C, Post-Pentecost 12 Proper 17 - Psalm 112 "Blessed"
The readings for this Sunday all dwell on the biblical
theme of blessedness; that is, to be blessed as a state of being, to be blessed
by someone, or to bless. What does it
mean to bless someone, to be blessed by someone, and the state of blessedness?
To be blessed in its simplest form is to be happy or
fortunate. But if a person seeks to
bless themselves or deem themselves as blessed, it’s actually one of the
quickest ways to become angry with everyone around them as well as themselves. So, to be blessed and to bless is much more
than being happy, being fortunate, being pleased or pleasing someone else.
At the end of the gospel reading today, when dining in the
house of a Pharisee ruler, Jesus says, “when you
give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot
repay you. ” (Luke 14:13-14a)
Straight away in this text,
we see being blessed when one gives a feast to those who cannot repay, is not
about being happy. One may be happy to
do this but more is going on.
The biblical definition of “blessedness” has a much deeper
function than just happiness and being fortunate. In Psalm 112 we hear, “Blessed is the man
who fears the LORD, who greatly delights in his commandments!” (Psalm 112:1
ESV)
The person who is blessed here can be happy or
pleased. But the question one must ask,
“Is why can they be pleased or happy?”
The Hebrew word for blessed has at its root the meaning to
be straight or level. When one is on the
straight and narrow, they move forward with confidence, with honesty, in the
right way, on a level path. Or, if one
is “on the level” they are honest and are being truthful.
When a person is level or blessed, they are balanced. A good way of understanding blessed as
balanced is like that of a level set of scales.
Neither leaning to the left nor the right, but evenly balanced.
The straightness of being blessed also means, straight up
and down too. That is to be upright. It is no accident therefore, in Psalm 112
that after it says, “Blessed the man who fears the Lord”, it continues
in verse two, “His offspring will be mighty in the land; the generation of
the upright will be blessed.
Wealth and riches are in his house, and his righteousness endures
forever. Light dawns in the darkness for
the upright; he is gracious, merciful, and righteous.” (Psalm 112:2–4 ESV)
Twice the Psalmist says “upright” in these verses. So, one who is blessed, balanced, level or
upright, can endure forever in righteousness.
This person can move forward on a level plain in the face of the ups and
downs of trials and tribulations.
In these verses it says, “the generation of the upright
will be blessed.” The Hebrew
literally says, “the blessed will be blessed”, when it says “the upright
will be blessed.” But these two
Hebrew words have different meanings.
Whereas the first “blessed” we’ve looked at, means “upright
or balanced”. Here the second “blessed”
means, “to kneel or bend oneself in adoration or to curse”. This adoration or cursing is what one does in
worship when they’re in awe of someone, or if they hate and curse them because
they’re believed to be awful.
Blessing here is about praise and its opposite; what one
says about someone else. So when it
says, “The blessed will be blessed” it means, “the upright or the balanced will
be bowed down to, praised and spoken well of”!
Notice these two forms of blessedness are pictures of body
language. One is straight up and down,
or balanced and level, while the other is bent bowing, honouring, and saying
good to others about them. This is not
surprising as the Hebrew language was originally a spoken language of oral tradition,
an unwritten picture language, whereas the Greek of the New Testament is an
academic written language.
In the New Testament, the most well-known verses on
blessings are the Beatitudes where Jesus teaches the crowd and the disciples at
the Sermon on the Mount.
The other word for bless in the New Testament is a Greek
word familiar to us in English, eulogy, which means to speak good words
about someone.
The readings today all deal with the theme of “blessedness”.
If one seeks to be blessed in one’s own
sight and takes the seat of honour, the writer of Proverbs tells us, this can
lead to being humiliated.
“Do not put yourself forward in the king’s presence or
stand in the place of the great, for it
is better to be told, “Come up here,” than to be put lower in the presence of a
noble.” (Proverbs 25:6–7 ESV)
Jesus heals a man at the house of a Pharisee ruler. His fellow diners could not answer Jesus’
logic for healing this fellow on the Sabbath.
Jesus then tells a parable about those who took the honoured positions
at a wedding feast.
Put yourselves in the place of the guest? What happens when you take the positions of
honour? Will you bless the host, or
expect to be blessed? How level-headed or
balanced are you if you take the honoured position, especially when someone of
greater honour arrives? Not only is
blessedness about body language. It’s also about one’s prominence, status, or
social standing in society.
Blessedness not only deals with body language but also
reputation. What is your reputation like
with God? Are you blessed by God? What does that actually mean? It means, when Jesus returns in his glory to
separate the sheep from the goats, will you be one of the goats who have
blessed oneself or one of the sheep blessed by God? What type of reputation do you have with God?
Jesus says, “everyone who
exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” (Luke 14:11 ESV)
I cannot imagine a worse thought than the humiliation of
being labelled by God “a goat” or a person of ill-repute on judgement day. Do you want to be treated by the Eternal
Host of heaven the same way you have hosted those God puts before you here on
earth?
What makes us good blokes, good sheilas, good people in
God’s eyes?
Let Psalm 112 be the text that judges you. It starts out with the command to “Praise the
Lord!” Do you praise God as Lord all the
time or do you Lord it over others, or do you busy yourself, so others praise
you?
Do you fear the Lord, do you delight in his
commandments. What makes your offspring
mighty? When others bless you does it
turn people to God or away from God?
Does your wealth and riches fuel righteousness that endures…
forever! Are you gracious, merciful, and
righteous? By whose justice do you
conduct your affairs? Will you be
remembered forever? Is your heart firm
in the face of death, or even as you hear these questions? Are you considering the poor when you leave
here today? Or perhaps, this line of
questioning irks you and makes you get angry?
We realise very quickly that our blessedness, when built on
ourselves, makes us no better than a ruling Pharisee or his guests, angry
because we’re not getting the honour, we believe we deserve.
Yet we praise the Lord!
How can that be, since God clearly shows us through Jesus’ parable, we
present ourselves as honoured guests but are quickly humiliated by the Word of
God?
It’s here we’re called to see that God is the one who is
inviting us to his banquet. He invites us, his church, as the bride of the
Bridegroom. You and I are the poor,
crippled, the lame, and the blind. Now
married to Jesus Christ the Head of the heavenly house, we can be compassionate
to those who like us are poor, crippled, lame, and blind. Like us who have been made friends in the
wedding feast of the Lamb, we can befriend our enemies, just as Jesus has done
with us.
So, praise the LORD, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Why?
Because Jesus is the man who fears the LORD, and delights
in his commandments. We are his
offspring, mighty in the land, we are the generation of the balanced, blessedly
helpless forgiven sinners to whom God bows and
blesses, because we confess our sin and forgive
those who sin against us! The light of
God has dawned in the darkness of our hearts, showing us sin to confess.
Why do we do this? Because
God deals generously with you. He lends
you his Son and the Holy Spirit. He is
justifying you with the justice of Jesus’ death and resurrection. You won’t be moved while you allow the Holy
Spirit to remain. You are not afraid of
bad news; you are firm, trusting in the Good News. God has won the victory over your sinful self! You can now distribute freely; Christ has
exalted you and in him your righteousness endures forever.
Your old Adam will be angry! But that is a good sign of your salvation
too. He is angry because he is dying, he
might gnash his teeth, but he is melting away, he and all his desires are dying,
leaving Jesus the Bridegroom of heaven to take you as his bride, the church. He forgives and feeds you and me, in his
eternal wedding feast!
Praise the LORD! Jesus has balanced your scales! God blesses you; you are blessed! Amen.
