Proper 19

Sunday, September 13, 2009

St. David’s Episcopal Church, DeWitt NY

The Rev. James C. Bresnahan, Interim Rector

“Thanking as Blessing”

James 3:1-12
Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. For all of us make many mistakes. Anyone who makes no mistakes in speaking is perfect, able to keep the whole body in check with a bridle. If we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we guide their whole bodies. Or look at ships: though they are so large that it takes strong winds to drive them, yet they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits. How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! And the tongue is a fire. The tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity; it stains the whole body, sets on fire the cycle of nature, and is itself set on fire by hell. For every species of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species, but no one can tame the tongue--a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so. Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and brackish water? Can a fig tree, my brothers and sisters, yield olives, or a grapevine figs? No more can salt water yield fresh.

“The tongue, with it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those made in the likeness of God.  From the same mouth come blessing and cursing.”  Words from our second reading.

 

In these verses, the writer is exhorting us to mind our speaking – to use words in all circumstances to bless and not to curse. For no one as it elsewhere in Scripture says, can love God and hate God’s children.

 

No doubt, you are aware that our Sunday liturgy begins with a blessing and ends with a blessing.

 

At the beginning, we bless God: “Blessed be God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and blessed be his kingdom now and forever.”

 

At the end we say, “And the blessing of Almighty God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, be amongst you and remain with you always.”

 

The entire liturgy, then, is encompassed within the framework of blessing.

 

Within the service the Eucharistic Prayer of Thanksgiving is one long prayer of blessing God. We shower thanks and praise upon God – for the gift of creation, for the people of Israel and the law and the prophets, and especially for Jesus who loved others to the very end. We remember with gratitude. We bless God by thanking God.

And how does God bless us within the liturgy? Through the words of Scripture and sermon; through inviting us into a place of prayer, where we intercede with compassion; through absolution – the declarations that our sins are remembered no more but forgiven; through the peace by which, having been reconciled to God, we are reconciled to each other; and through the food faith that forms us into a table fellowship in remembrance of him who gave himself for all.

 

God blesses us with God’s gifts.  We bless God with our gratitude.

 

The writer of our lesson reminds us that cursing does not befit blessing and gratitude. For how can we love God unless we also love God’s children for whom Christ died.

 

Let me speak, then, in more detail and cursing, before going on to say more about blessing. 

 

In recent times the meaning of cursing has been narrowed, such that for many people it simply means using foul words, usually of a sexual nature.  But cursing has deeper meaning than that. Cursing is pronouncing God’s judgment on someone.  It is declaring someone beyond the love of God, beyond repentance, beyond hope, destined for punishment only, never to be loved and forgiven, as when one says “Go to hell!” or “God damn you!” Cursing is a expression by which we declare others distanced forever from God.

 

James suggests that we have no right to speak for God in that way – when God in Christ has revealed himself otherwise. It violates as well one of the Ten Commandments – which is not to use God’s name in vain. And it is used in vain when it is not used for thanks and praise.

 

In calling on Christians to bless and not to curse, the author of the letter is likely drawing an early collection of Jesus’ words that circulated orally even before the Gospels were written – a sayings collection that included this sentence of Jesus, “But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you.” Matthew 5:44

  

St. Paul draws on those words of Jesus in his Letter to the Romans, when he writes, “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.” Romans 12:14

Likewise the author of First Peter, “Finally, all of you be of one mind, having compassion for one another; love as brothers and sisters, be tenderhearted, be courteous; not returning evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary blessing, knowing that you were called to this, that you may inherit a blessing.” 1 Peter 3:8-10

 

Early Christians drew also on other and similar sayings of Jesus as they thought through their relationships with others.  For example, the words in the Lord’s Prayer, “Forgive us as we forgive others.” Jesus’ dying words on the cross as well, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.”

 

Jesus’ sayings about not cursing but blessing took deep root, then, in early Christian communities and became foundational for how Christians thought and acted toward others.

 

Back now to blessing.

 

How do we bless God? How do we, as the Psalmists writes,  “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me bless God’s holy name”?  How do we bless God?

 

In the only way we can, by showering upon God our thanks and praise.  We bless God by expressing gratitude to God for all we have been given, for the very gift of life itself.  And we carry that gratitude to others.

 

Expressing gratitude, I believe, is the most fundamental way we bless others.

 

When we express gratitude to others, we are valuing their life. Expressing gratitude is more, then, than nice or proper etiquette. It is a spiritual act, in which our spirit unites with another’s spirit in thankfulness.

 

Saying “Thank you” blesses others. ‘Thank you,’ says the author Ira Byock, is one of the four most important words to live by and to be on our lips when we are dying.

 

In a few weeks we will begin a series on end-of-life concerns.  In our discussions, I’m sure at some point we’ll ask ourselves, What can we do for others at the end – our end or their end. How can the last stage of life not be one of cursing but blessing? What can be said, what can be done, at the time of dying? 

 

What can be done is what should be done our whole life through: To bless by speaking words of gratitude, blessing another with ‘Thank you’ deep from the heart. That expression of gratitude, spoken at the end, will be carried in the heart by the one who lives onand will bless their life.

 

Something more about blessing others with expressions of gratitude: Not only does an expression of gratitude affect the person thanked, it affects the one who speaks it.  When we live everyday blessing people with expressions of our gratitude, we live more joyfully, less cynically, less distracted by worries and other thoughts that occupy our minds for no good end.

 

So, I’d like to urge you this week to bless everyone you meet with gratitude – your children, your spouse, your neighbors, the bank teller, the store clerk, anyone, everyone.

 

I close with a true story.  Years ago, while teaching confirmation class, I said to the students, I have an oral assignment for you this week.  Sometime before we meet again, I want you to say to your mother, “Mom, I really want to thank you for everything you do for me – all the sacrifices you make for me, and all the love you show me.”  Then, watch your mother fall to the ground.

 

Next week came, “Did any of you tell your mother that?”  The first to speak answered, ‘Yes.’  “And what did she say,” I asked. “Nothing,” he answered. “She fell to the ground.”   True story about the power of blessing others with gratitude.