The Stark Benediction

The Stark Benediction--January 2, 2018

"And the child's father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him. Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, 'This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed--and a sword will pierce your own soul too." [Luke 2:33-35]

Usually, if people ask you to give a blessing, they are asking you to say something... nice.

Vague, too, probably.  Keep it flowery, keep it light, and keep it upbeat.  Don't dwell on specifics--those are too hard to fact-check later to see if they came true or not. And don't open up any cans of worms with bad news, danger, or controversy.  Keep it bland but poetic, harmless but memorable.  You know, like the inside of a greeting card.

Consider this a bit of inside information from someone whose work life often involves requests for the "religious professional" to "give a blessing" at this or that civic function, family birthday party, high school graduation, or national holiday.  When folks ask their local preacher, pastor, or chaplain to give a blessing, they usually want a verbal lucky charm punctuated with the sign of the cross at the end--nothing that will change or challenge anybody.

And, look--I get it.  At those happy moments of life, we all want to just feel pleasant.  We want people to say, "Wasn't that nice?"  We want to show our friends, neighbors, and guests that we are religious--hence asking for someone to "give a blessing" in the first place.  We want our local family-affiliated religious professional to talk, but we really don't want them to say anything.  Just get to the "Amen," and we can get on with the cutting of the cake or the cutting of the ribbon.

In fairness, look what happens when you don't follow that prescription--you get Simeon's strange and unsettling blessing of the child Jesus and his parents.  And, unquestionably, it is a stark benediction.  There's no rhetorical flourish, no flowery poetry, and no harmlessly happy inspirational fluff.  There is only a sense of divine purpose that will bring change--change to the child Simeon holds in his arms, change for Mary and Joseph, change for the powerful and the lowly, and change for the whole world.

If we are paying attention, this should probably unsettle us.  We don't like the idea of a blessing that could provoke change in us or our world.  We don't like the idea of a benediction that pokes us awake as much as it comforts us.  We don't anybody telling us that God will change us--we want God's stamp of approval  on the status quo. We would ask Simeon to invoke the Almighty to leave us and our comfortable routines alone, to let our familiar arrangements stay just as they are, to preserve and protect the stability and order of life-as-we-know-it.  And Simeon does... well, just the opposite.

But that doesn't mean he is bad at blessing, or that this is a "wrong" benediction.  It means, if we are uncomfortable with this scene (and I have to be honest with you, I can't recall anybody preaching on this passage in my childhood or early adulthood--always easier to punt on the Sunday after Christmas), we are not very good at letting God call the shots when blessing us.  We tend to think that "blessing" is like consulting a genie or a lucky clover--that it is a quasi-magical power we can use at our discretion to accomplish our own goals.  But God has a way of blessing us that looks less like the granting of wishes, and more like suiting us for God's good purposes.  And that sometimes means God blesses us in stark and challenging ways that surprise us, challenge us, stretch us, and change us.  Jacob, after all, gets punched in the hip as God blesses him--the benediction of God leaves him walking with a limp for the rest of his life!  And for that matter, Jesus only blesses the bread he breaks, so that it can be given and shared with all. A punch in the pelvis or the tearing of bread--that's more like what genuine blessing does.

That's the force of Simeon's blessing, too.  The Christ child whom he blesses will be the cause of change for many--the "falling and the rising" of many in Israel, and the unmasking of the hypocrisy of the Respectable Religious Crowd.  That had to be hard for Mary to hear, even if she knew that was exactly what the world needed from her son.  You want to hear things like, "I just know your child will be on the honor roll one day, the captain of the football team, or the homecoming queen!  I just know your child will be successful in business and happy in family life!"  And Simeon doesn't do that sort of vaguely "nice" blessing.  He insists that the Christ child will change things--just as Mary had sung about in her pregnancy: bringing down the powerful from their thrones, feeding the hungry with good things, and sending the rich away empty.  Simeon's blessing questions the status quo, and to him, it is good news that the child in front of him will overturn the old order and pull away the masks and pretense of the arrogant and the proud.  But it is a stark blessing all the same.

Simeon knows, too, that all of this change will be met with hostility and opposition.  Nobody wants to have their comfortable world changed, and absolutely nobody wants to hear that God is the one doing the changing. But if the Christ has come to set things right, it will mean that everybody invested in "the way things are" will find Jesus to be dangerous, provocative, and subversive.  They will oppose any changes to their order.  They will start looking for hammers and nails.  Simeon knows that--there is already the specter of suffering and the shadow of a cross cast over this child and his mother from the very beginning of his life.  That, too, is part of his blessing.

So here is the question for us today, just two days into a new year: do we dare to let this same God on whom Simeon called bless us, too?  Do we dare risk the possibility of a stark benediction over us as well, even if it means that the God who blesses us sends us out in to the world like Christ, both to lift up and to pull down, to risk being criticized or rejected, to be changed and challenged and poked out of complacency?  Are we willing to let genuine blessing unsettle us and light a fire in our bones, not simply to endorse our creature comforts and white-picket fence lives, but to conscript us into service in the Reign of God where the lowly are lifted up and the powerful and proud are pulled down?  Are we willing to let the living God rearrange our priorities, our pocketbooks, our privilege?  Because all of that comes along with real, living, breathing blessing, and not just the vaguely inspirational tripe mouthed by a rent-a-preacher.  

If we dare to be blessed in such an authentic way, we can be certain about two things: one, we will be blessed the same way the Christ child is blessed--in order to change the world; and two, we and the world to which we are sent will never be the same.

Be blessed, dear ones.  Be blessed, people of Christ.

Lord Jesus, bless us and stake your claim on us--not to get your endorsement on our wish-lists, but to submit and reshape our wishes, wants, and well-being in light of your Reign of justice and mercy.