Recurring
themes running through our readings today:
blessings and curses;
being
scattered and gathered,
(or,
turning from and turning to);
deep
and mysterious matters of the heart...
and
the overarching theme of Covenant,
one of the great structural themes of the Bible.
What
is a blessing? Anything in your life
that is good, anything – be it a skill or a relationship – that by practice
bears fruit. Whatever is life-giving to you, and through you life-giving to
others, bears witness to your response to God’s invitation to enter into
fullness of life. And when we bless others, we speak that same invitation to
them: ‘Be fruitful!’ Something within
them will always respond, however complicated that response might be, because
it is the nature of creation to do so.
What
is a curse? A curse is not the opposite of a blessing, or even the absence of a blessing, but a particular form of blessing that places
temporary constraint* on fruitfulness, creating room for others. Let me
illustrate it like this: if you hold out your hands in front of you – palm
facing palm, like a fisherman recounting the size of his catch – to represent a
blessing, and then widen them to represent further blessing, and widen them
again to represent yet more blessing, by now you are hitting the person sat
next to you in the face. Sometimes blessings need boundaries – boundaries that
help us re-examine our blessings in the light of the blessing of, and for, others – and that is
how curses function. They humble us in our pride, in order that, in due time,
God might lift us up again. When we hit up against such boundaries, they are an
invitation to turn back to God.**
The
images of being scattered and gathered are another way of describing
curses and blessings. What feels like
being abandoned by God, and being reconciled with God, are both expressions of
God’s fidelity towards us – and reveal the fidelity he longs for from us in
return. You see, the overarching theme here is covenant fidelity.
In
the Ancient Near Eastern world, tribal chieftains would make life more secure
for their people by entering into covenant
agreement with the heads of other tribes. They would cut animals in two,
creating a corridor of blood between them, and stand at either end. Then they
would pass each other, taking one another’s place, symbolically identifying
themselves as the chief of the other tribe, before returning to their own
place, their own tribe. And they would often mark themselves with a cut that
would leave a scar, as a permanent reminder of the covenant they had made: becoming blood brothers.
From
then on, if either tribe was attacked, the other would come to their aid. This
is the covenant that God – as chief
of the heavenly beings – and Abraham – as chief of a nomadic group of herdsmen
– entered into. It was the covenant
restated when the people of Israel created a door of blood, as God passed by
them into Egypt to fight for them and they passed out of Egypt to Sinai to meet
with God and to travel together through the wilderness and to the Land of
Promise. This is the covenant
restated when Jesus came into the world, smeared in blood, and gave up his
life, again smeared in blood. And even though death could not hold him, Jesus
bears his covenant scars on his
wrists and ankles for ever.
So,
where is our covenant scar? It is not on our body, but on our heart. In the symbolic language of the
Bible, the heart is the seat of our will,
our decision-making. And that is where God has marked us with a scar, a tender
place, a permanent reminder. If you have a significant scar, you can feel it
long after the sharp pain of the initial wound is a distant memory. Not all of
the time, but at certain predictable times, such as when there is a change in
the weather. In a similar way, at turning-points
we feel our covenant scar. When we
face a decision, a choice that will move us closer
to Jesus or further away from Jesus,
our scars are a reminder of our covenant
– as his scars are to him.
So,
where do you see evidence of blessing
in your life? Remember to give thanks. Remember to include God in the
circumstances, so that you share the fruit together: Jesus loves a celebration! Remember to include others, so they
might benefit too. Remember to tell
others, so they can learn what it looks like to have God as our covenant
partner in an uncertain world.
And,
where do you experience curse,
constraint? What isn’t flourishing as you might hope? In what part of life does
it feel like you keep hitting a brick wall? Here is an opportunity to ask God,
as Jesus did from the cross,
‘Where, O Lord, are You to be found in
this place, this circumstance?
When will you come and rescue me?
And what unseen work are You up to, in
my heart, in the meantime?’
*In
the symbolic language of the Bible, curses
stretch for 3 generations, while blessings
stretch for 1000 generations.
**Even
when people malign others – when we curse
others or are cursed by others, with
no intention of blessing – God works
to bring good out of the circumstances, ensuring that curses are a particular form of blessing even where blessing
was never the intention of the one who curses.
Jesus’ covenant scars exemplify this.
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