Blessed

Prayer of Illumination

Me inoi tatou, Let us pray;

Eternal God,

in the reading of the Scripture, let your Word be heard;

in the meditations of our hearts, may your Word be known;

and in the faithfulness of our lives, may your Word be shown.

Amine/Amen

 Introduction to the Bible Reading 1

The lectionary readings continue the story of Jacob, who has already extorted his twin brother Esau’s birthright for a bowl of soup or stew. The story devolves from there. With his mother Rebekah’s help (remember, Rebekah favoured Jacob while Isaac favoured Esau), Jacob next intentionally deceives his father to receive the blessing Isaac intended for his elder son, Esau. As a result, Esau plans to kill his brother.

And Jacob? Jacob has fled for his life. His scheming to obtain birthright and blessing has left him homeless and on the run. But the irony is, the destination of his flight was Haran – the place where his grandparents Abraham and Sarah first demonstrated their trust in God by setting out on their promise-driven journey. For Jacob, it is as if he, too, needs to go back to the beginning – and learn what it means not to scheme but to trust.

Listen now to the story of Jacob as it is woven into the words of Psalm 139 and its acknowledgment of living in the mystery of God’s presence.

Bible Reading 1 Genesis 28:10-19 and Psalm 139:1-12, 23-24

(divide congregation in half)

A: Genesis 28:10–11 Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Harran. When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep.

 B: Psalm 139:1–4

You have searched me, Lord,
and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
 Before a word is on my tongue
you, Lord, know it completely.

 A: Genesis 28:12 He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.

 B: Psalm 139:5

You hem me in behind and before,
and you lay your hand upon me.

 A: Genesis 28:13–14 There above it stood the Lord, and he said: “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring.

B: Psalm 139:6

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.

 A: Genesis 28:15 I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

 B: Psalm 139:7–12

Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.

 A: Genesis 28:16–17 When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” He was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.”

 B: Psalm 139:23–24

Search me, God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.

 ALL: Genesis 28:18–19 EARLY THE NEXT MORNING JACOB TOOK THE STONE HE HAD PLACED UNDER HIS HEAD AND SET IT UP AS A PILLAR AND POURED OIL ON TOP OF IT. HE CALLED THAT PLACE BETHEL.

Introduction to Bible Reading 2

Today’s reading from the book of Matthew has one of Jesus’ many parables. This one, that tells of the wheat and weeds, provides a vision of the world now and the one to come.

As you listen ponder these questions – What does it mean for the world to have both wheat and weeds in it? How do we feel if we  hear it as wheat and weeds dwelling within each one of us?

 Bible Reading 2 Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43 (rostered reader – any version)

²⁴ Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. ²⁵ But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. ²⁶ When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.

²⁷ “The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’

²⁸ “‘An enemy did this,’ he replied.

“The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’

²⁹ “‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them. ³⁰ Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’”

³⁶ Then he left the crowd and went into the house. His disciples came to him and said, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.”

³⁷ He answered, “The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. ³⁸ The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the people of the kingdom. The weeds are the people of the evil one, ³⁹ and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels.

⁴⁰ “As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. ⁴¹ The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. ⁴² They will throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. ⁴³ Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Whoever has ears, let them hear.

Sermon “Blessed”

Blessed. (Or ‘bless-ed” as I often find myself saying from years of hearing the King James version.) To be blessed is seen as such a good thing, a thing to aspire to, and yet do we really understand it?

In the book of Job, he is called blessed by God. But is only when he starts loses things that we discover why he is considered blessed. He was blessed with many crops and fields, animals and slaves, houses and land. Therefore, he is no longer blessed when he loses them. When his children die, he is told they were a blessing that he no longer has. And when he loses his health and is reduced to sitting in the dirt scraping his sores in agony he is told to curse God and die.

Job is one of the oldest biblical writings and shows us how little human nature has changed. So many people, even Christians, believe that they are blessed by God when we have material wealth, or health or many children or are seen as successful and famous. Conversely, if we do not have these things we feel cursed, or at least not blessed.

And people get blamed, as Job was, for not being blessed. Our poor health is our fault – we haven’t prayed enough, done enough for God or others, have some unforgiven sin that blocks all healing, haven’t found the right cure or diagnosis, haven’t exercised or eaten the right diet, or…

Insert any other “problem” and the same applies. We are not being blessed because we are the problem.

And yet the story of Jacob, along with so many other stories in the bible, says the opposite.

Take Jacob. Jacob the sneaky, Jacob the one who stole his twin brother’s birthright and blessing. (Now okay, Esau, comes across as a bit of idiot, but tricking your elderly father into thinking you are your brother? – not nice). And Jacob the coward. When Esau gets understandably angry Jacob flees. No fighting for his rights. He gives them all up and runs.

And yet, when he lies down to sleep in the wilderness, no doubt panicking about what his future will be, and whether he will survive the night (remember, this is Jacob – the one who kept close to the tents, not Esau the great hunter). And he dreams. He dreams that God makes him a promise – that he, Jacob, the guy with nothing, who is nothing will inherit the land he is laying on and will fill it with many descendants. It is the promise God gave to Abraham, his grandfather, that caused he and Sari to leave Haran.

How can he not feel blessed afterwards. Both for God coming to him in a dream and for the promise that he will continue Abraham’s legacy.

Let’s be brutal here. Jacob has done nothing up to this point to deserve this blessing. In fact if I was choosing people to bless it certainly wouldn’t be this guy! And being blessed by God doesn’t mean everything is instantly okay. Jacob still has to find refuge in Haran, give seven years of slave labour to his relative Laban in order to marry Rachel, only for Laban to trick him into marrying Leah instead. (Don’t you love God’s sense of humour where the trickster is tricked?) Then he has to work for free for another seven years to win Rachel. And even then, life is not all a bowl of cherries.

And yet he was blessed by God.

While the parable of the wheat and weeds is usually used to preach about how we are surrounded by wicked people in the world and other such interpretations. I want to suggest it also describes all of us. Within all of us is a mixture of good and bad. Yes, we like to demonise people who do bad things and declare they are totally evil, but often they aren’t. The cruel chief executive that sacked all those workers is gentle to his beloved flowers and family. That serial shooter gave a huge donation to Habitat for Humanity before he massacred children in the playground.

When it comes down to it none of us deserve to be blessed because, as Paul writes to the Romans, we are all capable of doing evil, and so often slow to do the good we know we should.

And yet, for some unfathomable reason God chooses to bless Jacob, to bless Job, and to bless us.

Sometimes I think the problem is we don’t see the blessings we have. Half our world lives on less than $15 a day. 10% live in what the UN calls absolute poverty, less than $5/day. While many in this country feel poor most are not at this level of need. And yet all too often, the most generous people are not the rich but those who feel blessed and want to share that blessing with others.

And there we have the crux of the problem – feeling blessed is an attitude. We take so many things for granted – it is often not until we lose them that we realise what a blessing they are.

We are only grateful for our warm dry house when we don’t have it due to the power going off, or after staying in a unheated camping lodge, or being outside in -19 degrees frost. We take for granted the health of our body until it betrays us by getting hurt or sick. I always remember hearing the sound of two respirators help the breathing of an old man with emphysema and a prem baby breathe during a church service many years ago. I felt then the immense blessing that unassisted breathing is.

Over the last few years we have all lost so much – our solid foundation literally rocked and many became refugees. We have experienced the loss of freedom to travel and gather as we want. Friends and family have died. The world has changed. And we has been faced with how many things we took for granted were blessings. Blessings from God that were given out to all, whether they deserved it or not.

The whole point of Martin Luther’s reformation message was our undeserved grace. That God saves us and loves us through grace alone – not through anything we do or can do to deserve it. Of course, later theologians including our forefather Jean Calvin tried to add caveats. But the essential revelation that Martin Luther had is that scripture is full of God loving and blessing people despite themselves.

The parable or wheat and tares, despite our emphasis on the end times bonfire, is essentially that too. It’s too hard to sort who is the useful wheat from the useless weeds so they will all be treated the same – watered, fertilised, etc.

In fact those of you that are gardeners know this. There’s no point pulling out every green thing in that garden bed until you can identify what you don’t want. In the same way God blesses us all until its clear whether we are food for others or not.

And that’s the bit I think some have missed. Their sorting matrix is whether you are good enough, but I would argue that the difference between the wheat and weeds is whether you can be eaten, in other words useful to others. As gardeners know, a plant is only a weed if it is in the wrong place. Therefore, I am arguing that whether I will be judged wheat or weed is not whether I hold the right or wrong doctrine or beliefs but whether I am useful.

So, please – feel blessed this week, or as the old song says “count your blessings”. Bask in the knowledge that we are all blessed by God whether we feel deserving or not. And notice with gratitude all that we have and thank God for it all.

Rev Stephanie Wells