Blessed

A sermon for the Second Sunday in Lent. 

     Readings: Genesis 12:1-5 and John 3:16.

The questions that ran through my mind 

     as I worried whether my heart's response to these texts 

was too personal and too raw to preach: 

     Can I preach this? Can I not preach this?

I decided to try...

I wonder about the idea of ‘blessing’ a lot.

     I have studied what the biblical writers mean 

          when they talk about it.

     I think a lot about what it means 

          when we talk about it.

And this week, I certainly wonder 

     what Abram and Sarai thought about blessing…

          after being told by God to leave everything they knew,

               to journey to an unknown land...

                    so they could be blessed,

                         and in turn be a blessing for the whole world.

As many of you know, 

     I used to work at a church in downtown Minneapolis.

We had a social ministry program 

     that offered a variety of services to people in need.

And, as the receptionist, I was often the first one to greet 

     those who came looking for help.

And I would usually start, unsurprisingly, by saying, 

     “How are you?”

I learned quickly that I should not expect the safe,

     politely superficial answers 

          that I was used to getting in response to that question.

There was one particular answer that I actually heard quite often,

   and which continually caught me off guard.

“How are you?” I would ask. 

     And I would be told, “I’m blessed.”

Honestly, at times I was confused by this answer…

     at other times I was just skeptical.

I assumed it was just a different form 

     of superficial or false response…

          partly because I don’t talk about ‘blessedness’ 

             with total strangers,

          and partly because I didn’t see many things

             that looked like 'blessing' 

                 in the lives of many of these people.

But I have been realizing 

     that I may have been very wrong about that…

 because blessing isn’t about everything being okay.

     Blessing goes much deeper than that.

          Blessing is God’s love and promised presence 

               being poured into the world

                    through people onto other people…

         It is a resurrection power 

               that can exist within pain and death…

                   because it is stronger and will live longer than both.

         And it is a force that multiplies itself as it grows 

               and pours through us like a fountain 

                    with bowls that overflow from top to bottom…

                         one into another…

Blessing can be found in times of anticipation and joy, surely,

     but it can just as truly be found 
          in times of sorrow and hardship.

The truth of this 
     became very powerfully real to me this past week,

because someone very close to my family 
     died about a week ago…

And, his family and mine have journeyed together through

     those first numb and then searingly painful days

          in the valley of the shadow of a sudden and tragic death…

      My parents’ house became their sanctuary…

          and my family were among the first to hold them…

               to talk with them…to cry with them…

I was talking to my father on the phone this week…

     and I asked, unsurprisingly, “How are you?”

     And, in a voice that sounded very tired,

he told me how they were putting one foot in front of the other…

     taking things a day at a time…

Then he said something that caught me off guard, 

     “But we’re good. We really are. We’re blessed…

          so we can be a blessing to others. And that’s good.”

He had no idea we would be reading about Abram this week.

     He didn’t need to.

          Because he is living this story…

He is just one of the many children of Abraham, 

     blessing the world today.

Like Abram, who left the safety of his homeland 

     not really by choice,

so many people today are on journeys 

     not entirely of their own choosing,

         putting one foot in front of the other.

And on their journeys, and on ours, 

     every going out and coming in

          happens under the guard of an ever-watchful God…

               who does not fall asleep,

                    but holds vigil over both our joy and our sorrow.

And that is blessing.

     This watchful God is one who offers the gift and promise 

          of life and love 

               that will live beyond all sorrow and all death.

And that is blessing.

Today we, with many others, pray for the people of Japan,

     whose journey has also brought them 

          into the valley of the shadow 

               of sudden and tragic death and loss.

We will pray to the One who watches over 

     and loves these brothers and sisters…

          who struggle today in the wake tragedy…

               in grief and in fear…

We will pray for healing and for hope. 

     We will pray for comfort and for peace.

We are not so naïve as to pray that everything will be okay.

      Everything is not okay.

But God’s blessing is deep and strong enough 

     to live amidst the pain.

So we pray for the God who neither slumbers nor sleeps

     to bless these grieving and weary ones.
For, we trust that God’s blessedness…and love…

     and healing...and watchfulness are so broad…

We trust that the heirs of the promise to Abram 
     are so numerous…

that we cannot comprehend or count them…

        

     Yet it need to be said that,

          for many years and for many reasons,

     there have been those who have tried to draw boundaries

          around God’s boundless love,

               sometimes so they can try to 

                    explain away life’s tragedies

                         by excluding people who experience them

                             from the circle of God’s blessing.

     

But today we hear in Genesis that through Abraham

     all the families of the earth will be blessed…

And Paul reminds us 
     that Abraham is not only the father of some –

          but of all of us…

And in the words from John 3 that so many of us know by heart…

     words that have sometimes been used wrongly

          to draw borders around God’s transforming love…

     we hear that God so loves this world…

          this whole world…

               the cosmos…

                    the whole universe…

          the people of Japan, my family and yours,

               those suffering in Minneapolis,

                    the people of Libya, Yemen, Egypt 

                         and all the world’s conflicted places.

God loves it all…and through Christ all of it…everything…

     is to be saved…restored…

          brought into life that does not end.

   

If today’s scriptures tell us anything

     it is that you can’t draw lines around what God loves

          with anyone or anything on the outside.    

And that is blessing.

By grace, we are all children of Abraham,

     Through Christ, we are all blessed ones

          through whom the blessings of God echo 

               and multiply and flow into the world.

     We are not the source, just as Abraham wasn’t…

          But God’s boundless love and blessing have embraced us.

               So that in our joy and our sorrow,

                    we are held within the love and promise of God.

So whether we are joyful or sorrowful today,

    whether we are dancing 

           or just putting one foot in front of the other…

     whether we are weeping or laughing on this journey…

How are we?

We are blessed –

     beloved of God,

and part of God’s work of embracing this whole weary world

     in blessedness and boundless love.

Amen.