6 Oct – Blest be the boat! – Genesis 1:20-24, Matthew 6:25-33
A few years ago, I was invited to bless a boat.
I do have some experience with blessings! I regularly bless all of you, in our benediction prayer at the end of the service. I bless couples at weddings or says blessings at funerals. And for ten years now – last Sunday was our 10th animal blessing – can you believe that? – I have blessed people’s animals – and the people themselves.
But I can count on one hand the number of times I have blessed a boat. Actually, on one finger. Just once.
I remember one person, when they heard about it, saying, “What? Is Belinda branching out? Will she be blessing washing machines and vacuum cleaners next?”
Because being asked to bless a boat raises all sorts of questions about the nature of blessings. “Heaven and earth,” we pray, “are full of your glory, Lord. Hosanna in the highest!” But can we say ‘hosanna’ over boats? Can we say ‘hosanna’ over ordinary things, the ordinary things we use and make? Or the ordinary things we buy; that someone else has made? What do we agree to bless and what do we decline to bless? How do we decide? And when we do bless something, what is actually happening? Are we conferring holiness on that thing or recognising the holiness that is already there?
Faced by so many questions, I looked for other precedents and turned first to the Anglicans, or to my favourite Anglican/Episcopalian priest, Barbara Brown Taylor, who writes: “Episcopalians are fools for blessing things. We bless bread, wine, water, oil, babies, couples, teachers, teenagers, elders, the sick and the dearly departed. We even bless church furniture, embroidered kneeling cushions, religious jewellery, and silverware.”
And then to the Jewish tradition of blessing prayers, brakha, or more appropriately the plural, brakoth, because observant Jews say at least a hundred blessing prayers a day! There are blessing prayers for waking up in the morning, for setting out on a journey, for wearing new clothes and for different foods; blessings for pastries, fruit, vegetables, wine and bread.
And finally I turned to the tradition that shapes a lot of the Iona Community’s liturgy (I’m a bit of a fan of anything Scottish!) the Gaelic prayers and blessings that were collected – and embellished a little – by Alexander Carmichael in the nineteenth century and are recorded in the Carmina Gadelica and include; yes, prayers to Jesus and Mary and the saints, such as St Columba, but also blessings for houses, for sleeping, for travelling, for washing your face, for lighting the fire, for putting the fire out (smooring the fire) and for shearing sheep and milking cows and – conveniently – for blessing boats!
I was, I confess, intrigued by the blessing for washing your face. Any Gaelic readers here…? Fortunately, there is a translation:
Boisileag air th’ aois boisileag air th’ fhas,
Boisileag air th’ ugan tuilim air a chail.
Air do chuid an chugan dhut, gruidhim agus cal;
Air do chuid an ghabhail dhut meal is bainne blath.
I am bathing my face in the mild rays of the sun,
as Mary bathed Christ in the rich milk of Egypt.
Sweetness be in my mouth, wisdom be in my speech,
the love the fair Mary gave her Son be in the heart of all flesh for me.
But I have found out two things as I have read and prayed different blessings over different things – about blessing.
The first is, that it is not the blessing – not my blessing – that confers holiness on something. There is nothing special about me or about the words I use. Blessings can be said by anyone and in any way. What blessings do is acknowledge the holiness that is already there, “embedded,” as Barbara Brown Taylor puts it, “in the very givenness of the thing.”
The one hitch to all this, she says, is that when you start making it a practice to bless, to pay attention to, the things that you see – tiny flowers in the grass, or the blossoms and insects, grains of sand under your feet, each little green shoots breaking through the ground – you can never move through the world quite as quickly, or in quite the same way, as you used to. It gets hard to walk past things, to walk on things. Did some of you notice that this week?
This is the kind of blessing, the kind of attention, that God the Creator gives the living things in Genesis. Having made the great sea monsters and every living creature with which the waters swarm, and every winged bird of every kind, and cattle and creeping things and wild animals of every kind, God acknowledges the goodness embedded in each thing – and blesses each thing.
This gives us extra reason for climate care knowing that the warming of our planet will destroy much of what God has declared good and holy.
And the second thing I have learnt is that blessing requires us to ease up a little on the hard distinctions between what, we think, is bad for us and what is good. A traditional Jewish blessing for good news is, “Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the Universe, who are good and beneficent.” But there is also a blessing for bad news, “Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the Universe, the Judge of Truth.”
“Such prayers,” Barbara Brown Taylor writes, “are addressed to the God whose rain falls on the just and the unjust, whose sun rises on the evil and the good…. Blessing prayers do not overlook such complexity as the pain and suffering that can accompany it. They simply decline to adjudicate it. Rightly or not, they decide that given a choice between a blessing and a curse, a blessing will do more to improve air quality…”
And we are called to be people who pray blessing prayers. From the beginning of Genesis, God’s people were to be a locus of blessing: I will bless those who bless you (Gen 12:3); Blessed are those who have regard for the weak (Psalm 41:1); Through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed (Gen 22:18). In our Matthew passage, Jesus tells his followers that a practice of considering the inherent goodness of things, of blessing the birds of the air and the lilies of the field, will enable us to let go of our anxieties and live more fully the life of the Kingdom of God. A way of life where we are even told to bless those who persecute us; to bless and not curse them (Romans 12:14). We are called to be people of blessing – people who really commit to be people of blessing.
So, a few years ago, at Lotus Bay, between the yacht club and Lennox Gardens, a friend of Warwick Trimble’s, Steve, launched his boat into the water; a 1938 Chris Craft design with a barrel back, 21-foot-long, that he had built over the last three months in his carport. And we gathered on the jetty, and I invited the group to look at the boat, to give our attention to it, and to bless the boat and Steve who had made it. And so, we blessed the boat, the curve and the colour of the timber, the chrome and the cabin space. And we blessed the skill of Steve. And we blessed the roar of the V8 engine… limited to 12 knots on the lake! And I blessed too, the friendship Steve and others had shown Warwick during the first stage of his illness and the delight Warwick had in being the MC par excellence of this event!
And we said together the words of the Scottish Carmin Gadelica boat blessing.
God the Father bless this boat. Blest be the boat!
God the Son, bless this boat. Blest be the boat!
God the Spirit, bless this boat. Blest be the boat!
God the Father, God the Son and God the Spirit, bless this boat. Blest be the boat!
We are called to be people who pray blessing prayers. Not just on rare – boat blessing – occasions. Not just at weddings and funerals. Not just once a year at an animal blessing. But all year, in all seasons, at all times, over all sorts of things. People who take the time to consider the inherent goodness of things, and people who continue to bless even when they cannot see it. People who bless and do not curse.
I shared with you this week a video of Baptist World Aid’s Baptist partners in Lebanon singing together one year ago, praying for God’s blessing, and as we come to share communion together today, let’s remember that we are also in communion with them – let us pray for God’s blessing on them, and for the task we share – the challenging task we share – of being God’s people of blessing – people through whom the whole world will be blessed.
Invitation & Story
We bless this morning, as we gather at this table, Jesus,
who walks with us on the road of our world’s suffering,
and who is known to us in the breaking of bread.
On the night of his arrest, Jesus took bread and having blessed it,
He broke the bread, and gave it to his disciples saying,
“This is my body, given for you.”
In the same way, he took the cup, and after giving thanks for it,
gave it to his disciples, saying,
“This cup is the new relationship with God sealed with my blood.
Take this and share it.
I will drink wine with you next in the coming kingdom of God.”
As we share this meal, we celebrate the life that Jesus has shared,
with his people through the centuries, and shares with us now.
Made one with Christ and thus one with each other,
let us offer these gifts and with them ourselves
as our gift in return to God.
Let us give thanks to God for all God has given us…
Prayer – Vincent
Can I invite you to join me in words for centuries the church has used to express its thanks for this meal.
The Lord be with you.
And also with you.
Lift up your hearts.
We lift them up to the Lord.
Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
It is right to give our thanks and praise.
Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might,
heaven and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in the highest!
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
Hosanna in the highest!
The Bread
We break this bread in remembrance that Christ died for us,
and we are thankful.
The Cup
We drink this in remembrance that Christ lives in us,
and we are thankful. (We will hold our cups).
Let’s pray (hold up glass) – Loving God, we give you thanks and praise
that when we were still far off
you met us in your Son and brought us home.
May we who share Christ’s body live his risen life;
we who drink this cup bring life to others;
we whom the Spirit lights bring light to the world,
so we and all your children shall be free,
and the whole earth live to praise your name. Amen. (Drink)
Peace
Not an easy peace or a conditional peace or a half-hearted peace,
But the peace of Christ is with us now.
Let us sing this blessing as a sign of that peace for one another this morning.
Benediction
The blessing of God be upon you,
the blessing of the giver of life.
The blessing of God be upon you,
the blessing of the Christ of love.
The blessing of God be upon you,
the blessing of the Spirit of peace.
The blessing of God – creator, redeemer and sustainer –
be with you as you go into this week.
Amen.
Invitation to Communion
This table – with bread and juice – is now made ready.
It is the table of company with Jesus and with all who love him.
It is the table of remembering the suffering of our world,
those with whom Jesus identified.
It is the table of communion with the earth that God loves and blesses,
in which Christ became incarnate.
So, come to this table,
you who have much faith and you who would like to have more;
you who gather regularly at this table
and you for whom this is new or not so familiar;
you who have tried to follow Jesus and you who have failed.
Come because it is Christ who invites us to meet him here.
Let’s pray…