(part of the “Breathing Out” Lenten Series)

Scripture Passage:  Psalm 121 (Lent 2A)

¹I lift up my eyes to the hills— from where will my help come?

²My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.

³He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber.

⁴He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.

⁵The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade at your right hand.

⁶The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.

⁷The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life.

⁸The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and forevermore.

Years ago, I was about to leave a wedding rehearsal that I had just finished when the bride’s parents came up to me and asked if I could give them a blessing.  I have to admit that I was surprised.  We give blessings at baptisms and blessings at weddings.  We bless meals and houses and ships and new buildings.  We even bless our animal companions at special services.  But for some reason, blessings just for the sake of blessing, just for the sake of being, has become almost non-existent. Perhaps we’ve become almost distrustful of it, as if it’s some sort of implied expectation that God will shower good things upon us.  Our language has taken that concept of being “blessed” as some sort of reward, as if God has somehow built a bubble of good things and protection around us.  Well, truthfully, that’s just bad theology.  No where are we promised that God will shield us from bad things or continually shower us with good.  Faithful living does not guarantee that one will become healthy, wealthy, and wise.  The promise is that God will journey WITH us through all that life holds, even through the valley of the shadow of death.

This Psalm is known by some as one of the psalms of ascent, a traveler’s psalm.  It was often used as one began a journey and was a reminder to look to that place where God was, to know that God was there, a traveler with the traveler.  It is also a Psalm of blessing, a blessing for one who is about to begin a journey.  In our translation, the scripture begins with a question.  But since there’s no real punctuation in the original Hebrew in which it was written, this may or may not be intended this way.  Maybe, rather than a sojourner looking for help, it is one who acknowledges that he or she is not alone.  “I lift up mine eyes to the hills from where my help will come.”  This is the Lord who, no matter what happens, will keep your life–through all that life holds, darkness and life.  The Lord is always and forever present, never drifting away or slumbering. The chorus from Elijah (Mendelssohn) uses this theme.  “He, watching over Israel, slumbers not nor sleeps.”  God is always there.  This is the promise of faith.

The Hebrew call to be a blessing (Parshas Lech Lecha) is used eighty-eight times in the Book of Genesis.  A blessing is a gift.  It involves every sphere of our existence.  It is not, as our language and our culture seems to depict, payment for a life well-lived or for looking or acting or believing a certain way; it is not taking the bad things of life as God’s way of strengthening us or something; it is not somehow straining to proclaim the bad as good; and it is certainly not living some unreal existence where darkness does not seep in at all.  Being blessed means to be recreated.  It takes time.  To be a blessing is to enter the story.  God calls, God promises, and, as the Psalmist depicts, God walks with us, ever-present and ever-faithful.  That is how God is revealed.  When we enter the story, we are truly blessed.  We begin again.  We are blessed to be a blessing, one who journeys with God.

A Blessing is a beginning, a new beginning, an acknowledgment that, even now, even on this day when war rages throughout the globe, even on this day when people are afraid of the economy, afraid of each other, and afraid of what their country may do to them, re-creation is happening.  Life is a blessing.  Even darkness and wilderness and desert spaces in our lives are blessings as they look ahead for the Light to come.  On Ash Wednesday, we were blessed with ashes as this Lenten journey began, as we were reminded who and whose we are.  We began again.  God walks with us on this journey.  We know that.  Intellectually, we know that.  But knowing it deep within our being is what being blessed is all about.

On this day, breathe out cynicism, breathe out fear, breathe out mistrust and breathe in blessing.  We are continually blessed.  It doesn’t mean our lives become easier; it doesn’t mean we become wealthier (I’m not a prosperity gospel person, in case you haven’t noticed); it doesn’t mean that our world will become more to our liking tomorrow.  What it means is that we’re starting again, maybe that we’re looking at things differently next time around—over and over and over.  What it means is that the God who created us and declared that creation good is doing it over and over and over again.  What a blessing!

Here is the God I want to believe in: a Father who, from the beginning of Creation, has stretched out his arms in merciful blessing, never forcing himself on anyone, but always waiting; never letting his arms drop down in despair, but always hoping that his children will return so that he can speak words of love to them and let his tired arms rest on their shoulders. His only desire is to bless. (Henri J.M. Nouwen)

Grace and Peace,

Shelli