The Blessing Business - August 26
Today’s Readings: AM Psalm 18:1-20; PM Psalm 18:21-50; 1 Kings 3:16-28; Acts 27:27-44; Mark 14:12-26
One of my favorite conversations to have with people is to share what I love about our tradition as Episcopalians. A person recently asked about our upcoming Blessing of the Solar Panels. On September 29 at 6 p.m., we are going to hoist the bishop above our church, and she will sprinkle water on our newly installed solar panels. We will sing a song or two, say some prayers, and celebrate something beautiful and incredible including becoming the first church in Birmingham harnessing God’s awesome gift of energy through the sun.
Our planning for this event has me thinking about blessings, or what is really the acknowledgment that what is ordinary to some has become a sacred and blessed gift from God. We bless animals around the feast of St. Francis because our pets bring us joy, companionship, and life. We bless backpacks around the start of school because learning is a gift from God and a new school year can be an opportunity to use our gifts of creativity bestowed upon us by our creator. We bless relationships because they teach us about God’s love for us through our commitment to each other. I like to joke (but it is also true) that “We are in the blessing business!”
There is an important pattern shared in the last supper that we hear each week in the Eucharist and specifically in Mark’s Gospel passage for today. Jesus takes bread. He then blesses bread, breaks it, and shares it with the disciples. It is the pattern of blessing that we are instructed to do each week. Many write about it as the four-fold action of the Eucharist of taking, blessing, breaking, and giving. This action is significant because it goes so far beyond just learning that something is a gift from God but making it sharable (breaking it) and then giving it away.
We are in the blessing business. Our theology of seeing what God has done and made holy and then naming it is so important. And yet today’s reading is also a reminder that just naming something as holy is not the complete action of what we are called to do. This four-fold pattern could be our model for not just the Eucharist but how we share God’s gifts in the world. How are we taking what God has made that is Holy, breaking it (making it sharable), and giving it away?
Another parishioner brought some St. Christopher medals by the Church to be blessed the other day. Yes, we Episcopalians can do that too. They were gifts for a child and some friends’ children. She saw the medals as a pledge of protection for young drivers. And as I read the words of institution in Mark’s Gospel, it reminds me too that, she has made a gift of seeing our young people’s responsibility of driving as holy, and in this little act shared that gift with a few others.
That’s our charge too. We’ve got a lot of work to do in naming what God has done, and what God is still doing. But we have to do it in a way that extends far beyond our own lives. We take what we know and what we have been given, and we give it away. Our lives are enriched, and so are others. Friends, let us be in the “Blessing Business” a business that only grows when we give everything away!
John+
Questions for Self-Reflection: What in your life has been blessed? How do you think about God’s blessing? How do share God’s blessing?
Daily Challenge: If you were to create a blessing service for the church of something that we don’t already bless, what would it be? Email me and share your idea.