I recently read a quote from Kasim Reed, the young mayor of Atlanta, Georgia. He said "Atlanta has long been known as the city that is too busy to hate .… we must also be the city not too busy to love one another."
"Not too busy to love one another." Seems like that applies to more than cities.
There's another quote on my mind right now. Most of us, Ronald Rolheiser writes, are slogging through our days, "bleeding, less than whole, unconfident, depressed, going through life without a sense either of its goodness or of our own, going through life without being able to really give or experience delight."
He puts a finger on our our wound: "So much of our hunger is a hunger for a blessing. So much of our aching is the ache to be blessed. So much of our sadness comes from the fact that nobody has ever taken delight and pleasure in us."And too often, we who long for blessing spend time in churches where everyone—even the leaders—are too busy to love or to bless.
Blessing as seeing
When God instructed Abram in Genesis 12 to leave his country, people, and household and go to a new land, he said:
"I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and whoever curses you, I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you."
It's a familiar concept; one who is blessed, in turn used to be a blessing. As you probably know, the word blessing in the Scriptures is used in several different ways. It can be a little nebulous, and I recognize the rich nuance it has. But the type of blessing I've been meditating on isn't hard to understand. Here, I use the word to mean "to speak well of, to say good things about, or to call out the good."
It sounds a little thin at first, but I'm looking at something deeper, truer, wider, and far more powerful than simply being nice. This kind of blessing—speaking to another person for good—can change our lives and our congregations.
Little children have an inborn desire to be looked at. Back when I took my three little kids to the pool, the playground, or (heaven forbid) Chuck E. Cheese's, it was all I could do not to lose my ever-loving mind at the constant demand for attention. "Look at me, Mom! Look at me!"
We grown-ups have this same need for attention, of course, but we ask for it in much more appropriate ways.
Sarcasm aside, the Scriptures reveal this looking as one of the most profound and simple ways God blesses us. Numbers 6 and Psalm 67 speak of God making his face shine upon us and turning his face toward us as part of his blessing.
To bless can be to look. To see. But what I notice in myself—even as a pastor—is the simple failure to truly look at people. Especially folks at church. It's not that I don't want to. I forget. Or I get tired, busy, or distracted.
Perhaps sometimes I'm scared that if I really look at people, I'll notice that they need my time or attention. Or maybe I fail to truly see my church and the people I serve for the very worst reason of all: I feel like I'm already familiar with them.
Looking for the invisible God? Or something else?
Basil Pennington tells the story of a seminary teacher with an incredible impact on his students. He was a greatly loved professor, and many followed him into his field of theology. When asked at his retirement what he attributed his great success as a professor to, he said "I saw the image of God in each of my students, and I worshipped."
Looking and seeing can be two different things. To see, we have to pierce through the exterior (one of our society's greatest idols), looking for God's image in each individual. We often forget that before sin entered the picture in Genesis 3, there was Genesis 1 and 2. We were created in the image of our Creator. This identity is what is most true about us. It is deeper than sin in our nature.
Jesus, of course, returns the image to a new glory. The Scriptures tell us that Jesus is the best picture of God we'll ever get, that Jesus is the very image of the invisible God. As we grow in our understanding and knowledge of Jesus, we will see his image in others, and we will recognize it for what it is. We will see kindness toward the underdogs and the marginalized. We will see goodness, sacrifice, service, humility, gentleness, courage, and strength. We will recognize these things for what they are: God's image imprinted on the souls of those around us.
I remember watching my eldest daughter when she was in high school. In looking for obvious religious behavior, I completely missed her selfless acts of kindness and grace towards one of her classmates who had joined the military and was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder because of his mission. I was blind to her being the very picture of Jesus to a friend because I was looking for something else.
Sometimes we don't see God's image because we tend to overlook the simple things. We don't look and don't see the faithful nursery workers, the volunteers who persevere with a small group of junior high boys, or those who visit shut-ins as living into God's image within them.
Sometimes we don't see God's image in others because we are too busy trying to make them all into our image. We extroverts fail to see our introverted friends as image bearers; we bold evangelists fail to see our prayerful friends as image bearers; and we contemplatives fail to see our activistic brothers and sisters as true image bearers. And in our failure to see, we fail to bless.
Blessed by the image
One man in my church, an introverted college librarian, is a deep stream of faith. Our church is bustling and noisy though, and he's quiet. The ways he shows us God are often overlooked.
But a while back, we started to pay more attention. As we looked, we saw a man of serious faith. As he made his way through a leadership class and served on a spiritual growth team, several of us began to see God's unique image imprinted on his life. We began to name his gifts, to delight in who God had made him to be, and to ask him to serve.
"Your faith story is so valuable and will resonate with so many. Will you share it at our Sunday services?"
"Your knowledge of theology, your habit of reading broadly, and your quiet authenticity are just what we need for our Ash Wednesday homily. Will you speak?"
But those two experiences pushed him to the very edge of his introvert's ledge. While he did very well, up-in-front teaching wasn't the right outlet for his gifts. But looking deeper, we saw a knack for organization and editing that paired with his passion for Scripture. And for the past several years, from the quiet solitude of his basement office, he lives into the Imago Dei as he oversees a ministry that provides daily Scriptures to over 1,000 people. It fits. And it's beautiful.
Once we turn our face toward someone and see the image of God in them, we need to tell them what we see. To affirm, in a conversation or a note, the places we see God in them. We can bless someone by looking at them, seeing the image of God, and telling them that both we and God are delighted by that image, that original glory.
The ultimate goal of blessing people is not to make them feel good about themselves. It is so they can move into the rest of their life in God's strength, with God's power. It is so they, being truly blessed, will be able to bless others.
Imagine with me what could happen if we were not too busy to love one another. If we exchanged silence, blindness, and exhaustion for what people deeply long for: to be seen; to be blessed. Imagine what will happen when pastors and church leaders become known as people of blessing in our world; filled as it is with people who starve for it.
Alice Shirey is a teaching pastor and a leader in spiritual formation at Orchard Hill Church in Cedar Falls, Iowa.
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