The Way of Love – Bless


“I will bless you . . . so that you will be a blessing.” Genesis 12:2

As children, we learn to say, “God bless you” after someone sneezes – or, if you are like me, it sounds more like a one syllable word, “Gablesyu.” Originally, the saying was to help ward off sickness and offer support, but over time this response has becomes habit rather than a courtesy. And in this day and age of quasi-political correctness and fear of offending anyone (or admitting we believe in God in the first place!), we might say something less “religious” like salud (Spanish: to your health) or gesundheit (German: health) when someone sneezes. How multi-cultural of us. Unfortunately, such responses remove us from our God-given power to offer our neighbors a blessing.

Similarly, in our Episcopal tradition (from our Catholic heritage), one of the attributes bestowed upon priests at ordination is the ability to offer God’s blessing on people (and to a lesser extent, things).  The unintentional consequence of this is that we have professionalized offering a blessing so that many laity feel they are not “allowed” or “qualified” to offer a blessing. This is not the case.

AND we must also contend with an evangelical religious culture that has appropriated the term “blessed” and uses it in unhelpful ways – i.e. “I was blessed by God when my home was saved from the tornado.” (So what about the poor people who lost everything? Did God decide to curse them?  NO!  But I digress). God does bless us with many gifts and more love than we know what to do with (or even accept!), but God does NOT play favorites.  Mostly it is about how we choose to use what we have been given or respond to the circumstances we face.

If we begin from the premise that God does indeed bless us (and God does!), then we are charged with picking up the mantle of how to be blessing to our neighbors, just as God charged Abraham in Genesis.  And the way we do that is through intention.

When we get up in the morning, thanking God for another day of life (hopefully), we need to pause for a moment and consider how we intend to live into the day that is before us.  Will we be distracted by all the demands on our time and energy from family, work and friends?  Will we work to live rather than live to work?  Or will we set an intention of being a blessing to those who we interact with throughout the day? 

Please understand I’m not asking anyone to be happy and smiling all the time as that is impossible. However, we can CHOOSE to be respectful, kind and loving, even when the situations we find ourselves in are stressful, even adversarial.  In those moments, it is important to remember that a person’s behavior has more to do with their own internal struggle than it has to with you, and you have the opportunity to be gracious rather than cruel – that is a blessing!

To be a blessing takes more forethought than responding to a sneeze. We do need to be intentional about the way we approach life to truly be a blessing.  And everyone, lay and clergy alike, need to claim our power as children of God and be the blessing God wants – and needs! – us to be.  That is when we will truly walk the Way of Love like Jesus did.  Let’s join him on this journey. 

With Lenten Blessings,
Rev. Valerie+

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