Signs of Spiritual Maturity Part 6: Blessing & Cursing
"People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, 'Let the little children come to me. Don’t stop them, because the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.' After taking them in his arms, he laid his hands on them and blessed them."
-- Mark 10:13-16
A Question on Maturity
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Maturity Sign #6
This week we continue our Maturity Series with Father Ron Rolheiser's sixth sign of maturity or Christlikeness:
"Bless more and curse less!"
JOY & STRIVING
This week before diving into blessing and cursing, let's look at another passage about maturity and see what we can glean. In Colossians 1:24-29, Paul writes,
"Now I rejoice in my sufferings for you, and I am completing in my flesh what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for his body, that is, the church. I have become its servant, according to God’s commission that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. God wanted to make known among the Gentiles the glorious wealth of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. We proclaim him, warning and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone mature in Christ. I labor for this, striving with his strength that works powerfully in me."
This paragraph is so full that I am going to barely touch on it here. He begins with joy in suffering, a sign of his own maturity. He is spending his life for the purpose of seeing the people of Christ reach maturity. In part, this entails him explaining the scriptures to the Gentiles. They have Christ in them which means they have hope for total union with God. Paul's goal in proclaiming Christ - he's writing this to Christians - is to "present everyone mature in Christ". This hearkens back to Jesus’ command in Matthew 28 to make disciples, "teaching them to obey all that I commanded you." Paul is showing here how the call to maturity is about becoming the kind of people who obey. Obedience is included but it isn't explicitly about obedience for Paul at this point. New Christians are taught to obey. We teach children to obey. I brush my teeth every morning and night. At one point in my life, I did it because my parents told me too. When I was brushing my teeth this morning, I never thought of my parents. I am now the kind of man who brushes his teeth twice a day. That works for teeth brushing but the analogy carries into character and virtue (although there is much debate on this, I understand). But adults have become and are becoming people who are, our doing flows out of our being. Of course, change in any area is mysterious and Paul captures that here. He is striving with all his might to help them grasp what is needed for maturity and it is all done "with his strength...". God is the Creator, the mover, the maker of all these things. This is all still true today. We can only grow to maturity in community and through the help of others. We put in the work, others put in the work, and God is over all determining how it will go. Each of us, like Paul, is given a part to play in the unfolding drama of God's people maturing through fits and starts and suffering and setbacks and joys and victories and through countless quotidian moments. May we experience God's delight more and more as we grow.
BLESSING & CURSING
One aspect of that growth is becoming people of blessing.
Let's consider two elder:
A grandmother sitting in a rocking chair reading a story - Max Lucado's You Are Special! is a good one - to her five-year-old grandson. He is sitting on her lap perfectly content (for once!), and she smiles through wrinkles with a tear streaming down her cheek as she comes to the climax of the story when Punchinello starts to believe that the Wood Carver means what he says, and the sticker falls off.
Another grandmother sitting on the couch with the TV on, a cigarette in one hand and her phone in the other. Her grandson is exuberantly running around making noise and clumsily knocking over whatever is in his way. The elderly woman with an impatient scowl on her pinched face yells at him to shut up and sit still.
Let's assume these two pictures capture the character of these two ladies. This wasn't just a good or bad day, but the norm for each of them. What happened to these two ladies to form them into the pictures we see?
That question is at the heart of this series. In this case, we are discussing blessing and cursing and the place they hold as signs of Christlikeness. Jesus lived a life of blessing and taught His followers to do the same. Paul echoes Jesus in Romans 12:14, "Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse." Thus, we have here a sign taken directly from the scriptures.
LIFESTYLE
Yet, this is about a lifestyle rather than a bunch of acts. Again, we are interested in being the kind of people who bless as a way of being. I appreciate my time in other cultures because this is much easier in blessing languages. Turkic languages have a blessing for everything. In English we bless people when they sneeze, and our greetings and farewells come from blessings. We bless our food if we are religious. In Turkey they had a blessing to say to someone at work (manual labor) and a blessing to say to shop clerks and a blessing for when someone was sick and a blessing for when someone visits and on and on. I don't think I went through a day without blessing someone as a matter of course. American culture does not bless in the same way, so it takes more work and intentionality, but even in other cultures many people just say the words with no heart intention of blessing. Regardless, speaking blessing as a way of interacting is as good as anything we can do for our souls and those around us. And this is one of those practices that breeds change in the doing. Words have power and so as we speak blessing, the recipient can be changed, we can be changed, and the energy in the room is changed. Try it. You will find it contagious. Unfortunately, cursing has the same power.
Another place to practice this is at a birthday party or any event in which someone is honored. Go around and have each person speak a blessing on the honored person. Here's the challenge, don't make any jokes or otherwise lighten the mood with humor. Humor is wonderful but often in these circumstances we feel discomfort at the intimacy we experience and so we say something funny to avoid it. Often the humor is some kind of jab or roast remark. Try this without the jokes, feel the awkwardness, even feel free to comment on it, and enjoy the sense of blessing that envelops the room when sincere good words are spoken over people. As Rolheiser writes, "Nothing so much depresses us as cursing others, just as nothing brings as much joy into our lives as blessing others." (Pg 260)
Doing these kinds of things, as I wrote above, will bring about change, but we still have inner work to do. As Jesus made clear, the fruit matches the tree. Our words will reflect our heart, or at least parts of us. When our words and intention do not reflect love, it is an invitation to grace, insight, confession (truth telling), healing, and moving towards wholeness. Let's say I'm in a situation and get upset by the way I'm treated and instead of responding with blessing, I respond with a curse. I am tempted to either excuse it (I'm tired) or justify it (he deserved it) or feel shame (there I go again, I'm no good). Instead, God invites me to cry out to Him, to confess it, to tell Him exactly what I did and what I felt and desired. When I do that God can respond by speaking truth back to me, expressing his love and grace and forgiveness.
We see this in Psalm 109:17-20 in which the poet doesn't hold back against the oppressor,
"He loved cursing—let it fall on him;
he took no delight in blessing—let it be far from him.
He wore cursing like his coat—
let it enter his body like water
and go into his bones like oil.
Let it be like a robe he wraps around himself,
like a belt he always wears.
Let this be the Lord’s payment to my accusers,
to those who speak evil against me."
The author does not hold back. He expresses fully what he feels. May we be able to do the same. Note that he doesn't carry it out himself. He calls on God to do it. God can then do what He wills, but the wholehearted expression to God is healthy. As mentioned, we see in Jesus a call to a maturity and depth that would respond in blessing, but the road to getting there requires honesty before God.
When I do that, I have the freedom to dig. What was going on in me? What other times have I felt that? What do those emotions want to tell me? Maybe I have a conversation between God and the emotions (or the parts of me with those strong feelings) and me. I probably felt anger and fear and shame and defensiveness. Perhaps I felt annoyed or envious or threatened or attacked or belittled or taken for granted or you name it. I have that conversation and come to better understand what was going on inside me in that incident. Potentially, I feel some healing and freedom and grow. Over time, by God's grace, I am not triggered by that anymore and am able to sincerely respond with blessing. I can say like Paul in Colossians 4 that I experience joy in suffering or love while being attacked or cursed. The best thing for me to do in the meantime is to feel what I feel and take it to God and let Him hold me in it. The second-best thing I can do, and it may actually be equal to the first is to share it with some person(s) in my community and let them sit with me in it. They need to be mature enough to hold it as well which means we need to be discerning about our confidants.
Hopefully, we understand that blessing is a sign of Christlikeness and that the point is to become a person who blesses. We are in a process, and God is committed to our development. But the Bible does speak of cursing so we should address it. The idea of cursing runs throughout the Bible and in most cases, it is frowned upon. We even see in Proverbs 26:2 that an underserved curse will have no power. However, in Deuteronomy 28 we see God offer the Israelites the choice of curses or blessings. If they obey, they will be blessed. If they disobey, they will be cursed. God has every right to bless or curse whom He wills. He is Creator, and everything else is creation/creature. Thus, in what I am saying here I take nothing away from God. What we see in the way the world works is that following God's ways generally brings blessing and going against His ways generally brings cursing. I don't mean this in a health and wealth dynamic. We see it in something simple like the only time you must remember what you say is when you lie. Those who are honest may have trouble, but they will not experience the angst and inner turmoil as well as the stress that liars feel. Much more can and has been said on this, but it is enough to say here that if everyone in a community practiced the 10 Commandments, that community would experience blessing. Would bad things happen? Yes. Would they suffer? Yes. Would difficulties come their way? Yes. We live in a broken world, and God is bigger than our failings so even when we fall, He is with us, and He creates beauty out of it, but walking in the light is definitely lighter.
FOR & AGAINST
Ultimately, we see that we are becoming people of blessing when we are known for what we are for. Rolheiser says, "We are mature when we define ourselves by what we are for rather than by what we are against. The capacity to praise more than to criticize defines maturity." (Pg. 260) We see this clearly in our Lord. When you consider Jesus what comes to mind? What does not immediately come to mind for me is what He was against. If I pause and reflect a bit, hypocrisy and spiritual arrogance were on his hate list, I guess. He was against those. He was living in a land run by Roman pagans who mistreated the Jews. The Jews were missing the mark in countless ways. There was no lack of things to be against in Jesus’ day. Yet, Jesus was known for partying and hanging with all the wrong people. He blessed children and most of his last words were blessings. He was against things. He did call out evil from the religious leaders, but He praised more than He criticized. The issue is not about counting or never being against anything. The point rests in a heart attitude that sees the good and praises and is full of gratitude and is courageous enough to be against what God is against. Note, if what we are against brings us praise from those in power, we probably need to rethink what we are against.
Once again, though, this is about inner work. If you are against something, the invitation is not to stop being against it. The invitation is to be with God, to abide, to rest, to sit with Him and follow His lead. Soak in the Word and in God's Spirit and move accordingly. Maybe you'll be wrong, maybe you'll be right, but you'll get there eventually. John the Baptist was against things. He died because He was against a powerful man and woman's sinful relationship. Was he mature? I think he was which goes to show that certain callings put us in unpopular positions and that is okay. We can trust the Spirit of God to lead us. This also goes to show that we are to look at this for ourselves and not judge others. Each of us will stand before God. That is good news for He is merciful and just and good and love.
CONCLUSION
And with that we come to the close of another sign of maturity. What do you think? This is not an easy one for me. What about when standing up for the oppressed and vulnerable puts us in a place of being painted like we are against? Being pro-life can be seen as against abortion which it is, but the heart can be very much for the baby. Those standing for racial justice can come across as quite anti. Liberals condemn Conservatives as anti, and Conservatives do the same to Liberals. Saying we have the Bible on our side does not solve the problem. Humility and maturity call us to live in the tension. We may be wrong. Let's keep pushing in and see where God leads us. Regardless of where you stand on different issues, remember who the real enemy is, and speak blessing and be a blessing to all with whom you come in contact. God blesses us to pass on the blessing.
"You don't have the power to make rainbows or waterfalls, sunsets or roses, but you do have the power to bless people by your words and smiles. You carry within you the power to make the world better."
-- Sharon G. Larsen