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Foundry United Rev. |
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Living in the Thin Places: Blessings Sunday, February 11,
2007 |
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Genesis 12: 1-5a |
Sticks
and stone may break my bones but words can never hurt me. Not true, of course.
Not true at all. Words
are powerful. Words can heal or wound…give life or destroy. Words are
powerful beyond measure. The
ancient Israelites realized this. Their understanding of the power of words
is seen in their beliefs about blessings and curses. Blessings
are words that empower, build up, connect, create, endow, enhance. Curses are
words that nullify, impoverish, isolate, alienate, diminish. There
is nothing better than to be blessed and nothing worse than to be cursed. Our
Scripture lesson this morning says that the history of salvation begins with
a blessing. God says to Abraham and Sarah, “I will bless you…so that you will
be a blessing…” (Gen. 12: 2) and everything that brings us to sit in this
church together this weekend – that brings billions of people around the
world together this weekend in churches, synagogues and mosques – begins with
a word of blessing. Words are that powerful. Our
theme this Epiphany season is thin places. It is a concept from Celtic
Christianity…the idea that there are places where the veil between the realm
of the mundane and the realm of the eternal become transparent and permeable
and we can almost glimpse and almost taste the divine. Blessings
are thin places. Words that empower and create and heal and connect are thin
places. Blessings are “word places” where the material world and the
spiritual world touch each other and are transformed. No one
of us can live without blessings. I literally believe that. I believe that
literally. It is
the blessings of parents, teachers, Sunday school teachers, friends,
relatives, neighbors…the blessings of God…that give us life. There is no one
of us who would be who we are today without words of blessings that helped us
know that we are capable, gifted, lovable, valuable, okay. Blessings
are life. Here’s the
key thing I want to suggest about blessings as thin places this morning: Blessings
interrupt and repair and redeem the natural laws of cause and effect. Blessings
transform history – human history but also our personal intimate histories,
yours and mine. Blessings are where
heaven and earth meet, and life is transformed. This is
the message of the blessing of Abraham and Sarah. Blessings interrupt history
and create new tomorrows. “I will bless you…so that you will be a blessing,”
God tells Abraham and Sarah. Blessings have the capacity to multiply. One of
the most difficult and debated aspects of the theology of the Apostle Paul is
his insistence in the Book of Galatians that we are all born under a curse. (Gal.
3: 10-14) But I think this is a sociologically accurate observation. Who of
us comes through life not wounded and hurt and alienated by words that
diminish us? Who of us is bright enough, caring enough, talented enough, obedient
enough, pretty enough, straight enough, pure enough, disciplined enough,
polished enough, something-or-another enough not to experience a sense of
being cursed in some way or another? For
some of us, the sense of curse is almost overwhelming. I don’t know if it is
still true, but years ago I read that the most common tattoo worn by convicts
in prison was a tattoo that said “Born to lose.” Being
cursed is the common universal sociological experience. It is the human
condition. This is what I think the Apostle Paul is saying when he says we
are born under a curse. The
curse is as contagious as any disease. Rabbi Michael Lerner describes what he
calls “a biblical theory of violence.” “Cruelty
is made possible,’ he says, “when human beings do not recognize in each other
the image of God that is the essence of their own being – and hence turn away
from others, do not hear their pain. Once this process begins, it builds upon
itself, becomes a powerful force that is transferred from generation to
generation.… As generations and centuries pass, the habit of cruelty becomes
embodied in social institutions…Eventually people forget it could ever be another
way.” Racism
of all sorts stem from this, he says – the subordination of women by men, the
creation of slavery, and hierarchal orders of privilege.[i] All
this becomes embodied in the human psyche, Lerner says. The world’s cruelty
is internalized by us all. The cruelty is “communicated in thousands of way
from the moment [a] child is born.”[ii]
We are cruel to one another personally and institutionally in thousands of
ways and none of us comes through it whole. This is
the curse into which we all are born and that is born into us. But
Jesus, Paul says, enters into the curse – takes the curse upon himself – so that
all of us – Jew and gentile…insider and outsider – might enter into the
blessings of Abraham. ( Blessings
interrupt and repair and redeem the natural laws of cause and effect.
Blessings transform history – human history but also our personal intimate
histories, yours and mine. Blessings
are where heaven and earth meet, and life is transformed. Blessings are our
salvation. Blessings are a thin place. When
someone sees us and recognizes something of the image of God in us and
manages to put that into language that we can hear we have been at a thin
place. When we see another and recognize something of the image of God in her
or him and manage to put that into language that he or she can hear we have
been at a thin place. Blessings
are how redemptive change comes into our world. I want to repeat two
stories told by Rachel Naomi Remen in her book My Grandfather’s Blessings.[iii]
Rachel Remen loved her
grandfather. He was a deeply spiritual man devoted to the study of the
Talmud. From the time she was a very little girl, they discussed together the
principals and teachings of Judaism. When Rachel was six she
had her first and only disagreement with her grandfather. It had to do with
the nature of the minyan. In Jewish tradition any one can pray at any time
but to have an official prayer service there must be ten men present. This
group of ten men is called a minyan. "Why
grandpa?" six-year-old Rachel asked. He explained that whenever ten men
are gathered together in the name of God, God is actually present in the room
with them. By God being present in this way a minyan makes any room holy
ground. "But why only men,
Grandpa?" Rachel asked. "The law says ten
men," he responded. I waited for further explanation, she says, but he
said nothing. "Isn't God present
when ten women are present?” Rachel asked. "The law says
nothing about this Rachel. It has been ten men since the beginning," he responded. Rachel was astounded
and asked, "If something is very old does that make it true?" "Certainly
not," he responded. Six-year-old Rachel
said, "I believe God is present when ten women gather, too." "This is not what
the law says," he answered. Rachel remembers being
shaken by this conversation with her grandfather. Several years later
when her grandfather was terminally ill, Rachel would often come home from
school and be permitted to spend a short time with him. She would read poetry
to him, or read something from one of the books he had written, and sometimes
Rachel would just hold his hand as he slept. One afternoon, as he awoke from
a nap, he looked at Rachel and said, "Rachel, you are such a blessing;
you are a minyan all by yourself." This blessing from her
grandfather on his deathbed empowered Rachel Remen to become a leader of
feminist reformation within Judaism. Blessing is how
redemptive change happens…how repressive and oppressive histories are
overcome. This is why to deny our
blessing to anyone is such a serious matter. And, by the way, this is why our
church Council is engaging in a discussion about the blessing of same-sex
relationships, and asking all of us to engage with them in this discussion. Whom
we choose to bless and whom we choose to deny our blessing is a very serious
matter. Blessings are very
powerful. They are thin places. But they are not
necessarily sweet, sentimental places. Rachel Ramen also tells this story.[iv]
A friend told her about
being married to a man who was highly educated and respected in his
profession but who was physically and psychologically abusive to her, so much
so that she lost her self-confidence, believing that his view of her as
inferior was correct. All of this changed one
day on a street corner in “Look, Melvin,” she had
said. “Isn't that building beautiful?” Thinking they were
alone, he had responded to her in the tone of absolute contempt that he
reserved for their private conversations. “You mean the one over there
that looks exactly like every other building on the street?” he sneered. She had flushed with
shame and fallen silent. And then a woman standing next to them, a
complete stranger who was also waiting for the light to change, turned and
fixed her husband with a glare. “She's absolutely
right, you know,” she said with a strong When the light turned
green, the woman crossed the street and walked away. But she left behind a
blessing that transformed Rachel Remen’s friend’s life. Hearing another women
call her husband a horse’s rear end was a thin place. Blessings are not
merely sentimental. They are powerful. I want to tell you one
more story this morning. It is from Henri Nouwen’s wonderful book Life of the Beloved, which he wrote
right up the street from here at the Church of the Savior’s Nouwen served during the
last years of his life as a pastor with a mentally handicapped community in Nouwen, surprised,
asked Janet if he could give her a real blessing at the community's evening
prayer service. Janet agreed. That evening, after
prayers, Nouwen said that he wanted to give Janet a special blessing. Janet
immediately rose, came to Nouwen and wrapped her arms around him. She was
enveloped in his long rob and full sleeves. Nouwen said, "Janet, you are
a precious daughter of the living God and your presence in our community all
these years has been a joy. Your special gift of laughter has enriched our
life and we a grateful and blessed by your presence among us." Janet
paused for a moment, looked up at Nouwen and smiled, and returned to her
place in the circle. Somewhat to his
surprise, several other members of the community immediately asked for a
blessing and Henri held each of them as he spoke a sincere personal blessing
to them. Then he was amazed when
one of the staff asked if he could have a blessing, too. Nouwen wrote:
"That evening I recognized the importance of blessing and being blessed
and reclaimed it as a true sign of the beloved community. The blessings that
we give each other are expressions of the blessing that rests on us from all
eternity. It is the deepest affirmation of our true self." [v] The curse of cruelty into
which we are born in this world is powerful, but it will crumble in the presence
of blessing. Blessings are powerful thin places where the glorious love of
God shines into the world and transforms us and everything. Bless you. May you be
blessed and may you be a blessing. www.foundryumc.org |
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