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May 08 +James Blessing

‘Bless’ is one of those words (like ‘enjoy’) which recently seems to have developed a new life of its own.

A child eats some chocolate cake at a birthday party and ends up with more chocolate on his face than in his mouth.  ‘Ah, bless’ says an amused neighbour.  An old (or not so old!) person struggles with a television remote-control.  ‘Ah, bless: let me do it’ says a rather younger member of the family.  In both cases, friendly – but a little patronising.  ‘Blessing’ someone today often suggests that we know best and are somehow superior.  It is well meant – but rather misses the point.

The point is of course that all the blessing comes from God.  In the Old Testament God’s blessing is interpreted in fairly material terms.  Long-life, children, crops and herds, peace, wealth and ultimately wisdom are all regarded as signs of God’s ‘blessing’.  In the New Testament Jesus gives all this a more spiritual slant.  Being truly ‘blessed’ (from beatus, which means happy) involves being in tune with God’s will (‘poor in spirit’ or ‘pure in heart’) and building up treasure, not on earth but in heaven.  Even those who suffer for the sake of righteousness are ‘blessed’ says Jesus.  They may not be wealthy or famous – but the kingdom of heaven belongs to them.

That’s why pronouncing a blessing is so significant.  It isn’t just a matter of offering someone your sympathy or passing on your good wishes.  It is a prayer, and the words themselves have power.  In the Bible, that is most evident in the story of Isaac blessing Jacob. (Gen. 27) When he discovers his mistake he can no more retract the blessing than he can pluck his words from the air and pop them back in his mouth.  The same is true when Balaam blesses Israel (Num. 23) or St Paul blesses the Corinthians (2 Cor. 13.13).  In each case God is being asked to ‘bless’ the people concerned, and like all prayer it changes the person praying as well as those from whom the prayer is said.  So what about ‘inanimate objects’?  I recently met a clergyman who refuses to bless anything which isn’t alive.  That must present problems when it comes to blessing the ring(s) at a wedding.  It also rules out the lovely opportunity to bless someone’s house when they have moved.  In both cases presumably the prayer is that God will take and use that particular piece of his creation (and its owner) for a good and ‘godly’ purpose.  The same applies to ‘consecrating’ church buildings or churchyards and saying grace over food before a meal.  Everything belongs to God, and blessing an object seems to me to be partly a matter of declaring his lordship over it.

But if we can bless people and things – can we also bless God himself?  St Paul says ‘Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ’ (2 Cor. 1.3) – because there is a sense in which that completes the circle of blessing.  God’s blessing, like his word, does not return to him void, and when we ‘bless’ him for his unmerited grace we open ourselves up to his continuing favour (as in Psalms 34 and 103).  St Augustine once observed that God is more anxious to bestow his blessings on us than we are to receive them.  Blessing God is what the Old Testament calls ‘choosing life rather than death’, and recognising God’s great gift of love for what it is.

‘Bless you’.  Not just a pious eccentricity or automatic response to a sneeze or condescending catch-phrase.  ‘Bless you’ is shorthand for a world-view which has God and his unending mercies firmly at its centre; and a powerful antidote to the twenty-first century curse of self-pity.

James Newcome, Bishop of Penrith