To Be Blessed

Recently, I was reading the Beatitudes in the Gospel of Luke (Luke 6: 20-31).  The Beatitudes are the address by Jesus to his disciples in which Jesus tells them who is blessed.  The address opens with, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.”  Jesus goes from there to include others who are blessed – the hungry, those who weep, people who are hated on account of the ‘Son of Man’.  Considering this passage, I realized that I didn’t have as full a grasp on what it means to be blessed, as I would like.  Generally, I know that to be blessed is a good thing, but what does it actually mean for the person who is blessed?

Some versions of the Bible use happy in this passage rather than blessed.  However, to my mind, 'happy' does not capture the full meaning of blessed – happy sounds like a passing thing which is contingent on external conditions.  However, blessed seems to have a sense of a deeper state.

The earliest reference to blessing in the bible is in the creation story.  God blesses the living creatures and says, be fruitful and multiply.  He then blesses humans and tells them the same thing – be fruitful and multiply.  So, it would appear that to be blessed means you are going to be fruitful in life which at that time meant having many offspring.  Later we have the rather infamous case of Jacob – that patriarch of the church, stealing the blessing from his brother Esau – not great family values there.  One commentary noted that the meaning of the blessing that Jacob stole:

was to grant leadership to the one who received it, with Jacob becoming the head of a powerful family and nation, and with nations and brothers bowing down to him. This included not only material wealth but also spiritual significance and the continuation of God's covenant with Abraham, a legacy Jacob would carry forward. 

The covenant between God and God’s chosen people included God’s promise of land and offspring.   In effect, to be blessed, at least at that time meant to be fruitful and multiply as in the original blessing. 

So, in this case what does it mean to be fruitful?  This can have the meaning of receiving material prosperity i.e. having lots of material possession and material wealth.  This kind of meaning has led to the mistaken theology of the prosperity Gospel in my view. 

I believe that Jesus used the term blessed in the framework of the Beatitudes to describe the inner quality of a faithful servant of God. This blessedness is a spiritual state of well-being and prosperity—a deep state of peaceful contentment that cannot be shaken by external events such as poverty, hunger, or conflict because God is present with us through these difficult times.  We are blessed by God, therefore, we can be blessed by God in all things but not for all things.

May you be blessed on your journey. 

 

Dare To Imagine God’s Dance Part 2

January 2nd, I was invited to preach at the Nairn Mennonite Church.  The theme I was asked to preach on was the last in a sermon series they were using - Dare to Imagine.  The theme I was given is Dare to Imagine God’s Dance.  The sermons in this church are in the Protestant tradition of being twenty minutes or more in length which is significantly more than the usual Anglican ten minutes I am used to preaching, but I thought it was a great opportunity to explore a theme more extensively than usual so I embraced the opportunity.  I am sharing the sermon in three parts – last week was part one.  Today’s offering is part two and next week will complete the trilogy – to make it more in line with the usual length of this missive.  Here is the second installment.

The story so far – God has decided to do something new – something God had never done before – to dance.  After some thought, God decided that to dance you had to have music so God called on the music of the spheres.  …

Now you might ask if there was nothing but God, where did the spheres come from.  Well, I don’t actually know – it’s a mystery - but the music of the spheres began and God began to dance.  God, being God, knew just what the dance should be to that music.  God danced – perhaps a bit hesitantly at first because God had never danced before -- but God soon got the hang of it and just danced away until it was time (because now there was time) to stop dancing.  Now, I can’t tell you what the dance was, but I can tell you that when God stopped, he saw something new.  God saw that the dancing had created light and not only that, the light separated and there was light and there was non-light or darkness.  And God declared that his dancing was good and that what the dancing had brought forth was good.

Well, perhaps you can guess what happened after that.  The next day – because of this creation of the light where there was no light before – as I noted, God had also created time.  The next day, God danced a new dance to the new music of the spheres and God found that the dancing had produced a dome in the midst of the water which separated the water from the water.  There was water under the dome and water above.  Again, God decided that this was a good thing and declared it to be good.  After that, each day God danced a new dance to new music and something new was created. 

On the third day, God’s dancing created vegetation.  On the fourth day, God danced and brought forth the sun and the moon.  The fifth day God danced and brought forth the living creatures in the air and in the waters and wild animals of every kind that filled the earth.  And each day, God declared that what God had done was good.  God was pleased and yet God knew, in God’s omnipotence, that something was missing. 

God realized that all these things were good but they were limited in the dance.  Each of these creations could dance in a particular way but only one way.  God decided that there needed to be something else.  God then realized that God needed a creature that could be God’s full partner in the dance.  On the sixth day God ordered the spheres to bring forth the best music ever.  God danced the dance that was perfect for the music and when God danced, what had been brought forth was someone who would be a perfect dance partner - one that was created in God’s image.  And God was pleased with God’s-self and declared that this was good – it was very good indeed.

Now after all this creating, God rested because God had worked very hard and danced so many different dances.  After this, God danced with his greatest creation for a long, long time.  God discovered that although there were many different ways of dancing with God, people needed many different rules in all those variety of ways of dancing with God.  However, God also discovered that despite all the rules that allowed people to dance more dances with God than all the rest of God’s creation, God realized that something was still missing.  Then God realized, in the way that only God does, that people could not be a full dance partner to God.  God realized that this was so because, even though they were created in God’s image the rules prevented the dance from being all that it could be.

That’s all for today.  Tune in next week for the rest of the story and don’t forget to listen to the music of the spheres and try a few dance steps to that music. 

Blessings on your journey.  

The Name of All Things

In the beginning was the Word according to John but according to Genesis God said ‘Let there be light’.   The name - that is where it all begins.  So it was a word – or words - a declaration

But where do I really begin this story?  With the power? With the secret? With the name?

I guess after all I must begin at the beginning.  Names have always been at the beginning.  After all the name is just a word and in the beginning was The Word – at least according to John.  Was the word a name and a name the word?  Of course it was a word but was it the word?  The beginning in the Beginning was not a word - it was only the beginning.  From the beginning began the many beginnings according to the Book or at least one particular book which would not be a book until much later: the formless void that was the earth, the darkness that covered the face of the deep, the wind that swept over the face of the water.  The water?  Where did that come from?  It too was one of the beginnings.  And then another word – light – let there be light - another beginning.  The dome, that also was there at the beginning.  God made the dome.  Did he do that also by the word?  The Book does not say that He did.  But does that mean that it was not so?    In any case there was the dome that was declared (another word) to be the sky.  And apparently so it was – for so the book declared.

After all these beginnings there were many more.  God made the light separate into the greater and lesser; the land from the water; the day from the night; the days and season and the years.  In the sea were the fishes.  On the land was the vegetation, and the swarms of living creatures – the birds of the air, the animals creeping and wild of every kind.  Finally there was man and then inevitably man’s helpmeet – woman.  All these were beginning and if John is to be believed there was the Word and the words for each of these beginnings. 

It was not until the second creation that we are told things were named.  The man and the woman were named – Adam and Eve they were named.  The man Adam was given the authority to name all living things.  “The man gave names to all cattle, and every bird of the air and every animal of the field” (Gen 2: 20).  This is the first time the power to name was passed on – name became what – a co-creator – for to name is to create.

Later we have another beginning with the beginning of the covenant between YHWH and a man, Abraham.  I know there was an earlier one signified by a rainbow but that was with all creation.  This one was with one man – at least in the beginning.  His name in the beginning was not Abraham.  It was Abram, “No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; For I have made you the father of a multitude of nations.”  The name now signified the relationship that now existed between God and man. 

So here is the beginning of beginnings – at least in the version we know and many believe in.  It began with a word that was a name and beginning followed the beginning with names for everything.  Yet the beginning is not the only beginning.  In each one a name - the name was the power and in some the name was secret.  Let us look at another Beginning and the role that name held in that beginning.

In that land in which the chosen people were enslaved and that sheltered the Holy Family, Egypt, there is another account of another beginning.  In that beginning all was darkness.  There must have been darkness in story of our beginning recorded in Genesis as we are told darkness covered the face of the earth which was a formless void until God had to declare that there would be light.  But I digress somewhat.  In this beginning rather than a formless void there was only a great waste of water called Nun.  Out of this water and darkness arose a great shining egg Re.  I will not ask how it could be shining in the darkness that must be left to the Gods.

We are told that Re was all-powerful and that power and the secret of it lay in his name.  That name we are told was hidden and the power lay in its secret.  Further all things could come into being merely or not so merely by Re speaking the name of that thing.  An so things were named; Shu the first winds, Tefnut the spitter of rain, Nut the sky, Hapi the river Nile the source of fruitfulness.  Re named all things on the earth and last (and some might say not least - but I would not say that) he named mankind.  Thus there were men and women and of course children in Egypt.

Re then took the shape of a man (sounds vaguely familiar) and more than just a shape as after becoming the first Pharaoh and ruling for a millennium or more became old.  OR could it be it is our shape that requires us to grow and grow old?  As a consequence men no longer feared (obeyed?) his laws.  It ever was thus.  Re became angry at the disobedience - the ... shall I dare say sin?  And they no longer feared him and thus were no longer (if they ever had been) wise. 

What then did Re do?  Did he send a flood as some other deity might have?  No, he did what seems to my mind a more thoughtful reaction; he called together all the gods and goddesses in council.  In his wisdom he asked Nun the eldest of the gods what he should do.  The response was not unexpected, “send them a glance of your eye in the form of Sekmet and destroy them” Not quite a flood but still destruction.  Sekhmet was one like a lion whose chief delight was slaughter; whose pleasure was in blood.  All whom she saw she slaughtered and tasted their blood to her pleasure and delight.

The Nile now ran red with blood as in the other plague from another tradition.  And yet Sekhmet was not satisfied and continued to slaughter the inhabitants of that sad land.  Why you might ask did Re not insist that she stop the slaughter?  Well it turns out that once she was on the rampage nothing - not even Re could stop her blood lust. 

Re’s heart softened as the sight of all the slaughter.  In his anguish a plan arose.  He bade the women of Heliopolis brew the sacred drink beer coloured with the red of ochre which was brought from the isle of Elephantine.  The tainted ochre was poured onto the ground to a height and depth of nine inches.  Sekhmet believing the red tinted beer was blood drank her fill and more than her fill until she could drink no more.  From that day it has been told that Sekhmet could kill no more.  And indeed from that day she never slayed another man.

Once more Re ruled over all the lands of Egypt.  He ruled until the time came in which it was ordained that he should withdraw to the heavens and in his place a younger god should rule.  Yet Re refused to yield his power.  In growing old he no longer grew and as a result had lost his wisdom.  Re continued to reign and none could challenge him.  None could remove him from the earth as long as his power remained.  This would happen only when his secret could be revealed – the secret that was his name.

Re continued with the gift of the gods which was mortality.  He became old and older still.  He became very old in the way of old men.  He stumbled as he walked and drooled as he spoke.  His spittle fell on the earth.  Isis, one of the younger gods whose time it was to rule the earth, took the spittle and made mud where the spittle fell.  She kneaded it and formed it into clay.  This spittle was not used to make the blind see or to form humankind – it was too late for that. 

Instead of a human being she formed Uraeus, the first cobra.  Isis placed uraeus in the way of Re, on the path which Re trod each day.  Uraeus bit him in his most vulnerable place, his heel.  The venom like the poison which coursed through Achilles veins, flowed through Re.  Unlike Achilles, Re did not die but did cry out a great cry which rang out across the earth and sky.  This cry was so great that the gods hearing it came to investigate its source.  Re, finding his voice, pleaded to the gods for help.  He had been stung despite the secret power of his secret name which protects him.  As they could not help him the god called all the others of their kind who had powers to heal.  With them came Isis who held the power to revive the dying.

This time it was a god who was betrayed by the serpent and was threatened with expulsion from the earthly paradise.  The goddess Isis offered to heal Re if he would reveal his secret name to her.  Re in his stubbornness revealed all his names; maker of heaven and earth, builder of mountains, source of waters, light and darkness, creator of great Nile, Khepera in the morning, Re at noontide and Turn in the evening.  But he would not reveal his Secret Name the Name of Power which still lay hidden in his heart.

Isis bided her time until the time was ripe, for she was the source of all patience, until she enticed Re with promises of release from his torment.  At last Re responded with a great cry, “let the Name of Power, my Secret Name pass from my heart to the heart of Isis.  However, swear that you will reveal it to no one save the son which you will bear so that the name will remain with him.”

And so the Name passed from Re to Isis and so too Re passed from his earthly paradise and ascended to the heavens.  There he passes across the sky by day and crosses the underworld of Amenti by night.  With him he takes the souls of the dead.
Here our tale must end as it began with a name named at the beginning and named at the end of all things.  So my children remember and learn the power that the name holds and do not use yours carelessly lest you name reveal more than you know (particularly in this age of social networking and identity theft).