Go and Bless

Go and Bless

(Genesis 12:1-4) J G White

Sun, March 16, 2014, Windsor UBC

“May the Lord bless you, and make you a blessing!” Isn’t that what the late pastor Perry F. Rockwood said at the end of his radio program each week?  Go and bless.  In other words, go and wish good upon others, do good to them.  

How do we “go and bless” when told to do so?  When ordered?  This is what we just heard about, what Joan read in Genesis 12.  A ancient Near Eastern senior named Abram, and his wife, Sarai, are to go south - move to a new place, and be a source of blessing for others.  

The prompting to move on and make change comes in many ways.  We turn the pages to a new chapter in life out of many a circumstance: some seem positive, some seem negative.  Hey, you have two pastoral people on their way out.  I told you I am going to go.  I looked into the opportunity for this move.  Considered it.  Looked for divine confirmation amid the agreement of people.  But, like Abe and Sarai, Sharon and I don’t know “where we are going.”  We know it’s Digby, but we don’t really know what we are getting into.  And Digby Baptist does not know what they are getting with us.  We leave this in the Lord God’s amazing hands, with trust and faith, with hope and enthusiasm.  With God we think we can go and bless.  

Jeff Hosick, on the other hand chose to depart out of unresolved conflict.  He sets out on a new chapter here in Windsor, continuing his pastoral counselling and coaching outside of the church.  

Speaking of this, Perhaps I should take an aside here.  I committed to you at our annual meeting to keep you informed about the conflict and the process with the deacons and Jeff.  I had stopped his report about this from being printed in his annual report.  The deacons have now offered their closing report on this matter.  But I have not yet spoken of this.  

It would almost be easier to explain if what happened was a matter of some kind of moral failure on his part, which it was not.  Or if it was some kind of financial problem, which it was not.  Or if he had a conflict with me, or was overstepping his bounds here, but our relationship has remained very good, and I have valued his input over twelve years here.  

Mainly, I see that some decisions Jeff made about a ministry he was planning were considered unwise and troubled some of the deacons, 1 year ago. Their relationships deteriorated from there.  Communication broke down, they did not understand one another, did not give and receive what each seemed to need from the other.  Trust was lost, and interaction got more and more limited.

So, out of this, what God has for Jeff Hosick and what God has for Windsor Baptist is simply now diverging, branching out from one another. I find Jeff is pretty much at peace about this new journey.  I pray that he will be completely blessed by the God who guides.  And we be blessed too.  We get to finalize our closure with him by our farewell event for Jeff this coming Saturday evening.  

Go and bless.  It is about offering the blessing of God.

Do you ever go around and bless things, silently or otherwise?  Barbara Brown Taylor, in her book, An Altar in the World, has a final chapter about giving blessings, something we all can do.  

Start throwing blessings around and chances are you will start noticing all kinds of things you never noticed before.  Did you ever notice the white and black striped stockings on the stick legs of that blessed mosquito before? Did you ever notice the tiny purple flowers on the blessed moss?  One liability of pronouncing blessings out of doors is that it gets hard to walk on things.  Once you become aware of the life in them, the kinship can really slow you down.

The same is true of other people.  The next time you are at the airport, try blessing the people sitting at the departure gate with you.  Every one of them is dealing with something significant.  (pp.201-2)

I thought of this the other day when I was stalled at the Masstown Market near Truro.  I’d stopped there to eat, and getting back into my car the key broke in half.  So I had an extra hour and twenty minutes to spend there, as Sharon drove over to meet me with a spare key.  

As I watched people at the Market, I remembered that I could be praying, praying a blessing over each stranger.  I soon got distracted and stopped blessing them. But what a good spiritual practice to develop!

The Abram and Sarai story is about blessing, and also about going.  “Go,” Abe is told.  And he goes.  His family of origin - father and clan, had started a pilgrimage from their homeland to Canaan, but half-way they stopped and settled in Haran.  Now, Abram is called on to go all the way, finish what had begun.  And he goes.  

I have been amazed in the past, chatting with various people who sensed a call from God to go one place, and ended up going somewhere else!  Years ago Hedley and Mary Hopkins prepared for missionary service in India.   They’d had training in the Telugu language, had their bags all packed.   But the way ended up being blocked.  Instead, they went to South America, to Bolivia, and served there as Baptist missionaries.  Their willingness took them on a journey, but to an unexpected mission field.

Abram and Sarai and family also headed off, not knowing where God was actually going to lead them.  Genesis 12 is a pivotal point in the book of Genesis.  Chapters 1-11 are about humanity; chapters 12-50 about Israel, the Hebrews, within the human story.  So here, 12:1-4 is the beginning of a special people, the Chosen People, the Jews.  And their beginning is all about being a blessing to the rest of the peoples of earth.  

What are our lessons from Abram and Sarai?

Is this inspiration for our obedience to the Lord’s will?  

Is it a moral lesson: do as they did?

Is it a matter of faith: have faith like them; do not fear?

Is it about God: know God as they did, and respond?

It can be all of the above.

Abram and Sarai were obedient to the call.  Obedient to the journey.  Surprised by the journey. They failed along the journey. Stayed on the journey. Read Genesis 12 through 25 again.

Going and blessing is all about making a difference in the world.  Being a blessing of God.  Having other peoples blessed.  

A few years ago, Reggie McNeal challenged Atlantic Baptists to become known as the blessing people!  And notice there is a whole nation of people arising among us - the younger generations, pagan people, really, who could meet the Lord Jesus.  We don’t have to go very far to be on the mission field. Our present Vision will get us to focus upon this mission field in which we are already deployed.

I had a very pleasant and inspiring visit with the Women’s Missionary Society the other day.  I notice we still tend to talk about our Baptist missionaries.  But Canadian Baptist Ministries does not call them that now.  Have you noticed?  They are now called our Global Field Staff.  I think I know why.  Because we are just as much the missionaries as they are, those who go to some other country.  We are the Local Field Staff of Canadian Baptists, & around the world are stationed our Global Field Staff.  We are to be on mission here at home, deployed by the Holy Spirit here.  There are plenty of outsiders to the Faith right here.  

The Biblical tradition the blessing, rooted in Abraham, is about ‘outsiders’ favoured by God, included, brought in. Draw the circle wide, as retired Anglican Bishop Gordon Light put it in one song.  

If we scan the references in the New Testament to Abraham answering this call, we are wisely instructed.

Dr. Luke, author of the Gospel of Luke and of the Acts of the Apostles, seems to highlight best how the story of Abraham and Sarah shows up God’s will to bless those who seem on the outs.  As Walter Brueggemann puts it, ‘unqualified outsiders’ are blessed.  

In Luke 1, Mary sings when she is told of the child she will bear, the Messiah.  She sings of how the poor will have plenty while the rich will be sent away empty, the powerful taken from their thrones and the lowly lifted up.  Mary speaks of many such biblical promises “to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”  

In Luke 13, a crippled, downcast woman is healed on the Sabbath, and called by Jesus, “a daughter of Abraham.”

In Luke 16 Jesus tells the parable of a rich man, and a poor man, who both die.  In the afterlife it is the poor man, Lazarus, who rests at the side of Father Abraham, while the unnamed rich guy fries in flames.  

In Luke 19 is the famous story of Zaccheus, who gets included in Jesus’ tour of visits and blessings.  Jesus exclaimed “Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham.”

And in Acts 3, Luke records a sermon by Peter to Jews in the Jerusalem temple.  Peter preaches Jesus, and quotes from Genesis 12, as he speaks of “the covenant God gave to your ancestors, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your descendants all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’”

The theme is strong: God blesses and includes the outcast, the poor, the forgotten, the weak.  The “unqualified outsiders.”  

We could also look at how Paul quotes Genesis in Galatians 3:8, saying “And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, declared the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, ‘All the Gentiles shall be blessed in you.’”  Or at the grand litany of Old Testament heroes listed in Hebrews 11, inducing Abraham and Sara.  “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going.”

That is so often the way.  We set out to follow God’s lead, not knowing what really will be next.  Trusting the Lord.  

Do the times demand this again?  How many people from our Town, who have never been Christians, have we been bringing into fellowship with Jesus?  That many, eh?  Well, if something is going to happen, it will be a new thing for us, a new way of going into our own neighbourhoods!  We must ready ourselves to go in new ways. A new obedience is required.

In the hardest of times, and in the delightful times, we can find God saying to us, “Go; go and bless in a new place.”  How Sarai and Abram did this, how we do this, is part of the bigger picture.  Part of our relationship with our Lord, our walk with Him.  In our own county, we are hearing the call of the Lord to go into places right here, among those the Lord loves: everyone.  We are part of the big mission!

In the big Canadian study on young adults and the church, 2 years ago, many folk across our nation were interviewed. Ministry successes were documented, amid the failures.  Here are three examples:

“One thing that I love about our church is that we have homeless people attend, and we have doctors and lawyers attend. It’s just like a vast conglomeration of people. There’s not only certain types of people that come to this church … It’s just this mixture of the absolute poor and the wealthy. But it works and people love each other.” Roy

“Some of those ladies in that back row … pray for me every single day … there's a genuine investment. The two old ladies that ran the church library that I would go hang out with every Sunday and who would always ask how I was doing just loved me like a grandson.” Barry

“Like I saw my mom every day, I’d come down and she’d be on the couch sitting in the morning,reading her Bible in the quiet. Or like, I’d always see her flipping through her Bible when she had free time from not having to run around and do stuff. So she was very open to talking about it, and she talked to me about it a lot. ” Anna

This will be our experience in Windsor and area when we answer the call to go and bless those of our own county.  Our present Vision takes us to a place of having our sights on who we want to make into disciples of Jesus: younger people, the upcoming generations.  And also, we want to make disciples of all ages who sense and support this mission to younger people: men, women, youth and children.  

Go and make disciples of all nations, says Jesus. What’s written in Matthew 28, in Greek, could also be translated, As you are going, make disciples of all nations.  

Go and bless.  Our Lord has used us to do this.  There is much more going and blessing to be done.  It is a new day and age for this mission.  Let us discover what it means to go.  And let us discover what it means to bless, in Jesus’ name.  AMEN.