Friends, over this past year we have been truly blessed by God. We are going to look back a bit this morning as we prepare to look ahead. All of it as we focus on what it means to be blessed to be a blessing. Let’s pray as we begin.
So what is a blessing? We bless food before we eat it. We bless a couple toward the end of a wedding ceremony. We bless troops before they go off to serve. We bless the first crops and first fruits. We ask God to bless folks after they sneeze. We ask God’s blessing on work teams before they leave for their work and leaders before they begin service. We blessed tools, quilts, and now toys. We bless a lot of things but why do we do that? What is a blessing?
To get some idea of blessings let’s first look at scripture and see if we can find some help there. There are blessings throughout the Bible. So I looked it up, found a lot of references and then looked at a number of Bible Dictionaries to try and get some help. I found something odd. In every Bible dictionary I could find – blessing is not listed alone. In every case, it is listed alongside the three major words that describe a curse. In as much as there are three major words specific to a curse, there is only one word for “bless” or “blessing.” Blessings and curses are part of the organizational strata of the Old Testament, particularly Genesis. The word baruk is translated as “bless”, and berakah’ as “blessing or blessed.” It is the opposite of arur, or curse. On the one side, the curse, asks that God remove His power from the situation and allow things to occur apart from or removed from God’s control or support. A blessing asks God to pay special attention, offer special support, or provide special power in whatever is to be blessed. It is powerful stuff in scripture, and has carried over the millennia. But what is a blessing or what is it to be a blessing – it is God’s ability to take anything and make it holy, use anything anywhere for God’s purposes, and set aside some things for special uses. It is God filling that item – including us – with God’s love, grace and power so that we might do the same for others. Blessed to be a blessing. First a story, and forgive me if I’ve told you this story before, but it’s just so perfect for where we’re headed this morning.
Alvin Straight (his real name) was seventy-three when he got the call about his eighty year old brother, Billy. Billy was sick, really sick, and Alvin was the only relative left who could go to be of support. Alvin knew he had to go. There was, however, a problem. Alvin was almost blind, didn’t have a driver’s license, wouldn’t fly and certainly wouldn’t take a train or a bus. Now all of this created a minor challenge. You see, Alvin lived over two hundred miles from his brother. So, just to get the distance in mind, that would be like trying to get from here in Santa Monica to Blythe and the Arizona border. Get that in your heads for just a second. But for Alvin, his brother was calling and needed him, Alvin needed to go, so Alvin got creative and utilized the only mode of transportation available to him. He climbed aboard his trusty John Deere riding lawn mower and began the journey. He drove mostly on the shoulder of the back roads, took almost four days to do it, but do it he did. It was the day a simple riding lawn mower became a car, a train, and a bus. I think his friends were just thankful it didn’t become an airplane – even for a second or two. And don’t you believe that Billy, that older brother, saw that riding lawn mower as so much more than a riding lawn mower as Alvin pulled into town. It was a blessing in his time of need, created even in those four days, to serve a very special purpose. His brother was a little crazy – but a blessing it was and a blessing he was – and obviously blessed given that he got there unharmed.
I remember telling this story on certain memorable Sunday morning. It was while serving at La Tijera United Methodist…my last church. This church wasn’t clear on what the priesthood of all believers meant, nor did it understand with clarity what it meant to be a blessing. So instead of a riding lawn mower sitting in front of the sanctuary, it was a motorcycle, my motorcycle, and it sat right at the base of the chancel stairs, at the very front of the center aisle. I had then covered the seat with an altar cloth, placed a candle behind it, and talked about how our pulpit can be anything anywhere and that God can and does use pretty much anything for God’s work – if we let him. God can and will take the normal and commonplace, bless it, and make it into something usable for the kingdom- whether it’s a riding lawn mower or a motorcycle, a toy or even us. They got the point. I hope we do this morning.
A few minutes ago we took some time to bless toys brought forward by the children. I talked to the children about the importance of remembering and praying for these gifts we’ve received. I talked about the fact that it isn’t just about receiving gifts. It is about also remembering the givers of the gifts, the time taken to pick just the right gift, and ultimately to remember the One who is the greatest giver of Gifts - God. More importantly it is about what we do with the gifts that really matters. We share the joy of this gift with others. We allow this gift to bring us comfort, or times of fun, or an opportunity to play with friends. We can then become grateful for the time and energy it took to have this particular gift given to us. We begin to understand the importance of being appreciative. We realize and remember just how blessed we are as receiver, and how important it is to be blessed as givers. And finally, we remember that the greatest gift this Christmas comes from a Creator who loved us so much that He sent a Son to help us understand how life is to be lived, and how love is to be received. Jesus came, born in the most common of locations (Bethlehem), to two pretty common people (Mary and Joseph), into the most common of situations (a stable and a cow trough).
But it goes even deeper than that. Those that received the message were the most common of people – the poorest of all. They were shepherds. The angels didn’t sing to those in the Temple. They didn’t perform for kings or queens. They didn’t gather for those who could afford to get front row seats. No, they chose the poorest to receive the first message of the coming of the Christ child. They chose the shepherds. This story, the part read by Linda Diane, helps us understand that God came to everyone on earth – everyone, even those – maybe especially those with nothing. The shepherds were blessed with being chosen, and they became a blessing as they shared with others what they saw and heard. God does that. God takes the common, everyday stuff of life, often those that we don’t notice or pay little attention to, blesses it and it becomes something special. Look on the altar this morning.
On the altar table this morning we have a few examples. A simple candle, when placed in a certain place can turn into something that helps us understand anticipation of the coming of the Christ child – add it to three others, and then add a bigger one in the middle, surround it with greenery and suddenly we have the symbols of a season that leads all others – Advent, our Christian new year. Then, take a bunch of smaller candles, place them in the hands of those celebrating Christmas late at night, light them, sing silent night, lift them, and experience the overwhelming power of what Christmas means – the light shining in the darkness. I will never forget what one of our graduating seniors said in a sermon a couple of years ago. If you notice, darkness can’t put light out, it can’t penetrate light nor can it by itself overcome light. Light, even one candle in the darkest of places, can overcome the darkest of places. What a blessing. It’s what blessing does. It takes the normal and makes it extraordinary.
And here’s another example, two really. One piece of thread, that when woven together with others, add wire and three pictures, surround it all by a wooden frame and placed it all on an altar, and suddenly we are blessed with the ability to understand more fully the struggle of one community on the other side of the world. It helps us see AIDS in Africa in a whole new way – through the Keiskamma Altar Piece – and helps the community here see us, First United Methodist Church, in a new way. We become blessed by having the Keiskamma here and a blessing to the African Village and to the community because of it…blessed to be a blessing. Or take another simple piece of thread…and see what happens when one piece of cloth is sown together with another, and then another, and then another – with capable and creative hands. Add two pieces of normal, everyday thread into each square, hang it on a wall in a church sanctuary and suddenly it becomes an immense blessing for someone who needs some tangible example of community prayer. ..a blessing! Our hearts are moved by the stories and needs of those for whom we pray. We are blessed to be a blessing.
How about a regular piece of sod, or a yellow piece of ribbon, or a hammer - each placed in the hands of men and women who traveled twenty two hundred miles to gut houses, plant a lawn, or tie ribbons in a hurricane ravaged place. To a person they talk of what they received by offering what they had to others in need. Blessed to be a blessing. Here is more: a battery powered screw driver is just a tool until it is placed in the hands of a youth in New Orleans and used to rebuild a home for someone who thought they’d lost theirs. A camera and a piece of silicon work together to help us remember what we’ve done as a church this year, a poor shepherd watching their flock by night on a starry, starry night…well, I think you get the point.
So, why do we ask God’s blessing on a meal? Why do we bless a marriage at a wedding? Why do we bless a team before leaving to work? Because …
And now we look ahead, particularly at the next two Sundays…what does God have in store for us? We simply don’t know. Yet, nor did we know at this time last year. And what happened: the Keiskamma, another Calvin Grant, Nate Risdon and Paul Deveaux, a beautiful DVD created to celebrate this past year and the stewardship that will make next year even better, more teams were sent to New Orleans - one with eighteen youth, more prayer quilts, a new and yet familiar preschool director, a renovated Simkins Hall that will soon become the center of the aptly named Shelby Center…and so much more. Now we look ahead to a Habitat for Humanity project, another mission trip to New Orleans – this time expanded some, a Calvin workshop to help parents with children in sports, and again, so much more. It’s why we pray God’s blessing on all of it, with the hope that we can approach it with tenacious ingenuity – much like Alvin and his riding lawn mower…and as I said, if God can take a riding lawn mower and use it as a mode of transportation, can take thread, cloth, a simple hammer, and candles to created something powerful, think of what God can do when each of us, here, see ourselves as a potential blessing. We are blessed to be a blessing – last year and now in the years ahead.
I close this morning with a prayer – Wesley’s Covenant prayer. It was written to be read and prayed on this last Sunday of the calendar year to prepare God’s people for what lay ahead. The introduction for the prayer goes like this. Wesley writes: “In the old covenant, God chose Israel to be a special people and to obey the law. Our Lord Jesus Christ, by his death and resurrection, has made a new covenant with all who trust in him. We stand within this covenant and bear his name. On the one side, God promises in this covenant to give us new life in Christ. On the other side, we are pledged to live not for ourselves but for God. Today, therefore, we meet to renew the covenant which binds us to God. Friends, let us claim the covenant God has made with his people, and accept the yoke of Christ. To accept the yoke of Christ means that we allow Christ to guide all that we do and are, and that Christ himself is our reward. Christ has many services to be done; some are easy, others are difficult; some make others applaud us, others bring only reproach; some we desire to do because of our own interests; others seem unnatural. Some times we please Christ and meet our own needs, at other times we cannot please Christ unless we deny ourselves. Yet Christ strengthens us and gives us the power to do all these things. Therefore, let us make this covenant of God our own. Let us give ourselves completely to God, trusting in God’s promises and relying on God’s grace.” He then closes with this prayer. I’ll change the words only to make it inclusive of all of us. Let this be our closing prayer this morning. Let us pray. We give ourselves completely to you, O God. Assign us to our place in creation. Let us suffer for you. Give us the work you would have us do. Give us the many tasks or have us step aside while you call others. Put us forward or humble us. Give us riches or let us live in poverty. We freely give all that we are and all that we have to you. And now, holy God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, make us yours. May this covenant made on earth continue for all eternity. Amen!
©Brad Beeman, 2007. Permission is given for brief quotation with attribution.
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"Blessed to Be A Blessing"