | |
| When Palestinian homes on the West Bank are slated | 8:47 | |
| for demolition, she goes to those families, | 8:50 | |
| along with many women from her organization, | 8:53 | |
| and they form a human shield to block the bulldozers. | 8:56 | |
| They've been arrested and beaten in their work | 9:00 | |
| for peace and justice. | 9:03 | |
| They believe that their homeland is to be used | 9:06 | |
| as a blessing for all God's children. | 9:10 | |
| Blessing is a dynamic, active word. | 9:16 | |
| It is a word to be lived. | 9:20 | |
| As Elias Chacour, a Melkite Palestinian priest | 9:25 | |
| in Galilee, has written, we're used to hearing | 9:28 | |
| Jesus speak of blessing in a passive sense, | 9:32 | |
| as in the Beatitudes, where he says, | 9:36 | |
| blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. | 9:39 | |
| Blessed are the merciful. | 9:44 | |
| Blessed are the peacemakers. | 9:46 | |
| The word Jesus uses here in Aramaic | 9:50 | |
| comes from the root word yashar, | 9:52 | |
| which doesn't have this passive quality to it at all. | 9:55 | |
| Instead it means to set yourself on the right path | 9:59 | |
| for the right goal, to turn around, repent, | 10:03 | |
| to become straight, or righteous. | 10:06 | |
| It's better, Chacour says, to translate | 10:09 | |
| Jesus's words of blessing like this. | 10:12 | |
| Get up, go ahead, do something, move, | 10:16 | |
| you who are hungry and thirsty for justice. | 10:21 | |
| Get up, go ahead, do something, move, | 10:24 | |
| you peacemakers, for you shall be called children of God. | 10:27 | |
| Get your hands dirty to build a human society | 10:32 | |
| for human beings, otherwise, others will torture | 10:36 | |
| and murder the poor, the voiceless, and the powerless. | 10:40 | |
| Christianity is not passive, Chacour continues, | 10:45 | |
| but active, energetic, alive, going beyond despair. | 10:48 | |
| Get up, go ahead, do something, move, | 10:55 | |
| Jesus said to his disciples. | 10:59 | |
| Live as God's blessing to others. | 11:03 | |
| Jesus not only transforms the notion | 11:09 | |
| of blessing from passive to active, | 11:12 | |
| but he also radicalizes its definition, as well. | 11:16 | |
| For Jesus and for those who follow him, | 11:21 | |
| no longer does being blessed apply primarily | 11:25 | |
| to those who have wealth and prosperity, | 11:28 | |
| who live long, healthy, and happy lives. | 11:31 | |
| In Luke's version of the Beatitudes, Jesus actually says, | 11:36 | |
| "Blessed are you who are poor. | 11:41 | |
| "Blessed are you who are hungry now. | 11:46 | |
| "Blessed are you who weep." | 11:50 | |
| The ones who have lost it all | 11:54 | |
| or who haven't even had it in the first place, | 11:56 | |
| they are the ones God blesses through Jesus. | 12:00 | |
| Why does God bless those who weep? | 12:06 | |
| Or, as Matthew puts it, those who mourn? | 12:10 | |
| Because they are people whose lives are shaped | 12:14 | |
| by a faithful vision of God's kingdom. | 12:18 | |
| As Nicholas Wolterstorff describes them, | 12:22 | |
| the mourners are those who have caught a glimpse | 12:25 | |
| of God's new day, who ache with all their being | 12:28 | |
| for that day's coming, and who break out in tears | 12:32 | |
| when confronted with its absence. | 12:37 | |
| They are the ones who realize that, in God's realm of peace, | 12:41 | |
| there is no one hungry | 12:45 | |
| and who ache whenever they see someone starving. | 12:47 | |
| They are the ones who realize that, in God's realm of peace, | 12:51 | |
| there is no one who fails to see God | 12:54 | |
| and who ache whenever they see someone unbelieving. | 12:58 | |
| They are the ones who realize that, in God's realm, | 13:04 | |
| there is no one who suffers oppression | 13:07 | |
| and who ache whenever they see someone beaten down. | 13:10 | |
| They are the ones who realize that, in God's realm, | 13:17 | |
| there is no one without dignity and who ache | 13:20 | |
| whenever they see someone treated with indignity. | 13:25 | |
| They are the ones who realize that, in God's realm of peace, | 13:31 | |
| there is neither death nor tears and who ache | 13:35 | |
| whenever they see someone crying tears over death. | 13:40 | |
| The mourners are aching visionaries. | 13:46 | |
| In Matthew's Gospel, Jesus not only blesses these | 13:53 | |
| aching visionaries, he also extends this blessing | 13:56 | |
| to those who are heavy-burdened and weighed down. | 14:01 | |
| Jesus's command, take my yoke upon you, | 14:06 | |
| offers not another burden but the liberating freedom | 14:12 | |
| of obedience through discipleship. | 14:16 | |
| By being yoked to him, Jesus is calling us away | 14:20 | |
| from our personal desires for autonomy and independence | 14:24 | |
| and offers us his yoke, one that is easy, | 14:30 | |
| one that is shared. | 14:35 | |
| It echoes the rabbinic teachings on the yoke of the law. | 14:38 | |
| Yet, to take his yoke is to follow him and learn from him | 14:43 | |
| whose law is not burdensome but is characterized | 14:47 | |
| by humility, forgiveness, | 14:52 | |
| and concern for the outcast and downtrodden. | 14:56 | |
| Blessing can be a gift, but it is also a responsibility. | 15:02 | |
| To try to live as a blessing can seem like | 15:10 | |
| an awesome burden, an incredible demand, one that we will | 15:14 | |
| never accomplish if we declare our independence | 15:18 | |
| and focus on our personal freedom and our individual rights. | 15:22 | |
| We live as a blessing only when we take on the yoke | 15:28 | |
| of dependence on Jesus and follow his example | 15:33 | |
| of humility and self-giving love. | 15:37 | |
| Blessed are those whose vision of the kingdom helps them | 15:42 | |
| see that blessing comes through costly love and sacrifice. | 15:48 | |
| We do live in a land that has been blessed by God. | 15:55 | |
| But we are called, just like Abraham and his descendants | 16:00 | |
| were called, to use those blessings as a blessing to others. | 16:03 | |
| On this weekend, we are challenged to reflect on whether we, | 16:10 | |
| as individuals and as a nation, use what we have | 16:15 | |
| as a blessing in service to others or see our blessings | 16:19 | |
| as a gift to which we have exclusive claim. | 16:24 | |
| There is a connection between blessing and sacrifice | 16:31 | |
| that even a nine-year-old little boy was able to envision. | 16:36 | |
| When Ben kissed me on the forehead that night, | 16:43 | |
| he offered a challenging reminder to me and to all of us | 16:46 | |
| of the cruciform shape of a life truly blessed. | 16:52 | |
| Kisses in the form of a cross. | 17:00 | |
| Amen. | 17:06 |
