Rector's Blog: Made To Be A Blessing

You are a blessing. Your very being in this world is a blessing that helps make the world more of what it is meant to be.

This is not true only sometimes, when you are at your best, or when you are living the “right” way. This is not only true when you are believing the right thing, or acting the way you’re supposed to. It’s especially not only true when you are being productive, useful, or competent. Your being a blessing is not based on something you are doing or have done. How can I say this with such confidence? Because the fact of your blessedness is about who God is and how God sees you.

God looks upon you with love. This is the Gospel. This is why church exists, why you and I even know each other – so that we can remember the basic reality that God is looking upon you, upon me, upon us, with love. To be looked upon with love is to be blessed. So our foundation, our genesis, the beginning of our self-understanding must be that we are in our very being blessed by God.

And the blessing of God, the love of God is not abstract. It’s not just an idea to make you feel better. It’s also not inert or neutral: The fact that God loves you and blesses you as you are right now has a powerful effect on you and your life. And this effect is something we need to talk about because it connects to another really important reality about God. God’s love is not scarce or exclusive: God loving and blessing you does not mean there’s less love or blessing for those around you. In fact, it’s the opposite. The way God loves and blesses you actually equips and empowers you to love and be a blessing to the world.

So when I say your very being in this world is a blessing that helps make the world more of what its meant to be, I mean it literally. You were made on purpose. Your being here matters. You are loved not for who you might be someday or for the best version of you: You are loved right now in your current state.

My first child was born with a cleft lip and palate. My wife and I found this out during her pregnancy, and went to our priest to help us process this new information – because it radically transformed our understanding of what we were getting ourselves into, and it changed our picture of a person we already loved. Our priest, it turns out, had had a similar experience. He had a child born with significant medical difficulties. He was, gracious and comforting – all the things you want someone to be when you go to them in worry. And then he said the thing we needed to hear. He said, “This person is a blessing right now as she is. Don’t wait for everything to be perfect to celebrate. Don’t wait for everything to be just right before you see the blessing. If you do that, you will never see the blessing.

I’m crying as I write these words, because I’m filled with gratitude that someone who understand God’s blessing would tell me the truth about that blessing. We all need this. We need to be reminded of the fundamental nature of how God loves us, and of what that means for us.

Can you imagine if I waited until all the conditions were just right before I was able to recognize what a blessing this new person was to me, to this world? It’s unimaginable, this way of thinking. Because, as the poet Robert Frost once wrote, “We love the things we love for what they are.” You and I are rooted and grounded in the love of God in Jesus Christ. This means that we are anchored in and nourished by the fact of our blessedness and belonging. We are loved for who we are. And this kind of being loved empowers us to love others for who they are.

Through this time of staying at home, quarantine, and physical distancing, we at Redeemer continue to explore the Way of Love – a Jesus centered rule of life composed of a set of practices that help to define the Episcopal approach to faith. The 7 practices meant for daily use are Turn, Learn, Pray, Worship, Bless, Go, Rest. We are looking this week at Blessing. Blessing others, you see, is one of the main ways we practice our faith as Christians in the Episcopal tradition. By blessing others, you might think I’m talking about doing things for them, and to some degree I am.

But hopefully you’re picking up what I’m trying to put down in what I’m saying here: That blessing others isn’t primarily about doing something for them: It’s about being yourself for others. It’s about making yourself available to others. To bless is to make the decision to actively look with love and favor upon those around you – not only when they please, impress, or appease you – but simply for being themselves. To bless is to practice seeing people the way God sees them. To bless is to love the things we love for what they are.

Don’t wait for everything to be perfect to celebrate. Don’t wait for everything to be just right before you see the blessing. If you do that, you will never see the blessing. And that goes for how you see yourself too. The more you understand that you are loved for what you are, that you are blessed and a blessing right now, the more easily, more fully, more passionately, you will bless those around you.