Christian Ethics Today

Blessing

Myron Madden

Blessing
By Myron Madden

[Dr. Myron Madden is an internationally recognized authority in the field of pastoral care. He pioneered the clinical/pastoral education program at the Southern Baptist Hospital in New Orleans. For 27 years he wrote a popular column for Home Life Magazine on Questions and Answers about family life. He is the author of The Power to Bless and has just completed another book due to be published this month, Power to Bless, No. II.]

In Old Testament practice the laws of inheritance were spelled out in great detail. Upon the death of a father, his property including his material possessions was divided into shares, with each son being given a share; but the eldest son got a double share. Nothing is said about a share going to a daughter unless there are no sons. If a daughter having no brothers inherited a portion of land she was forbidden to marry outside the extended family. The land was treated as "holy" land, never to belong to outsiders. Each portion of the inheritance was the blessing of the father given to a son. The double share in due time would come to be called the blessing. Most of us have had the experience, in our community or in our extended family, of witnessing unequal distribution of the parental estate. Many of these cases land in court with the cost of litigation reducing an inheritance to a pittance. I saw it happen in the village when I grew up. It has happened twice on the block where I now live. And it happened with my great grandfather. He chose to leave his estate in the care of the husband of his favorite daughter. This left the bitterness of Esau to last for five generations. To this day it still casts a dark shadow.

At the parting of Elijah and Elisha, Elijah asked what Elisha wanted. The reply was, "Let me inherit a double share of your spirit." In other words, he was say, "treat me as if I were your first-born son." In the story of Job we have sort of a parallel. At the end of all his suffering, we are told that Job got back everything double. But what Job got that meant most of all was involved in the worlds, "I had heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees thee" (Job 42:5). To put it in plainer language, Job is saying that through all his suffering, he has come to see into the mystery of who God is and what God is about.

The New Testament does not speak of the inheritance of houses and lands but more about "our inheritance in the saints" or "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom." The apostle Paul often reminds us of our inheritance as Christians. In his own break from his Jewish roots he no likely gave up all rights to any earthly inheritance. In the first chapter of Ephesians he breaks forth into a chorus of praise that God let him see what God is about in the creation. The same idea applies to old Simeon in the temple when he laid eyes on the infant Jesus, "Lord now lest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word; for mine eyes have seen thy salvation…." The mystery of God`s purpose was seen in that moment. It was equal to a double share, a lasting blessing.

What Simeon saw in the Christ-child could be the very essence of Christmas. Maybe the old man saw in Jesus more than he could assimilate as a human being. He felt the need of new receptors to take it all in. It was seeing just a touch of what God is about. Christmas does that, we hope for many of us. Ordinary things become extraordinary. The songs take on more mellowness. The food becomes more tasty. The laughter is more joyful. The time takes on the character of what Robert Bly calls "ritual time". In ritual time all things become possible. Of course, we have to become as children to enter it. It is too full of fun and magic for most adults.

The Blessing as God`s Gift to All

For Christians, our story about Blessing begins with Abraham. Abraham`s father, Terah, set out from Ur to go to Canaan, but he paused in Haran, apparently to gather up his courage to leave the graying lands of the Euphrates River bottom and head for the mountains and desert of the west. But his pause lasted until his death. Then Abraham got the call with the promise of God`s blessing and a mandate to share it with "all the peoples of the earth" (Gen. 12).

From the experience of Abraham, it is commonly accepted in the Judaeo-Christian tradition that it is God`s intention to bless all the peoples of the earth.

God`s blessing to Abraham was interwoven with the promise of the land of Canaan as a land that his descendants would get as their inheritance. So inheritance and blessing came to be more or less identified with each other. Yet to speak more strictly the birthright is the special status of the eldest son, the right to the double share of the inheritance. Along with the birthright came the right of the eldest son to become the replacement of the father upon the death of the father.

The laws regarding inheritance vary from state to state in the United States. Yet there is no law written that will bring justice in every case. How can the law rectify a situation like that of the Prodigal Son and the Elder Brother? Or that of Jacob in his strong and special affection for Joseph? When you are dealing with an inheritance, it doesn`t take long to discover that the parental inheritance is treated as a blessing. The ones inheriting deal with an inheritance in terms of emotional value rather than market value. I have observed that children who get little blessing in their growing up years will put excessive value on what they inherit. Even an acre of land or an old piece of furniture will be cherished above every other thing they own.

If we look at the court battles among siblings over the inheritance, they are really dealing emotionally with the blessing. Very often the child who got more blessing is the one that winds up with more property; and this is what stirs the anger of those feeling dispossessed.

What we have never learned is that you can`t pay an emotional debt with cash.

Blessing Patterns in Families

There is a common American assumption that fathers tend to bless their first son above the rest of their children. One evening a few years ago, I was invited to the home of a psychiatrist for a small dinner party. He invited four of his psychiatrist friends. The subject of parental partiality was discussed among us as the six of us sat in the den. I asked the question, "which son does the fat her bless?" They all agreed that it was the first son. I followed that up with my nextg question, "Which of you does that?" Not a single one of them could claim that he did. As we settled down and got honest, four of them agreed that they had a special feeling for their second son that was stronger than they had with son number one.

If you bring the mother into the picture, you will find that she is the one who specially blesses the first son.

In looking over the counseling cases I`ve had over the years I have noticed a definite pattern. It goes like this:
     D1                 S1
F /                 M /
                      
     S2                   D2
NOTE: the drawing needs to be a JPG on the WEB.

To spell it out, father blesses daughter number one and son number two while the mother reverses the picture. I am not saying that it always follows this model, but if it doesn`t there is usually a big story in the family system that explains the variation.

Perhaps you ask about the other children. Let us say there are six or eight children, or more. There usually develops a kind of hidden line in the structure that divides the children, leaving about half of them on the mother`s side and the others on the father`s side. Nearly all will claim the youngest with a "baby blessing."

Again, you ask about blended families. Let us say a man with two children, marries a women with three children. Those least blessed by their own parent will be picked up and given a little extra blessing by the step-parent.

I do not have an answer about why the father tends more toward blessing his eldest daughter. Perhaps the first daughter is the mother`s potential replacement person, and she works hard to be that. Does the father come in to make up for the fact that his wife just can`t bless her competition? Would the opposite be true for father and first son?

At least the competition factor is absent for the father and second son. Does the same hold true for mother and second daughter? There must be many other factors.

There is another false assumption that we need to challenge. It is: "If you are a good parent you will love all your children just the same." I had a lady to challenge me on this. She said, "I have five children and I work very hard to love them all the same." My reply was that if she loved them all the same she wouldn`t have to work at it.

Let us now examine issues around blessing, family, power, and permission.

What is Blessing?

We all know what a blood transfusion is. Expand on that idea, and you might call blessing a kind of life transfusion. At its peak in family the blessing is infusing one`s life into the child. It is a gift of all one has, bestowed upon the next generation. In the Old Testament it was ritual in which the father in extreme old age emptied himself in affirming his offspring. Jacob did that to Joseph (Genesis 48:15ff). He went on to speak a blessing to the other eleven sons (Genesis 49). He did this when his eyes were so dim with age that he could barely distinguish one from the other.

Blessing takes on a special cast when it refers to the transfer of the parent`s life to ignite a sense of destiny in the child.

This can be divided into two parts: 1) What is the blessing in the family and 2) What is the blessing beyond the family?

Blessing in the Family

The blessing in the family is the blessing of one or both parents. Occasionally, it comes from a grandparent, an uncle, or an aunt. Now and then it comes from an older sibling. It comes from anyone in the family that a person authorizes.

Children usually authorize only a person of power. The younger the child the more power is perceived in terms of the physical. The child seeks the blessing from the parent whose eyes sparkle over that child. From my own life, I will share an illustration. It was my sixth year. Our habit was to move in the evening from the supper table to the living room where the children would do their lessons. I was the youngest and first brother. My father watched my brother, and I watched my father. He gave no special attention to my oldest brother. Then my middle brother came in. Our light in those days was given by a kerosene lamp. In that dim light I could detect a sparkle as I looked at my father`s eye. That sparkle was not present for my oldest brother, and I felt that I myself must have failed to stimulate my father any more than the oldest brother had done. It set off in me a wish that I could do something to make my father`s eye sparkle. I never could; neither could my oldest brother. The first time I ever saw a tear in my father`s eye was when that middle brother was shot down in the Philippines years later in World War II. That brother was his sparkle, and that brother knew it well. He was the prodigal son. By that I mean he had the freedom to go against my father without much fear that he would lose the blessing. I grieved that his death prevented his return to enjoy what he and my father had in common.

What it means to me to be a Christian is the faith that I put a sparkle in God`s eye. That is what the Gospel is about. That allows us to go on beyond the family bond. This leads us to the next section of how the blessing is gained beyond the family.

Blessing Beyond the Family

I wonder if anyone ever gets enough blessing and affirmation in the childhood years. Blessing is a way of being affirmed as we are, not as we would like to be, not as we hope to become. It is an "as is" proposition. It has no past or future tense. It only comes in the now. It does not await some act of restitution nor a promise to do better. The gift of blessing is offered to us in the act of creation, not at the end of a life of good works. If parents understand relaying of blessing to children, they become the "creators" who pass it along as gift, never as a reward for being or doing good. It is a reward upon one`s being, a reward that raises life to the second power.

People outside and beyond family mostly think in terms of rewarding a person for good behavior and high achievement. To that end we often collect enough diplomas to paper an office wall and enough trophies to fill a room or two. But that is seldom the real thing as far as blessing is concerned.

Blessing that puts infinite value on the life of the receiver comes close to being what the Gospel intended we all should have. It comes not in discovering that we can do what pleases God, but in becoming aware that God gave it originally in an act of creation. This includes the belief that I am not an accident, but am in the plan of the Creator from the beginning. Either in my beginning or the beginning of all things. It puts one`s life in sync with ultimate reality.

The chief blessing of the family is that of preparing us to go beyond family. Psychologically speaking we need to sever the cords and strings that bind us in emotional dependence on parents, siblings, and the extended family. The only way the wonderful world beyond family can be opened to us comes in closing that door behind us. Nobody can close that door for us. I think we can make a good case for the fact that Jesus had that in mind when he spoke of the second birth. The original birth brings us into a family; the second birth delivers us out of the family of origin. Is this what Jesus had in mind saying, "Call no man your father upon the earth" (Matthew 23:9)?

When blessing is offered only after good behavior or good grades, it may not pass the test of being real. Smart children with a keen sensitivity may refuse to perform for a pay-off of praise when there is little genuine love behind it all.

Sometimes the parent seeks for the child to grow up and justify the parent`s investment by doing noteworthy and newsworthy things. In that case the parent is unable to bless truly and genuinely. If you look more carefully here, it looks like the parent is trying to get a blessing from the child`s performance.

People have the power to bless only when they are authorized by the one receiving. Children will take what parents give, but will turn away if their discernment tells them of narcissism, manipulation, or control. There`s something in a child`s soul that rebels against counterfeit love. They demand the real thing. If they don`t get the real thing, they may keep holding to a parent in the hope that reality will one day enter the relationship.

When parents do not genuinely love their children, they will, in the living of life, lose the power to bless. Here are some quotes:

A son: "It has taken me fifteen years to fully realize that my father doesn`t have it. I feel like a fool in being such a slow learner."

A daughter: "I have tried for more than 60 years to do something that would cause my mother to tell me I did well. She never did and she never will. I`m giving up on looking for a good word. If she spoke one now, I would think it was to control me."

Many "children" never come to the insight of the above. They just keep on hoping and plugging along blindly. Those who do that may never get blessed because they hope for it in the wrong place. This means they don`t look for it in another place.

The blessing is only received in faith. It is not given with documentation nor legal papers for registration in the county courthouse. It is not a thing you come to possess as a piece of merchandise. You can prove to no one that you own it. Others are always left free to challenge any claim you make. In the matters of the spirit we cannot get one step beyond faith. We are left being believers, not knowers. The Gnostics of the early church claimed that they had proof and certainty about God`s favor. For them, it wasn`t enough to have faith.

What is the Power to Bless?

The simplest example of this is the power of a parent to bless a child.

It is as if nature endowed a child to expect blessing from a parent (or parents). Since blessing is an act of bestowing power, the child tends to seek the blessing of the parent with most power. Or at least the parent perceived to have most power. This means the child looks to parents to be affirming and loving along with being nurturing and supportive. I don`t see blessing being bestowed as a reward for doing, striving, or behaving. It is not a reward for good grades, nor for mopping the floor.

Parental blessing is not given to a child for a good report card, unless that blessing would also be there when failing grades come. Indeed the failing grades could be a sign that blessing is absent. By this I mean lack of blessing cold leave a child with poor motivation to achieve. yet one will need to consider the opposite possibility. Some children are driven to achieve in the assumption that a parent will finally open up and affirm as a result of positive performance.

It is easy for your own child or children to authorize you, as a parent, to love them and affirm them in their being. The offspring is usually in denial about genuine parental love and affirmation. Pat Conroy says it in The Prince of Tides, speaking of his parents, "I longed for their approval, their applause, their pure uncomplicated love for me, and I looked for it years after I realized they were not even capable of letting me have it" (p. 100). We all have an inborn need to be affirmed by the people who gave us life in the first place.

As a clergy person I have studied and worked much of my life under the assumption that I was getting myself more able to bless people. And that is very important. Yet I had to admit that no matter how well prepared I myself might be, the "power" rested with the the one receiving. He or she could just be waiting for someone in the past to bless them, especially a parent or grandparent. Usually they are able to take a little from us substitutes, however, perhaps enough for a day.

A lot of people allow a little affirmation from parent substitutes. All the while they may be hoping to get blessing with uppercase letters from the ones in the past that were authorized.

I repeat, nobody can bless who is not authorized. You can be an authorized teacher, therapist, doctor, clergy person, or whatever, but you cannot authorize yourself to bless the unblessed. They are the ones who do the authorizing. At the same time, the unblessed are not often able to authorize a substitute until they can settle the issue about not being blessed by those that they had originally authorized. This means the need to mourn the loss and give up the hope where there is none.

The power to bless is held by the person given authority to bless and affirm. In affirming under these conditions, the one receiving is empowered, perhaps not so much by what is bestowed as by what is released within the one receiving.

The term "blessing" is usually thought of as a church and religious word. We need to recall that it was originally a family thing with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as the forebears. Perhaps it has come to be a church oriented term because we no longer think much in terms of a family blessing or a parental blessing.

Who Has the Power to Bless?

As we have already said, the one with the power to bless is the one who is authorized by another who is in search of blessing and affirmation. The most primary example is that of a child almost by nature giving parents the right and power to bless. But remember, only the truth blesses.

The parental blessing is most effective as it seeks to bless and affirm the child as is. The blessing needs to help the child affirm and accept the self in all its uniqueness and specialness. This does not keep a child from imitating parents or playmates in growing up. But it helps the child claim and hold on to the self given in creation, a self different from all the others. It takes special and powerful affirmation from respected and loved authority to prevent self rejection in the growing years, or even in later years if one did not get it early on. What does it mean when a person rejects the God-given help. Nobody has been able to answer that one adequately.

I firmly believe that only the truth blesses and only in the truth can you bless.

You do not have to be one who is nearly perfect to be one who blesses and affirms. Blessing is not a move toward perfection, it is a move toward independence and freedom. Blessed people are not always the good, but they are the free. Take for example the parable of the Prodigal Son and the Elder Brother. Give me the Prodigal Son for a neighbor every time, for he is the truly blessed. I assume that he could take the trip into the "far country" because he already had enough affirmation to go.

For me to be able to bless, certain things must be in place. It is presumptuous for me to assume that I can take the place of a parent in a person`s life. Yet you have many situations where a parent is never going to bless. In such cases, it may be my task to help one come to the awareness that they are living with a false hope. The next step is for that person to go through the grief of such a loss. It often is as if the parent died. There may be all kinds of feelings of disloyalty, or even betrayal. But when one faces the reality of "never," there will be much pain. There will certainly be despair. After these things are processed the only way past the despair is the birth of a hope to be blessed by someone else. Along with it all comes the awareness that blessing is not limited to the genetic line. If I am relating to a person going through this process, I just might be elected by them to bring the word of blessing and affirmation. Again that depends on the one going through it.

In order to be sure that I am given permission to be the one to bless, I need to ask for it, and hear it said that I am chosen. It then becomes my task to carry through. My suggestion here is that the blessing of persons is best done in a ritual. If your church doesn`t have one, then invent one. The ritual will serve as a way of burning the act into the emotions. Leave it to the one receiving about time, place, and persons involved in the ritual.

In order to save me from the pride of power it is needful that I recall that all blessing is ultimately from God. I do not so much have the power to bless, as I have the belief that God seeks to bless through me and all other people willing to share that truth. That makes me an agent of blessing, not the originator.

There is a theological assumption here. It is the assumption that God seeks to bless persons, all persons. No one is excluded. If I call myself one who seeks to bring blessing, then my task is one of bringing the word of God`s intent to bless all people. This is the focus of the Bible in Genesis 12:3 where he says to Abraham, "…and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you" (NIV). I assume that this theme carries through to the New Testament where Jesus says to a crowd of listeners, "…You will know the truth and the truth will set you free" (John 8:32, NIV).

One who has the power to bless is one who has the ability to communicate the truth in love. Yet that truth may or may not be received, depending on the authorization of the one receiving.

The basic truth that liberates is the convincing belief that the Master Architect of the Universe lays particular claim to each person. That claim includes release to each person from the bondage of working to prove the self to be worthy and deserving. This comes out of the false assumption that blessing can only be had after a person reaches a point of near perfection. Blessing is never earned, either within the family structure or in the larger community. There are many institutions that give what we can call their blessing in the form of a diploma for work accomplished. Parents can praise a child for being good, or doing well or achieving in sports. This may feel like blessing. Yet if you examine it closely, it relates to doing rather than being. These are quite different, yet they look so much alike.

The blessing does not come as a result of doing what pleases the person of authority. It comes as the person of authority is able to affirm one`s very being. This means that positive regard is given no matter what. It takes the form of blessing when it is received in such a way that the one receiving is without obligation to repay, reciprocate, change course, or refrain from any intent as a result of such affirmation.

What I am trying to communicate is the fact that the truth liberates a person from any obligation or mandate to be or to become anybody but the self. When Jesus said, "Deny yourself` I interpret it to mean, "Deny yourself the right to be anybody but yourself."

The truth, when it is accepted, liberates a person from the struggle to remake the self or to prove one`s worth, or to disprove some charge or allegation. The truth helps one know the value of a fully affirmed self.

The truth that sets one free rests on a belief that a human self has infinite value. Not only one`s own self has that value, but the potential is there for every other self in the creation. It is my faith assumption that this truth liberates persons to communicate it to others. That is a picture of one who has the power to bless. We need to remember that the truth makes one angry before it liberates. The one who brings blessing needs to know that his or her task is always one of holding up the truth. If one dilutes or dodges the demands of truth, the authority to bless could get lost.

Conclusion

After all, the blessing is not what we inherit from our parents. The love and the gifts from our parents are symbols of God`s blessing. For Abraham it meant turning loose of all he had and at seventy-five "going out not knowing." Unless he put Haran behind him, he would not have been able to move toward the city he sought, the one "whose builder and maker is God." Abraham dwelt in the land of promise "like a stranger in a foreign country" (Heb. 11:9). For him, God was a God of promise, and he claimed promises beyond human imagination. So in Jesus Christ, the apostle Paul makes the claim about how Abraham`s blessing manifested itself. "Christ redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit" (Gal. 3:14 NIV).

The "promise of the Spirit" brings us all the way to advent, letting each in whatever way possible have a glimpse of what God is about. Like Old Simeon, that`s about all any of us can manage.

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