Blessing
a sermon given by Cricket Potter
on Sunday, May 7, 2006
at The First Parish in Lincoln
“To give someone a blessing is the most significant affirmation we can offer.
It is more than a word of praise or appreciation; it is more than pointing out someone’s talents or good deeds...
To give a blessing is to affirm, to say ‘yes’ to a person’s belovedness.”
-Henri Nouwen
READINGS:
1. Our first reading this morning is from the novel Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. The aging Rev. John Ames is writing to his young son in an effort to pass on an accounting of his own life and that of his forebears. In the excerpt for today’s reading, Rev. Ames is reflecting upon an experience from his childhood when he was perhaps ten or eleven years old. He and several friends, all “very pious children from pious households in a fairly pious town,” baptized a litter of barn kittens. Here are his remembrances of that experience.
I still remember how those warm little brows felt under the palm of my hand. Everyone has petted a cat, but to touch one like that, with the pure intention of blessing it, is a very different thing. It stays in the mind. For years we would wonder what, from a cosmic viewpoint, we had done to them. It still seems to me to be a real question. There is a reality in blessing, which I take baptism to be, primarily. It doesn’t enhance sacredness, but it acknowledges it, and there is a power in that. I have felt it pass through me, so to speak. The sensation is of really knowing a creature, I mean really feeling its mysterious life and your own mysterious life at the same time.
2. Our second reading is from the creation story in Genesis, chapter 1. In this story, God begins by creating the heavens and the earth. After fashioning the earth with its land and water, plants and trees, God saw that it was good. And so God continued to create the sun and the moon, and the creatures of the sea and of the land, noting after each step of creation that it was good. Then, on the sixth day, God made humankind. Here is that part of the creation story.
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. . . . So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
Then God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.
Blessing.
It is a word I have thought a lot about this past week
as I have reflected upon Haley’s baptism this morning
and tried to explain it to her in terms a 5 ½ -year-old could understand.
How do you explain, that a bunch of our family and friends are coming to church
and that she and I and her aunt and grandmother are all going to stand up
in front of the congregation,
with her dressed in her best Sunday dress,
so that Roger can put some water on her forehead and say some important words?
“That’s silly!” Haley exclaimed with a scrunched up face and a long giggle
the first time I described what happens in a baptism.
I had to agree with her – it did sound kind of silly.
But then I explained to Haley that baptism is something called a sacrament.
A sacrament, I said, is a seemingly small thing that we do –
like touching water to a person’s head -- as a way of telling a much bigger story.
Kind of the way that a hug that I would give her is more than just me touching her –
it tells a bigger story about how much I love her and how special she is to me.
I had her attention now.
So, then we talked about how everyone is loved and special in their own way
because everyone is a beautiful creation of God
and God is love.
A baptism, I explained, is one way to remind us of all this.
So far, so good.
Then finally we talked about how good it feels to be told that we are loved or special because,
quite honestly, sometimes we forget or we just don’t feel that way, particularly on a bad day.
Haley definitely got that part.
So, with all this theology under our belts, it was time to practice.
That night, I brought a cup of water to Haley’s bedside.
After reading books, I dipped my fingers in the water, touched Haley’s forehead and said,
“Haley, you are special and you are loved.”
There was a long silence as Haley took it all in,
the feel of the warm water on her forehead,
the words I had just spoken,
the tone of my voice as I had spoken those words,
and the way I just sat and looked at her taking in this profound mother-daughter moment.
Soon though, a glint flashed in Haley’s eye and a smile beamed across her face.
She then dipped her fingers in the cup of water, reached up and touched my forehead and said,
“Mommy, you are special and you are loved, too.”
You can imagine what that did to me!
Blessing.
We do a lot of that here at First Parish.
We are constantly living out the very definition of blessing
which is to sanctify or honor as holy.
In fact, blessing is something that is woven deeply into the fabric of this community.
It is in the way we reach out to touch one another,
as if we each have dipped our own fingers into that cup of water
to say to those around us,
“You are loved. You are cared for.”
We do it with our presence and our listening, our conviction and our compassion.
We do it in the prayers we say, the hugs we share, the way we support one another.
It is also in the way we reach out to others outside this community,
those for whom life has felt anything but a blessing.
We seek to know them and understand the challenges of their lives.
From that connection, we then work to uphold their humanity
and what we could think of as their divinity.
I am reminded of a story from our Lenten Booklet this year.
It is a story from a man in prison.
He writes:
Five and a half years ago I was sent to prison. I could not make the same claim as Joseph who was falsely imprisoned after Potiphar’s wife accused him of trying to seduce her. At the onset of my incarceration . . . I believed that my horizon would always be ugly and bleak.
Early in my sentence I looked up and saw a thing of beauty standing tall on the desolate horizon: The First Parish in Lincoln. . . .
The spark (of hope) came to me in the form of four First Parish parishioners. . . . (Their) willingness to go into a dark, almost abandoned place made it possible for me to receive help needed to see that the sun shines in spite of it all.
There is a reality and a power in blessing, Rev. Ames tells us in the novel Gilead.
It is the power of love over hatred and hope over fear.
And I would also add that it is a profound and radical gift we can offer another.
Profound because it can change our lives – give us strength, hope, and courage.
Radical because so much of what we experience in the world can be discouraging.
So much can be about labels and exclusions, pressures and barriers.
It can bring out the worst in us, and it can bring us down.
It can deny all that is good and life-affirming, true and authentic.
I dare say that we all have our scars, however large or small, to show for it.
And quite honestly, it is the way a church community gifted me with their blessing
almost 25 years ago that ultimately led to my entering the ministry
and being here with you now.
It was a time when life felt very dark to me.
I was still reeling from the effects of an abusive relationship.
It was a relationship that had isolated me from family and friends,
caused me to give up many of the things that brought joy into my life
and made me feel good about myself,
and subsequently one that made me feel very ashamed
and unsure who or what I was anymore.
Feeling entirely unlovable, I accepted a neighbor’s invitation to come to church with her.
I will never forget the feeling that came over me that first Sunday
in that big, beautiful Presbyterian Church.
I took in the sense of community and the sense of acceptance and connection
that was palpable in the people around me.
I took in the music and light, hope and joy, prayer and peace
that pervaded the sanctuary.
And I took in all that I heard about being children of God.
“You are worthy and you are loved,” I heard.
“You are deeply and forever loved.”
Something in me just let go.
I let go of all the struggles and the shame and the self-doubts.
And the tears started to come.
They came and they came -- that morning in church and for many Sundays thereafter
as I continued to learn about God’s love
and about the healing Jesus offered to those cast out by society.
The words I heard and the acceptance and love I received from those around me
were like salve on an open wound.
These people were blessing me.
They were blessing me for the beloved person they knew I truly was
underneath the confusion and the mistakes.
And isn’t that the gift that Jesus offered to those who came to him?
He saw past the labels to the person within.
He saw past the mistakes and the wounds to the image of the divine that is within all of us –
just as we hear in our scripture reading for this morning.
From Genesis, we read that God created humankind in God’s own image.
And when God saw everything that God had made, behold, it was very good.
Right there we are told that a spark of the divine is in all of us.
Right there we read that goodness is in each of us.
In healing the paralytics, the lepers, the blind, those possessed with demons,
and even those who by all appearances were dead,
I believe that Jesus was acknowledging the inherent goodness and the light of the divine
that shines within each person.
“I know you,” I believe he was saying.
“I know you for the beloved and sacred creation that you are.
You are whole.
You are well.
Now go and know others as I have known you
so that they may feel loved and accepted.”
Now, what Jesus did was not easy.
It went against the very grain of society
which was about keeping people down and in their place
As Jesus showed, to bless is a conscious choice we need to make.
Blessing is not something we are taught or even encouraged to do in our world.
Curses often prevail – in the media, in our popular culture, and certainly in our politics.
So, we need to choose -- to live out the blessing rather than the curses.
Addressing this very choice, Rebecca Parker,
who is the president of the Star King School for the Ministry, writes,
Your gifts . . . can be used to bless or curse the world.
The mind’s power,
the strength of the hands,
the reaches of the heart,
The gift of speaking, listening, imagining, seeing . . .
Any one of these can draw down the prison door,
hoard bread,
abandon the poor,
obscure what is holy,
comply with injustice
or withhold love.
Instead --
Choose to bless the world. . . .
The choice will draw you into community,
the endeavor shared,
the heritage passed on,
the companionship of struggle,
the importance of keeping faith,
the life of ritual and praise,
the comfort of human friendship,
the company of earth,
its chorus of life
welcoming you.
The choice will draw us into community, the endeavor shared,
the companionship of struggle,
the comfort of human friendship.
The choice will call upon us to give and receive in ways both basic and profound.
As we reach out to support and uphold another person,
something deep in us is upheld as well.
As we connect with another human being
and honor the sacredness in them,
we can’t help but feel the sacred stirring in us and between us.
That is the mystery and the grace of it all.
Or, as Rev. Ames reflects in Gilead, that is the power of it all
And so this morning, my own daughter was blessed for who she is –
a beloved creation --
and welcomed into community with all who seek goodness in this world.
Water, as a symbol of purity, was touched to her forehead, and Roger said these words,
“I baptize you in the name of God, whom we know as love and from whom all of life flows, and I welcome you to a life of love and service, in community with all who promote peace and goodness in this world.”
May we also take those words to heart and know that we are loved.
May we also receive this blessing and dwell in its power and its hope.
And, may we go out from this sanctuary choosing to bless this world --
choosing to reach out to others with care and compassion
and affirm the sacred that is the essence of who we are.
Amen.