"The Beloved"-Sermon for Lent 1, Mark 1:9-15
I was blessed to attend the ordination of a friend named Travis recently. Travis was ordained at St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church to the Sacred Order of Priests, as our ordination certificates read…which I like because it sounds more like Harry Potter than church. And there is an old tradition, the origins of which I don’t personally know, but, nonetheless, there is a tradition of asking a newly, just ordained priest for her or him to give you a blessing. Apparently, being new and all…full of the Holy Spirit from just having experienced the laying on of hands and being set apart for the ministry of the priesthood…makes their blessing particularly efficacious or spiritually powerful. Travis had quite a long line going, mainly of priests…I guess we need it more than others…requesting a blessing in the narthex of the church, just as his ordination service ended. As I mentioned in my sermon last week, I am now just over half way to what I hope will be at least a 40-year ministry in the church…so I suppose I might need to start offering two blessings at the end of our services each Sunday…rather than one…to make up for any holiness half-life decomposition that might be happening, as I move ever further from the date of my own ordination. I kid of course…the fact is…watching these women and men, again many of whom were priests and many of whom have been in the ministry for a life-time, seek a blessing…desire the touch and words of love and encouragement coming from another…seeking the affirmation that they are wholehearted, beautiful, capable people, worthy of love and belonging…desiring to receive supernatural power for the life they live and they ministry of love they continue…wanting to be reminded that the God of love is with them, eternally so, walking with them, even carrying them at times, but always with them…as I stood there watching these moments of profound blessing…one person after another…hands on heads…gentle words and a simple sign of the cross on their foreheads…well it moved me…all the way from the top of my head to the bottom of my toes.
My point being, that I cannot understate the power and importance of a blessing…and I don’t only or, even primarily, mean the ritualistic blessing offered in the threefold name of God given by a priest…but I mean the real spiritual power and encouragement that comes from the ways we all intentionally bless one another…in word and in deed…for there is life offered in our blessings…truth told about who we really are. There is real spiritual nourishment and food offered in a blessing…that feeds our souls…that gives us the strength we need to be and become the very people God has created us to be for the living of our lives…for the love suffused ministry we are each called to…for living faithfully, meaningfully, joyfully in times of want and abundance…in times of sorrow and joy…in each new day…wherever our own adventures take us. I need your blessing and you need mine…we need each other’s hugs and handshakes, signs of affection…the loving words of gratitude and grace that we share one with another…for they are nothing less than God’s own. They are nothing short of God’s own love mediated through the ordinary and extraordinary lives we share one with another. This Holy Communion we share together, this sacred meal of bread and wine, exists not only for our own solace and forgiveness and empowerment…but also to fill us and transform us into spiritual food our very selves…to become ourselves a living sacrament that feeds a hungry world. When we are filled with the God of love at this very table, we become the spiritual food that feeds each other’s souls, and it happens each and every time we take the love we find here…and bless each other with it…with loving words and loving deeds…that make the great move from table…into us…and on to one another. The great flow of love from God, to us, to other, and back again…blessings abound.
Many of you know I am a devotee of Henri Nouwen, the late Catholic priest and author. After years of living himself as a beloved and much sought-after author, lecturer and Professor at Harvard and Yale Divinity Schools, Nouwen chose to spend the end of his life, though continuing to write, pastoring a residential community for people with severe intellectual and developmental disabilities…people who needed more help than their families could provide alone. In his book, “Life of the Beloved”, he tells the story, that I am sure I have shared before and will surely again, of how he learned about and experienced personally the power, potential and purpose of blessing, what he called a “real blessing”.
He wrote that one day a resident of the community named Janet asked him for a blessing. So, being formed as a priest, his immediate response was reach out to her, make the sign of the cross on her forehead, and share the familiar, formulaic words that were written on his bones, probably something like…the blessing of God Almighty, Father, Son and Holy Spirit be with you now and remain with you always. And as he concluded, Janet looked up, vehemently protesting, and said, “No, that doesn’t work. I want a real blessing!” Nouwen quickly responded, “Oh, I am sorry. Let me give you a real blessing when we are all together for the prayer service.” So later that day, as his community gathered for prayers, with 30 or so people present, he let the community know that Janet had asked for a special blessing that she felt she needed at that time, and he said further that he quickly understood what it was Janet meant when she asked for a blessing, for she immediately stood up, walked toward him, placed her arms around him, and nestled her head on his chest. Nouwen said that he then wrapped his own arms around her, till she almost became lost in the folds of his clerical robes, and, as they held each other, he said, “Janet, I want you to know that you are God’s beloved daughter. You are precious in God’s eyes. Your beautiful smile, your kindness to the people in your house and all the good things you do show us what a beautiful human being you are. I know you feel a little low these days and that there is some sadness in your heart, but I want you to remember who you are: a very special person, deeply loved by God and all the people who are here with you.” Nouwen said that, when she looked up, the smile on her face told him that she had heard and received her blessing.
Then another woman named Jane raised her hand and said, “I want a blessing to.” And many, many more people followed. And so Nouwen, one at a time, held each and spoke words of blessing over them. Speaking to them something of truth of who they really are…who God knows them to be. Finally, one of the assistants and care-givers who worked with Nouwen among the people who lived there, a 24-year-old student, raised his hand, and said, “And what about me?” So Nouwen, embraced this young man and said, “John, it is so good that you are here. You are God’s beloved son. Your presence is a joy for all of us. When things are hard and life is burdensome, always remember that you are loved with an everlasting love.” John looked up with tears in his eyes and said, “Thank you, thank you very much.” Indeed, this was a moment of “real blessing”…better said…a moment of blessings abounding, heard and received…love and belonging…to God and one another entirely affirmed…the truth told about who we are and who God has made us to be (Life of the Beloved, pages 57-59).
And it seems even Jesus received blessings, especially from God, and I, for one, imagine he needed it, for his Lent like time in the wilderness among the wild beasts and angels, and for his earthy ministry that follows his forty days and nights of spiritual preparation…a blessing to empower his own ministry of bringing God’s life changing love into the very world in which we live and move and have our being. And I speak, in particular, of the very words offered at his own baptism…the words we remember in the Gospel again today. For as Jesus comes up out of the waters of his baptism in the River Jordan, the heavens are torn open, and the Spirit descends on Jesus like a hovering dove, and the words of blessing, God’s own, ring out, words we get to overhear, like Nouwen’s to the people in his own community, but words that were entirely intended for his beloved Son…Jesus’ own special and unique blessing. God says to Jesus “You are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased.” Or in my translation, “Jesus you are mine, now and forever, and I am never going to let you go. I love you…before all time and always. I am so exceedingly pleased with the person you are and the life you live.” And I think we get to overhear this sweet and intimate moment of blessing between a parent and child…for these words are spoken over us as well…at the very moment we emerged from the waters of our own baptisms…a blessing for us, like Jesus, to hear and receive…God saying to us intimately and personally…you are my child. I love you. I am so pleased with you and the life you live. These are words of blessing, from God to us, that not only empower the ministry to which we have been called…but affirm, at the very center of our being, who we uniquely are…words that remind us that we are loved and that we do belong…to God and one another. Food to feed our souls…power for the living of our days…filling us to the point of overflowing…that we may become and then share with each other what we have already received…that we might bless those have been entrusted into our own care.
As we ponder what, in Lent, God is calling us to do, and much more so, to be…perhaps we will be in the mind of the spiritual practice of blessing. Receiving and sharing blessings…words and deeds…that remind ourselves and those we bless…of who we really are and the tremendous and courageous love that we are capable of bringing to a very hungry world. So be quick to bless and generous in the gratitude you offer to others…that kind words of blessing might flow from you that fill up another. Remembering that it is God’s own love…coming through you…which is a sacred trust and great gift…that refreshes and blesses…that makes others, and ourselves, fully alive and whole. Amen.