musings for advent

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I'm back to preaching again, after taking it easier the last two weeks - thanks Dan~!

At the same time Christmas is drawing near, with all its joy, the pastoral staff is walking with an extended family through the end stages of a tragedy, and I hear about others whose loved ones are moving into the end stages of life. Or moving into the place of needing more care. Or just moving out of the house, out of marriages. Or moving away from the church - my churches, because we just don't seem to give them what they want/need.

So the sermon title, picked on Monday is 'blessed' and I am pondering what it means to be blessed. In our common current use it means a little more than lucky - everything is going okay, good, excellent. We can be proud of our children, we have good jobs and trust we'll have them tomorrow, we have good health. So we are blessed.

And then, are the tragedy-ridden, the parents of disappointing kids, the unemployed, the sick - not blessed. Well, in common usage, yes, they are the 'unblessed.' It's very OT - deuteronomic system stuff we live with every day. So much so we don't even realize what we're saying, often. So much so that we don't realize the hurt the comes from this assumption - we hint that God has withdrawn his favor from those who suffer.

The expression 'to bless' must mean to pass judgment - really, it is to contextualize a situation and claim meaning for it - positive meaning. And once that sense has been accepted the opposite situation - to suffer - takes on the opposite meaning - to lack blessing (cursed).

Elizabeth saw it differently. She 'blesses' - says good about Mary - for she perceives that Mary has been touched by God. And she proclaims Mary 'blessed' - happy, for Mary has believed what was said to her. Elizabeth knows that God is acting here. That is cause for proclamation, for identifying that God does the blessing.

Blessed. So we are to remember, and be compassionate - that blessing isn't about removal from suffering, about good luck, or happy outcome. It's about proclamation that here - in this life, in this place, God is acting, God is. . .

God is in a pregnant teen and in a poor city in hills of a poor territory. God is with a little old pregnant lady and her temporarily mute husband (that must have been a long nine months). God is with a struggling oppressed community, a minority in the great empire. God is hanging out on the road, in the prisons, in the sick rooms, in the hospital beds. God is doing his blessing thing where his people see that he is acting . . . where compassion comes out, where tenderness is expressed, when violence is stopped, when forgiveness is real.

God blesses. We may judge for 'blessing' - but in eyes of faith - God's blesses. The maker of meaning is the source of any blessing - any good and gracious understanding of our lives.

For those who walk in tragedy - the judgment of blessing seems far, far away - impossible to compute, to realize, to utter. But here is the core of faith - the determination of 'blessed' isn't ours, it is God's. God is in that sickroom, with that wayward child, in the painful awareness of sin and grief and loss - and God determines the 'blessing.'

The hope of the lesson - walk with God, hang in there, trust - and you will find God. Blessing comes. He looks with favor upon the lowly - and blesses.
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