Come, Holy Spirit,
Fill our minds with your truth;
Fill our hearts with your love;
Fill our lives with your strength;
Holy and gracious Spirit of God.
AMEN.
Ven. David Painter, at the Funeral of Dean James Atwell, January 7th, 2021.
Let us bless the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Many people will know those words, and respond to them automatically. They come at the end of the Common Worship Morning Prayer we use here in the Cathedral; they are often the final response at Evensong; and also, anyone who has sung in a choir in Church probably knows that response, as it’s often used as the vestry prayer after the Service.
Let us bless the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Some years ago one of my Curate colleagues asked why we said that at the end of the Service. They thought that it was God who blessed us – and here we are being asked to bless him. And that set me off thinking about Blessing.
And then, I was asked recently about what a lay person should do when administering Holy Communion, and someone comes to the altar rail preferring to have a Blessing, rather than receiving Communion. Generally, the accepted practice is for a lay person to give a ‘May’ Blessing – ‘May God bless you…’, as opposed to an authoritative blessing, ‘God Bless you…’, given by a priest. In the Ordination Service of Priests, in the Preface to the Declarations, Blessing is one of the specific roles which is mentioned. ‘Priests are called to be servants and shepherds among the people to whom they are sent… They are to bless the people in God’s name’ [http://www.cofe.anglican.org/worship/liturgy/commonworship/texts/ordinal/priests.html]. So, more questions about blessing.
And then the Old Testament Reading set for this afternoon is this extraordinary and, to the modern ear, disturbing, passage from Genesis 27, in which Jacob, the favourite son of Rebekah, and at her suggestion, deceives Isaac into giving him the Blessing of the Firstborn, which should have been given to Esau.
The story is well-known, and I want to reflect on it for a moment to think about what it says about Blessing. Isaac, in common with many older people in the ancient world, and in many parts of the world today, had lost much of his eyesight. He knew that he was old and near death, and, as was customary at that time, he wanted to give his Blessing to his elder son before he died. These sorts of oral statements, especially when given on the deathbed, had legal force in the ancient world, a world, remember, which was primarily an oral culture, rather than a written one. So, the Blessing which Isaac wants to give Esau is a powerful act, a performative action, something which once done actually made a difference – not something simply symbolic which could then be revoked. Once the Blessing was given, it was given.
The telling of the deception is in some detail, with Rebekah doing the cooking while Esau is out hunting, and contains surely one of the most delightful lines in the Old Testament, when Jacob says, ‘My brother is an hairy man and I am a smooth man’!
Isaac is suspicious, as well he may be, but the goatskins seem to do the trick – Esau must have been a very hairy man! Jacob receives the Blessing of the first-born: ‘28May God give you of the dew of heaven, and of the fatness of the earth, and plenty of grain and wine. 29Let peoples serve you, and nations bow down to you. Be lord over your brothers, and may your mother’s sons bow down to you. Cursed be everyone who curses you, and blessed be everyone who blesses you!’’ [Gen. 27:28-29].
Esau’s agony when he discovers what has happened is palpable, and he cries ‘Bless me, too, my father’ [v.34]. But it is too late, and the Blessing once given cannot be revoked. The irony is that, according to the words of Isaac’s Blessing, Esau cannot even curse Jacob without being cursed himself – ‘Cursed be everyone who curses you’. ‘Isn’t he rightly named Jacob?’, says Esau – Jacob meaning ‘He grasps the heel’ – Esau and Jacob were twins, with Jacob being born after Esau, and grasping his heel. But the words, ‘He grasps the heel’, also mean ‘He deceives’ [See NIV Study Bible, Gen. 27:36 for details]. This deception also fulfils God’s promise to the pregnant Rebekah in Gen 25:23, that ‘Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples born of you shall be divided; the one shall be stronger than the other, the elder shall serve the younger.’ And, over time, the hostility between Jacob’s descendants, the People of Israel, and Esau’s descendants, the Edomites, became the rule [Ibid., 25:23].
There is, however, a Blessing for Esau: ‘See, away from the fatness of the earth shall your home be, and away from the dew of heaven on high. 40By your sword you shall live, and you shall serve your brother; but when you break loose, you shall break his yoke from your neck’ [Gen 27:39f]. Very much a second-best Blessing!
The Blessing of Isaac to Jacob was permanent, and effective – it did what it said, and that is the nature of the Israelite view of blessings and cursings.
As I mentioned earlier, in the Ordination Service, as we shall hear next Saturday evening, the priest is commanded ‘to bless the people in God’s name’. But it’s not just people whom we bless – we are often asked to bless things, and I was pondering during the week how many things I have blessed over the years.
In Services, we bless bread and wine, water and oil, and candles – such as the Paschal Candle at the Easter Vigil. In Church I have been asked to bless things which are used in the worship – cruets, flower stands, chalices and patens. And also many things which are used outside Church – wedding rings in large quantities, houses, ambulances, anchors – I don’t think I’ve ever blessed a boat, oddly, but it is often done – and I’m open to offers. And, memorably, I was rung up a few years ago by someone I didn’t know, and asked to bless Michael’s Jackson’s glove. It was a challenge to find an appropriate prayer for that, which turned out to be a diamond studded pendant in the form of a little glove, which was clearly very significant to its owner..
I remember, in the 60s, seeing photographs of priests blessing nuclear missiles, and if anyone has seen the film, Joyeux Noël, set at Christmas 1918, you might remember the scene at the end where the Bishop blesses the troops and sends them into the trenches to die – one sometimes feels that God might not always approve of the Blessings done in his name.
Apparently, the Rituale Romanum, the official book for the Roman Catholic Church ‘provides blessings for a wide range of objects, from vestments to typewriters’! [FL Cross, p.178]
I always take the line that when I am blessing things, I am setting something aside to be a blessing to people. The things that are blessed become holy in the sense that they give the people who wear them or use them a sense of the divine – the rings, or vestments, or anchors, or whatever, somehow point to God by being blessed for a particular purpose, whether that is in worship or in daily life.
Both the Jewish and the Celtic traditions were full of blessings in the every day. In the Jewish tradition, there are blessings for the lighting of candles, the washing of hands, the eating of meals, and much else. Two have found their way into the Christian Eucharist – at the Offertory we often use a prayer which is based on the Jewish Blessings ‘Blessed are you, LORD, our God, King of the universe, who brings forth bread from the earth’ and ‘Blessed are you, LORD, our God, King of the universe, who creates the fruit of the vine’ [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Jewish_prayers_and_blessings].
And in the Celtic Christian tradition of these islands, homely, day to day blessings were used at the milking of the cows, at the lighting of the fires, on waking or before going to sleep, including these ones which have become quite well-known.
Deep peace of the flowing air to you.
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you.
Deep peace of the shining stars to you.
Deep peace of the infinite peace to you.
[Adapted from ancient Gaelic runes]
And this one, which is also well-known:
May the road rise to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face;
the rains fall soft upon your fields
and until we meet again,
may God hold you in the palm of His hand.
[Traditional Gaelic blessing]
[See: http://www.faithandworship.com/Celtic_Blessings_and_Prayers.htm]
In many of the early eucharistic rites, interestingly, the Blessing was just before receiving Communion, as an encouragement and preparation for those about to receive. Gradually, over time, this practice changed, and disappeared by the time of the Reformation.
Since the Middle Ages it has been traditional for services to end with a Blessing, as is often our custom here, either using the Aaronic Blessing from Numbers 6 [24-26]: ‘The Lord bless you and watch over you, the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you, the Lord look kindly on you and give you peace’. This is the form favoured by the Free Churches.
Or using the form we traditionally use, based on Philippians 4:7 for the first half, and the mediaeval Bishop’s Blessing for the second half: ‘The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God, and of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord; and the blessing of God almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be among you and remain with you always’ [See SCM Dict of Lit. and Wor., p.93].
A Blessing is ‘an authoritative declaration of divine favour’ [Ibid.]; it’s the assurance of God’s presence with us as we leave the place of worship and go off into our daily lives. We are sent out with God’s Blessing, to be his Blessing to the world. The Blessing at the end of the Service is not just for us alone, but to be shared with everyone we meet.
In some Oxford and Cambridge Colleges a very short Latin Grace is used before meals: Benedictus benedicat, ‘May the one who has been blessed give a blessing’. We are blessed by God in so many ways in our lives, that it is appropriate that we bless God for all he has done and is, and that we become a Blessing to others in turn.
Let us bless the Lord. Thanks be to God.
