Scripture: Matthew 5:1-10
What does it mean to bless and to be blessed? That may not be a question that everyone woke up this morning asking themselves. Standing there brushing your teeth, trying to get your eyes all the way open, in a state of general stupor (which is how I at least wake up) asking yourself, “What is the meaning of blessing and being blessed? Maybe not. But it’s a question I’ve been asking myself as Esther’s baptism approached. Certainly one way of looking at baptism is to see it as an act of blessing, and so I’ve been asking myself what is blessing all about? What do we mean when we talk about such a thing? What do we think we’re doing in an act of blessing, such as baptism?
Before I try to answer those questions, I have a kind of aside about the spirit in which we might ask such questions. One kind of spirit, which is the one I don’t want to have, is the kind of spirit that over-questions and over-analyzes things, sucks the very life out of them. It is possible for people to get so stuck in asking what the meaning of life is that they forget to live life. It is possible to get so involved in dissecting the meaning of a poem or a painting that we forget to enjoy it, or even worse make it impossible to enjoy. It is possible to ask so many questions about the meaning of blessing or of baptism that the wonder and the joy of it, the heart and soul of it, somehow gets lost. It is certainly not my intention to ask questions in that spirit, and I hope I will avoid speaking in that spirit.
The alternative is to ask questions in a spirit of recognizing that baptism, for instance, is not just some superficial thing that we can pass over casually or take for granted. That by its nature it invites us to linger over it, to reflect on it, to try to be open to its different layers of meaning, to absorb it and appreciate it, and therefore to ask questions about it, but gently, not in an aggressive and challenging way as though to demand a precise explanation, but in a gentle manner so as to grant it a significance that is worth asking about and taking time to explore. I hope I am asking my questions much more in that spirit. And in any case, I am asking you to listen in that spirit.
So, blessing. I am thinking of blessing this morning in terms of the touch of God, a touch of God on our lives, a holy, healing, calling, ultimately unsettling touch of God on our lives. In the case of baptism, of course, the touch of God did not take place just a few moments ago. Our human touches in the act of baptizing and in the laying on of hands are symbolic touches, reminders and suggestions of that invisible touch of God. They point us to something that was already true. Any human act of blessing we engage in merely invokes or brings to our awareness or tries to express some deeper unseen truth. Or truths, many truths, many layers of truth. And so I ask the question what does this mean not in order to get a precise answer but in order to open myself to the many answers that may be waiting for me.
In the case of baptism, the most immediate way in which I sense the touch of God is in an awareness of the pure giftedness of every human being, Esther, you, me, everyone. It is not that baptism places Esther within the Christian community and therefore among those who have been touched by God. It is that baptism places Esther within the Christian community and that from within this Christian point of view all people have been touched by God, are gifts from God, are something more than flesh and blood and air and water, are something much more than that, made up of wonder and of the capacity to love and to grieve and to reach out for God. When I think of the touch of God, when I refer to the touch of God, that is certainly one thing I mean, the something more that each of us is, the touch of God that makes each of us a pure gift, the handiwork of God, a miracle. And again, we receive Esther as a gift, as a miracle not because she is now a Christian but because from a faith perspective every person is just such a miracle. Every person carries around with him or her the reality of being touched by God. Every person is blessed in that way. Baptism didn’t make that happen. It pointed to that truth.
Another way in which I sense the touch of God is in the relationship which again was not created this morning but that was acted out and symbolized and formalized this morning. We—Lisa, Esther, Sojourners—we have found our way into each others lives. It is no common, trivial occurrence. We are blessed by Esther’s presence among us. She is blessed by our presence in her life. She has been sent to us, We have been sent to her. The touch of God is to be found in this new relationship that has come into being. I always have that overwhelming sense of gratitude that goes with being blessed when new people come into the life of this community. A journey of some kind brings people here, and the journey of this congregation puts us in a position to be found. And we adopt each other, and we say we belong to each other. And in this whole process there is a lot more than some new faces in the crowd and some new names on the fellowship list. There is, to me, an unmistakeable sense of being blessed, a sense of the touch of God in all the journeys that have brought all of us together.
You understand that I am not envisioning God as moving us all around like chess pieces and bringing us all together by force, if you will. Frankly, if that were the case, I’m not sure I would receive it as a blessing. The whole thing is much more mysterious than that, but nevertheless I do sense the touch of God in the process, not a heavy-handed control but just the slightest almost, imperceptible touch that blesses a collection of people and makes it a community and that says we don’t just exist in proximity to each other but that we belong to each other. If any of those things happens, if a collection of individuals mysteriously somehow becomes a community, if something causes us to recognize that we belong to each other, it is a blessing.
The touch of God, I will say again, is a light touch. Because it is, it may not be easily noticed or felt, and may be hardly perceptible amidst the profanities that surround us, the violence not only of war but of harsh and angry words, of thoughtless and unloving attitudes, of efforts to control us by threat, intimidation, and manipulation. We are surrounded and our lives are filled with many things that most certainly are not and have nothing to do with being touched by God. The sense of being touched by God of being blessed is not just easily and obviously available to us, which is why many of us need to set aside some time or some space where our awareness of God’s touch is made possible, some time of quiet or meditation or prayer. But it’s important for that to happen, not so much because it will give us a nice warm feeling, but because being blessed is to gain a kind of subversive identity.
This may sound like it directly contradicts what I said before about belonging, but baptism, any act of blessing where the touch of God is recognized, says to us, reminds us, that we belong to no one but God. If we were able to realize fully the blessing of God (none of us do it fully, but if we could), fear would not work, intimidation would not work, manipulation would not work, because we would recognize no one as having control over us and we would recognize the worth of our lives as coming from no one but God. Baptism, all blessings, subvert all earthly forms of authority.
Thinking about the lightness of the touch of God makes me also reflect upon the lightness of the ways we may touch God. Our touching of God is also maybe a light touch. Those prayers, I’m thinking, that touch the heart of God are not those that are the loudest or the most confident. They come rather from those who are not sure they know how to pray or what prayer is all about. They come from those who are vulnerable and whose prayers are surrounded by thoughts like “Dear God, if you are there, if you are…” The prayers I imagine as touching the heart of God are from those who mourn, from those who may not believe firmly or see clearly. Understand now, I am not proposing here a theory or theology of prayer. I’m not suggesting who God will listen to, or that God will intervene for these people but not for those. I am definitively not saying any of those things. Just that whatever transactions there are between ourselves and God are not going to be heavy-handed kinds of things. They are going to have a light touch in both directions, a touch of blessing and of being blessed.
Which brings me to the blessings of Jesus, often referred to as the beatitudes. Trying to update the language, and maybe offer an interpretation of what blessing means, some translators have substituted the word happy, so that Jesus’ words would read: “Happy are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Happy are those who mourn for they will be comforted…” and so on. I have to tell you: I am not a language scholar, but that translation does nothing for me. It reduces blessings to things that make you happy, which I think is a superficial way of looking at blessing and one that I have trouble associating with Jesus. But if, as I am suggesting this morning (and this is only one small way of looking at things, of course) but if being blessed is recognized the touch of God, then what Jesus says suddenly sounds deeply true to me. The touch of God is certainly present in the lives of those who are poor in spirit and in the spirits of those who mourn. The touch of God is certainly present to those who are merciful. The touch of God is certainly present among the peacemakers and those who hunger for justice.
And so here is one way I have of hearing what Jesus said, words that are both loving and, as I say, subversive:
Touched by God are those who are poor in spirit.
Touched by God are those who mourn.
Those who are seen as meek, by others or by themselves, they too are very much touched by God.
Touched by God are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.
But also touched by God are those who show mercy.
The pure in heart, the peacemakers, those who are persecuted, all are touched by God.
And you who read these words, yes you there at Sojourners some 2000 years from now, you are touched by God.
Let me come back at the end of these reflections to where I started, with us getting up in the morning, brushing our teeth, getting ready to face the day if not seize it, and maybe as we splash water on our face, which is a little better symbolism than brushing your teeth, maybe as we splash water on our face, or let water fall on our bodies in a shower, maybe it will occasionally be enough to remind us of our baptism, or just of being blessed. Maybe as water rolls off our faces or our bodies, even if we are only half-conscious of it, maybe we will be aware that we are blessed by the light but sacred touch of God. May it be so. Amen.
Jim Bundy
November 13, 2005