Living with Blessings

Living with Blessings The Dover Church
September 20, 2009 –Rally Sunday Scripture: Mark 9: 30-37

Whenever we Christians, Jews and Muslims describe the birth of a child as a miracle, or we claim that each and every child is a blessing from God, we drive the skeptics nuts. “No, it's just biology,” they insist. “Why do you religious nuts insist on bringing some highly hypothetical God into what is really just a neat, but scientifically explainable, biological process?” All the “Jesus” talk about love, with God loving us and us loving each other and all creation living towards the promises of God which are yet more love, is just so much utopian, sentimental and unrealistic wishful thinking to our very capitalist, materialistic, and one dimensional culture.
To which, I respond that the biology strikes my unscientific mind as miraculous enough. I also know that something amazing does happen when a child is born on top of the straight biology. When you hear that first cry, there is an awe inspiring realization that a life has begun and everything that means, a realization that is hard to put into words although I am going to try. Hearing that first cry which followed that first breath, seeing the arms and legs moving, Marie-Laure and I were suddenly part of our sacred story of God breathing life into Adam, “the human” in Hebrew, not necessarily man or woman. “And then there was life. And God saw that it was good.” These words became true for me in a way I had never known before. And I understood the “good” that God saw in a whole new way, holding that little baby in my hands, and really knowing how very precious this life is, how very precious all life is, and how very fragile.
Even if you want to discount the miraculous in the birth process or the blessedness of a baby, which I don't but I throw it out there for the sake of argument, the miraculous and blessed only gets more so from there. As the days go by, I am more and more certain of two other truths. First, love is indeed the most powerful energy in Creation. It is the center of Creation, the adhesive, if you will, which holds it all together, and I really am blessed to be part of it. God in Jesus Christ was neither kidding nor mistaken. Getting up in the middle of the night to change and feed a child isn't exactly fun all the time, but sitting there in the dark with a baby drinking his bottle in your arms is a moment of truth, if you can overcome your exhaustion and be present to it all. You feel that connection to love, that desire to love.
And second, life really is essentially good. Sitting there for hours, just watching those eyes which are seeing everything for the first time, watching the expressions change and wondering what he's thinking, feeling that baby skin which feels like nothing else I know, smelling that baby smell (the good baby smell), listening to the squeaks, burps, gurgles, babbling, and the cries, watching the arms and legs pushing and pulling, feeling the warmth in your arms as you rock him to sleep; it's one of the most intense experiences of life I know: holding another person in your arms and being completely responsible for his well-being, and being completely pleased with that responsibility. The only word I have for it in my vocabulary is blessed.
Do those of you who have children remember? Do those of you who have held babies remember? The sight, sound, smell, feel? The emotions? Do you remember? Go ahead. Take a minute and take yourself back to your rocking chair in the middle of the night.
I ask you if you remember because I know that people are forgetful. You see, our baby used to be a little blessing in swaddling clothes, but is now a 2 year old who looks more like a giant. I feel deeply blessed when we are together, playing, dancing, wrestling, singing, laughing, learning something or reading a book. Through his eyes I see much about life that I had forgotten. Unfortunately, when he is refusing to eat his dinner or drawing on my car or arguing with me or throwing a tantrum, and I know this is just the beginning, I all too easily forget what a blessing he is. Being a parent of a two year old is just about the greatest thing there is, but there are times when I forget what a blessing it is.
Do those of you who have had two year olds remember? Do those of you who have known two year olds remember? What it's like to be part of that exciting and precious time of life? Do you remember? Go ahead. Take a minute and take yourself back to playing in the sandbox or reading a book at bedtime.
I ask you if you remember because I know that people are forgetful. Before I had a two year old, I had a son who is now five. I feel deeply blessed when we are together, reading, sending him off on the school bus with a kiss or getting a big hug when he comes home in the afternoon, picking raspberries, making up our imaginary world with pirate ships and castles, watching him do Tae Kwon Do, or helping him learn how to ride a bicycle. Unfortunately, when he is refusing to eat his dinner, arguing with me about what clothes to wear, behaving badly when we have guests over, and I know this is just the beginning, I all too easily forget what a blessing he is. Being a parent of a five year old is just about the greatest thing there is, but there are times when I forget what a blessing it is.
Do those of you who have had five year olds remember? Do those of you who have known five year olds remember? What it's like to be part of that exciting and precious time of life? Do you remember? Go ahead. Take a minute and take yourself back to the school bus or holding onto that bicycle.
I ask you if you remember because I know that people are forgetful. Before I had two boys I had a wife, who I thought was just about the biggest blessing a man could have. Unfortunately, when we're actually in the process of living together as adults, I forget all too easily what a blessing she is.
Do those of you who have had spouses remember? How great it can be to be married? Do you remember? Go ahead. Take a minute and take yourself there to the really blessed times of your marriage.
I ask you if you remember because I know that people are forgetful. Before I had a wife and kids I had a family and friends and a church. My life is full of wonderful people, all of whom are blessings in my life, but sometimes I forget. Sometimes I just cannot see how any of them could possibly be created in the image of God, because all I can see is their pimples. You know, the same way they only see mine. That's the funny thing about a pimple. There can be just one pimple on an otherwise beautiful face, but God help us if it isn't just about the only thing we can see on that face when it's there.
Now we're all in this together, because all of us have someone. Do you remember how great they are? How great it is to be in relationship, friendship, family, communion? Do you remember? Go ahead. Take a minute and take yourself back to the blessed times.
I ask you if you remember because I know that people are forgetful. As I sit there in my rocking chair in the middle of the night, holding my beautiful boy child in my arms or watching my other beautiful boy child ride off on the school bus and loving the fact that God has blessed me so much, I forget about the 35,000 children under the age of 5 around the world, little Leos and Lucases, who died yesterday because they didn't have enough food or clean water or basic medicine, one child every three seconds, 20 every minute, a 2004 tsunami every week, an Iraq war death toll every 20 days, each of whom were someone else's beautiful boy or girl child, someone else's miracle, someone else's blessing.
As I sit there in my rocking chair in the middle of the night, holding my beautiful boy child in my arms or wrestling with my other beautiful boy child before supper and loving the fact that God has blessed me so much, I forget that there are 15 million children in this most wealthy of nations who live in poverty and have little chance of ever knowing the life our boys will live, and each of them is someone else's beautiful boy or girl child, someone else's miracle, someone else's blessing. I forget that there are 8 million American children, little Leos and Lucases who do not have medical insurance and who will probably never know the health and well-being our boys will take for granted, just because Marie-Laure and I have insurance.
As I sit there in my rocking chair in the middle of the night, holding my beautiful boy child in my arms, touching his fingers and toes, marveling at how beautiful he is, even if he does look like me, or wrestling with my other beautiful boy child before supper and loving the fact that God has blessed me so much, I forget all the people who are dying right now in the various wars around the world, the more than 5,000 American service people who have died, the more than 42 thousand young men and women who have been severely injured, the thousands who are psychologically scarred, maybe for life, on top of the perhaps hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Afghanis, I forget that each and every one of them are someone else's beautiful boy or girl child, someone else's miracle, someone else's blessing. God help me, but I forget the second part of the Great Commandment, according to Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior: “You shall love your neighbor as you love yourself.”
As I sit there in my rocking chair in the middle of the night, holding my beautiful boy child in my arms or wrestling with my other beautiful boy child before supper and loving the fact that God has blessed me so much, I remember all the joy I have had in fishing for trout in the clear, cold streams and ponds of New England, of the fun I have had playing in the snow, skating on the ponds, cross country skiing in the woods and meadows. All the things from my boyhood and adulthood which depend on clean air and water, cold winters and cooler summers, and rain and snow in abundance and I now know that my boys may never know these simple pleasures of life with their children because of the obstinate greed of our political and economic leadership who are running us onwards to environmental collapse, unless we change our ways.
Do you know what else I see when I am sitting there in my rocking chair in the middle of the night, holding my beautiful boy child in my arms or watching my other beautiful boy child ride off on the school bus and loving the fact that God has blessed me so much? I see my own face. I see the person I used to be, the person I might have been. I see my face in those little perfect faces, my face before I did all this living; and then I look at the mirror and see all the brokenness and hard places, the wear and tear from all the bad decisions I made, the misguided paths I followed, the painful things that have been done to me or just happened.
And in those unblemished faces I see the hope of the future, hope both in those two little boys and in the person I might yet become, the person God in Jesus Christ invites me to be, New Creation in Christ. In those faces, gifts from God, I see every reason why I cannot forget all of the beautiful boy and girl children of our world. In those faces, gifts from God, I see every reason why I cannot forget that every person is created in the image of God and that I am called to cherish them as such. In those faces, gifts from God, I see every reason why I cannot forget that my greatest purpose in life is to worship God and love my neighbor. In those faces, gifts from God, I hear God calling me not to deny that I can actually do something to keep even one of those 35, 000 children alive who will surely die tomorrow. I hear God insisting that I do something right now to provide medical insurance for those 8 million Americans children. In those faces, gifts from God, I hear God calling me to do something to keep other precious boy and girl children from being chewed up in war. I hear God calling me not to deny that I can actually do something to keep God's good earth from coming apart at the seams. Sure, I am tired, sleep deprived, preoccupied with my family responsibilities and my job, feeling slightly buried to say the least, but in those faces I see every reason why I cannot forget just how very blessed I am in every way and how I am called by God in Jesus Christ to share that blessedness. God isn't hypothetical when it's your child. Jesus isn't sentimental when it's your child. The Kingdom of God is not utopian when it's your child. The only thing that is unbelievable is how quickly and easily we forget when it’s someone else’s child. “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, one earth, right here and right now, as it is in heaven, right now”? That the prayer, right?
Ah, how we forget.