Blessed to be a Blessing

“You are blessed to be a blessing.”

How many times have I heard that before?

So many, if I’m honest, that I can tune those words out. It seems like a way to explain to especially privileged people why we are so blessed, over and above others. And it often thus feels to me like a rationale for the inequities that persist in our world, whereas I would offer another explanation: human sin and brokenness.

But this week, at our Central Conference Annual Meeting, I heard those words again – as if for the first time.

During our Thursday evening worship service, Ramelia Williams, director of Ministry Initiatives in our denomination’s Love Mercy Do Justice office, preached on God’s covenant with Abraham in Genesis. She focused on how Abraham was blessed to be a blessing.

This time, the words didn’t feel so hollow.

She told us how the very act of acknowledging yourself as blessed is to recognize the connection between you, the receiver and God, the giver. It is to see WHO before the WHAT of your blessing. And it is to know that God, who gives us gifts, gets a say in how we use them.

Then she posed several questions that have stayed with me:

What if we viewed our blessings as a blueprint for the work God has called us to?

What if we viewed our blessings as ways to connect us to each other?

What is the meaning of a blessing from God if I keep the fruit of it for myself?

As a person who was born into privilege and continues to live in that privilege, I have often grappled with the purpose of my privilege. I can see now that I conflated privilege (the result of an unequal and unjust society) with blessing (the act of God).

There’s something to be said for using your privilege on behalf of the underprivileged – that’s work we need to keep doing, too.

But today, I’m thinking about my blessings. Things that are gifts from God. Like a loving family, and a wonderful church. Deep friendships. Meaningful work.

God gave me those things – and God gets a say in how I use them.

I invite you today to reflect on what you would list as your blessings, and how you might use them to bless others.

I will leave you with these thoughts, right from Ramelia:

You are privileged to free others from oppression

You are wounded to be a healer

You are employed to support your family and community

You are free to break the chains of others.

What might you add?

yours,

Pastor Jen

Blessed to be a Blessing

“You are blessed to be a blessing.”

How many times have I heard that before?

So many, if I’m honest, that I can tune those words out. It seems like a way to explain to especially privileged people why we are so blessed, over and above others. And it often thus feels to me like a rationale for the inequities that persist in our world, whereas I would offer another explanation: human sin and brokenness.

But this week, at our Central Conference Annual Meeting, I heard those words again – as if for the first time.

During our Thursday evening worship service, Ramelia Williams, director of Ministry Initiatives in our denomination’s Love Mercy Do Justice office, preached on God’s covenant with Abraham in Genesis. She focused on how Abraham was blessed to be a blessing.

This time, the words didn’t feel so hollow.

She told us how the very act of acknowledging yourself as blessed is to recognize the connection between you, the receiver and God, the giver. It is to see WHO before the WHAT of your blessing. And it is to know that God, who gives us gifts, gets a say in how we use them.

Then she posed several questions that have stayed with me:

What if we viewed our blessings as a blueprint for the work God has called us to?

What if we viewed our blessings as ways to connect us to each other?

What is the meaning of a blessing from God if I keep the fruit of it for myself?

As a person who was born into privilege and continues to live in that privilege, I have often grappled with the purpose of my privilege. I can see now that I conflated privilege (the result of an unequal and unjust society) with blessing (the act of God).

There’s something to be said for using your privilege on behalf of the underprivileged – that’s work we need to keep doing, too.

But today, I’m thinking about my blessings. Things that are gifts from God. Like a loving family, and a wonderful church. Deep friendships. Meaningful work.

God gave me those things – and God gets a say in how I use them.

I invite you today to reflect on what you would list as your blessings, and how you might use them to bless others.

I will leave you with these thoughts, right from Ramelia:

You are privileged to free others from oppression

You are wounded to be a healer

You are employed to support your family and community

You are free to break the chains of others.

What might you add?

yours,

Pastor Jen

The Narrative of the Other

Luke 7:13 When the Lord saw her, He had compassion on her and said to her, “Do not weep.”

The first half of this week I made my way to Lansing Michigan for my first clergy retreat with Church of Christ (Disciples of Christ) colleagues. Though it felt strange to be a complete stranger to everyone in the room, I was warmly welcomed and gained many new friends.

For 2 days we considered the power of stories, narratives. We told our own and listened to others, and considered with the help of a prodding presenter the unique opportunity and challenge of following Jesus into the seething pain of our world.

We were left to reflect on and consider that to walk with Jesus into the world means that we take the narrative of others as more primary than our own, especially the narrative of those who are suffering injustice. The basis for this is self-displacement of Jesus, who is constantly moved with compassion for those who are hurting and makes their pain his own. Ultimately, of course, he offers up his own suffering and death so that we might have new life. Talk about the narrative of the other!

The idea we were wrestling with is how we are called as followers of Christ to embrace by our own volition the forming narrative of those suffering around us. To say, for instance, to our African American sisters and brothers, “Your pain is now my pain”, and to then act in ways to seek justice and healing for the atrocities that black people have experienced in our own country’s history even to this present day. It is not simply to be concerned, or to care, but to listen to, learn about, and one actually come to accept the narrative of another as my own, and therefore, to work for justice and the healing of the human family. The hope is that in taking this step we can break the cycle of perpetuating injustice.

As we know, the word compassion means to “suffer with”. The first part of this involves acknowledging my own complicity, mostly in the privileges I have which have been gained through the suffering of others. the second part is identifying with, suffering with those whose narrative is one of experiencing all kinds of injustice. Here the words of Paul say it best:

“If there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, and sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete….Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the very form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in human likeness. and being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death–even death on a cross.” (Phil 2)

Our lives have been redeemed by this action of Jesus, who embraced our human narrative in all its brokenness and pain. This now is our work as those walking out into the world with the mind of Christ.

God bless us one and all as we seek to follow Christ!

Peter Hawkinson