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EXERCISING THE POWER TO BLESS
A sermon by Dr. David
Burhans
Interim Preacher, First Baptist Church, Richmond, Virginia
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Genesis 27:30-38
Acts 4:41-47
In
June 1990, the Boston Globe provided an account of a most unusual wedding
banquet.
Accompanied by
her fiancé, a woman went to the Hyatt Hotel
in downtown Boston and
ordered the meal. The two of them poured over the menu, made selections of
china and silver, and pointed to pictures of the flower arrangements they
liked. They both had expensive taste, and the bill came to thirteen thousand
dollars. After leaving a check for half that amount as down payment, the couple
went home to flip through books of wedding announcements.
The day the
announcements were supposed to hit the mailbox, the potential groom got cold
feet. “I’m just not sure,” he said. “It’s a big commitment. Let’s think about
this a little longer.
When his angry
fiancée returned to the Hyatt to cancel the banquet, the Events Manager could
not have been more understanding. “The same thing happened to me, honey,” she
said, and told the story of her own broken engagement. But about the refund,
she had bad news. “The contract is binding. You’re only entitled to thirteen
hundred dollars back. You have two options: to forfeit the rest of the down
payment, or go ahead with the banquet. I’m sorry. Really, I am.”
It seemed crazy,
but the more the jilted bride thought about it, the more she liked the idea of
going ahead with the party – not a wedding banquet, mind you, but a big
blowout. Ten years before, this same woman had been living in a homeless
shelter. She had gotten back on her feet, found a good job, and set aside a
sizable nest egg. Now she had the wild notion of using her savings to treat the
down-and-outs of Boston to a night on the town.
And so it was
that in June of 1990 the Hyatt Hotel in downtown Boston hosted a party such as
it had never seen before. The hostess changed the menu to boneless chicken –
“in honor of the groom,” she said – and sent invitations to rescue missions and
homeless shelters. That warm summer night, people who were used to peeling
half-gnawed pizza off the cardboard dined instead on chicken cordon bleu. Hyatt
waiters in tuxedos served hors d’oeuvres to senior citizens propped up by
crutches and aluminum walkers. Bag ladies, vagrants, and addicts took one night
off from the hard life on the sidewalks outside and instead sipped champagne,
ate chocolate wedding cake, and danced to big-band melodies late into the night.
This story dramatically, poignantly describes two powerful forces at
work in human relationships, the power to bless and the power to withhold
blessing (or to curse). Myron Madden wrote a little book entitled The
Power to Bless in which he contends that blessing and cursing
are vivid realities in the lives of all people. He believes that the person who
can speak the deep word of forgiveness, acceptance, love is a healer of the
highest order because he or she removes the deepest malady, the inner feeling of
curse and condemnation. Each of us, you see, has weight and influence with
others which means that we have the power to bless or the power to withhold
blessing (to curse), to cause to grow or to wither, to heal or to hurt, to help
or to hinder.
The late L. D. Johnson of Furman University identified the 27th
chapter of Genesis as a classic example of a person’s power to bless or to
curse. Blind aging Isaac has realized that his wife, Rebecca, has conspired
with her favorite, younger son, Jacob, to secure the father’s blessing—a
blessing which was reserved for the eldest son and a blessing once given was
irrevocable.
There’s not much sympathy spent on Esau seething in his bitter
disappointment. It is true he had despised his birthright which was a serious
mistake, and he wasn’t particularly sensitive to spiritual things. But let’s do
give him some consideration. Try to identify with his feelings. Let’s not
begrudge him his grief over being deprived of his father’s blessing.
The father’s blessing carried great significance, determining the
character and destiny of the recipient. Blessing was as affirming and uplifting
as cursing was destructive and, once spoken, the power of blessing and cursing
could not be recalled. There is little wonder then that Esau cried with an
exceedingly great and bitter cry and said to his father. “Bless me, even me
also, O my Father!” The firstborn’s blessing was gone forever. Jacob with his
mother’s scheming had it. But must Esau be wholly bereft? “Have you not
reserved a blessing for me? Have you but one blessing? Bless me, even me
also,” cries the unblessed child, parent, neighbor, employee.
In contrast to the poignant story of Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob and Esau is
the account of the early Christian community and a man who has become one of my
favorite Bible characters. He is one of 16 Josephs mentioned in the Bible and
was given a nickname by the Apostles of the church. He was called Barnabas
which literally means “son of encouragement.” It stands for the ability to
inject hope and courage into the lives of other people. It is a special gift to
be able to give people a fresh start, to be an encourager of the people around
you. This is Barnabas, and it was Barnabas who played a major role in holding
together the early Christian community. He is a classic model of one who
exercised the power to bless.
The early Christians were Jewish people who were convinced that Jesus,
the Crucified One, had been the Messiah and now they were aggressive, bold in
their stories about his resurrection. This was a major threat to the Roman
authorities who thought they had put an end to this Jesus Movement. Once again,
the authorities acted quickly to try to put an end to all of this, and economic
reprisals became a primary means of attack. Many of the followers of Jesus
began loosing their jobs and other sources of income until it began to appear
that the very survival of the church was in question. Joseph stepped forward at
this critical moment in the life of the church, sold some property he owned and
gave the proceeds to the church community. It was his way of saying, “I have
been greatly blessed. I have more than I need, perhaps I can help those who
have less than they need.” This act of generosity encouraged others to do the
same, and the impact on the early church was amazing. A wave of optimism and
new energy helped launch one of the finest periods in the history of the church.
What many of us do not remember is that Barnabas was a major player in
the transformation of Saul the vicious persecutor into Paul the victorious
preacher. Following Saul’s dramatic encounter with the Risen Christ on the road
to Damascus, the Christians had real concern whether his transformation was real
or whether it was a ploy to infiltrate the Christian community, to disrupt and
to destroy the early church. At no little risk to his own reputation, Barnabas
went to the trouble of checking-out Paul for himself. He took Paul by the hand
and led him around to all the Christians in Jerusalem confirming the
authenticity of Paul’s conversion. The Son of Encouragement was a significant
force in bringing Paul to a position of leadership in the early Christian
church. Barnabas was a healer of the highest order because he was able to remove
the deepest malady—Paul’s feeling of rejection and condemnation.
I have set before you this morning in these Biblical stories two
distinct models that describe human relationships, that shape much of what we
experience in our own journeys: The power to bless and the power to withhold
blessing (or to curse).
1) Withholding blessings has broad ramifications. When acceptance, affirmation,
forgiveness, gratitude are withheld from any individual, from any one of us, it
isn’t long before the inner pain we feel turns to sorrow and perhaps bitterness
and resentment. We function fairly well, meet work and home obligations, and
attend to social events the best we can, but we find ourselves almost trudging
through daily routine with what I have come to call “a closed heart.”
This “closed heart”
metaphor gets wide Biblical coverage and has been examined carefully by New
Testament scholar, Marcus Borg. In his book, The Heart of Christianity,
he identifies the “closed heart” as a heart that is “shut,” or a heart that is
“fat” as if encrusted within a thick layer, or a proud heart, or a heart “made
of stone” which would be a hard heart.
So
what does a “closed heart” look like?
A closed heart doesn’t see
very well. It has limited vision and we know something about that. A little girl
worked for some time making a picture for her daddy. When he came home from
work, he glanced at it and said, ”Sure, honey, that’s nice,” and proceeded to
tell his wife what a rotten day he had had. The child was quiet at dinner and up
until bedtime. Her mother went to tuck her into bed and returned to the den. She
said to her husband, “Megan prayed for you tonight. She prayed, ‘please let
Daddy see me again.’ He was quickly into her bedroom, knelt by her bed and said
more than once, Daddy sees you again, Megan.” Life is not lost by dying, but by
living without awareness.
The closed heart lacks
gratitude. We also know those moments when we are self-absorbed with no thought
of expressing gratitude. The closed heart person may also live with the attitude
of entitlement, conveying a spirit of “I deserve.”
A closed heart is
insensitive to awe and wonder. It is the person who no longer marvels at a
starlit sky, at the birth of a newborn, the thrill of a new insight, at the gift
of a special friendship and the dogwoods and azaleas no longer dazzle.
A closed heart lacks
compassion, feels little if anything of the suffering and heartache of others.
They may often be people who stay stuck in their own sorrow and haven’t learned
that the best healers in the world are wounded healers.
We
hear the ancient story of Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob and Esau and witness the pain
and suffering of closed hearts.
2) In stark contrast are the open hearts of Moses standing before the
burning bush, the Psalmist proclaiming “This is the day which the lord has
made…” and the early Christian fellowship alive and celebrative with Barnabas,
Son of Encouragement, right at the center. I am always inspired when I read the
account of this group of Christians gathered for worship in a spirit of joy,
praise, thanksgiving and much laughter -- open hearted people -- joyful,
vibrant, aware of the presence of God.
The open-hearted-person is struck by awe and wonder. These folk
are refreshed by the things that amaze them. Have you slowed down enough to
notice God’s creativity, extravagance, and liberal spirit lately? One universe,
one planet, one kind of rose, one kind of tree, one race of people, one color of
dogwood, one snowflake design would have been enough. This is an extravagant
God, who graces us with beauty and light and joy.
The open heart is also known by one’s capacity for laughter.
It is a divine gift for energy, for health, for perspective. Good humor and the
comic spirit become a life-giving force that delivers us from fear, tension and
even from ourselves.
A young priest was facing
a tough assignment—his first attempt to teach a Sunday School Class. Eager to
be accepted by the kids, he tried to portray himself as casual, accessible and
not too pious. He sat on the edge of a desk and, just to get started, asked a
question of the wide-eyed children. “Hey, kids,” he said, “What’s gray, furry,
gathers nuts and runs up and down trees? There was a long pause while the kids
looked at each other with puzzled faces. Finally, one
little boy ventured an
answer. “Well, I know the answer should be Jesus – but it sure sounds like a
squirrel to me!”
Why
are Christians often so joyless? Perhaps we know guilt more than we know
forgiveness. Friederich Nietzsche said, “Christians should look more redeemed.”
An open heart knows how to
say “thank you!”
For the people and family pets that have graced our lives, for the people who
have taught us in the classroom and out of the classroom, and even for the
learning gained from the sad, heartbreaking, difficult experiences along the
journey, we praise God for God’s goodness and mercy which pursue us all the days
of our lives. “The acid test of spiritual maturity,” one minister wrote, “is
this: How grateful are you?”
The open heart is a heart of compassion which translates into
passion for justice. Because we know something of weakness and struggle, do we
deal gently with the weak, the marginalized? If we cannot go to Africa, can we
feel the anguish of the African mother cradling the rigid body of her dead
child? If we do not visit a nursing home, can we experience the emptiness of
those older folk who have no future, no present, only scattered memories? If
there is no young teen-ager in our lives, in our homes, can we recall briefly
the need to belong, to be “cool,” hoping not to be embarrassed.
And finally, the open heart works at keeping God in the
center of one’s life, focusing on what the Lord requires of us; namely,” to
do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with God.” This open-hearted person is
winsome and attractive, not judgmental. Open eyes and ears for service to others
mark the spirit of this person, not criticism and negativity. William Sloan
Coffin said, “Professors judge poetry, novels, art and music by their very best
works. Why then do so many judge religion by the worst examples of it?” O God,
grant us the will and the grace to keep our hearts open to You and to your
children.
This brings me back to where I started this morning. Each of us has
weight and influence with others and each of us carries within him/her the
power to bless and the power to withhold blessing or to curse. As we
walk into this new week, I trust you will be quiet enough, often enough to see
and hear those poignant, tender words, “Bless me, even me also!” and you answer,
“Yes, I will!” In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
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