by Martha E. Stortz

"Come and get it!" The call rang out across the court every evening at six o’clock sharp with such regularity, we could set our clocks by it. From swingsets and soccer games, the Cadigan children came scrambling. "Be here or it’ll be gone!" For a family of six children, that was less a threat than a statement of fact. "Dinner’s on the table!"

I grew up in one of Baltimore’s famous brick row houses, every one of them teeming with kids. Our neighbors, the Cadigans, had more than most, and Mrs. Cadigan shepherded them with a lot of love and a loud voice. She barked orders like a drill sergeant. When provoked, her language was colorful and her threats ever more creative. The kids always showed up — they wanted to hear what she’d come up with next.

Jesus has a different way of getting people to the table. He does not resort to command or threat. He simply blesses. The first word out of his mouth as he inaugurates his public ministry in Matthew’s Gospel is the word "blessed." And if disciples don’t get it the first time, he repeats the word — not once, but nine times.

Blessings roll down upon the crowd like water in a desert. As they soak them in, the kingdom of God comes in their midst.

Called by blessing: Think about it for a moment. We are used to being called by command: "Go and do this!" Or "Go and be this!" Have you heard the story of the man who looked up from his plow and saw the clouds forming the letters "P.C." in the sky above him? Thinking he was supposed to "Preach Christ," he promptly signed up for seminary. After a few years of frustration, he realized the letters probably meant "Plow Corn" and went back to the farm. When we think of call, we usually think of command. Jesus, however, calls by blessing.

The World According to God
In a world according to God, blessings rule. Once our ears are turned to the frequency of blessing, we hear them everywhere. Like a song you can’t get out of your head, we find blessings throughout the Bible. Trained to see them in Scripture, we begin to trace the path of blessing in our own lives. Here’s what we find:

• God calls us by blessing.

• We call God by blessing.

• Blessings leak — they manage to get all over everything.

God calls us by blessing. Certainly command is not foreign to the vocabulary of God. "Thou shalts" and "thou shalt nots" direct disciples in a certain way of life, and there’s no doubt about that. Blessing, however, commissions disciples, calling us into the path to begin with.

Hear it in Elizabeth’s greeting to her kinswoman Mary, both of them pregnant, both about to embark upon a journey whose destination no one then knew: "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb" (Luke 1:42). These words of blessing call Mary to a new vocation. She is "mother of the Lord," God-bearer, theotokos in the lyrical Greek of the ancient church.

Hear it again in the words of Jesus, as he calls out disciples: "Blessed are the poor in spirit... blessed are those who mourn...blessed are the meek..." (Matthew 5:3-5).

We are called by blessing.

We call God by blessing. Blessing is a way of getting God’s attention, and the psalmist seems to have known this better than anyone. Blessings abound in the psalms, especially in the psalms of blessing, but also in psalms of lament and penance. "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name" (Psalm 103:1). Hard-wired to praise the One who made us, we find blessing to be the heart’s first language.

Hear it in the ancient Hebrew prayers: "Blessed are you, O Lord God, King of the
universe!"

Hear it in the hopeful words of Zechariah, as his silence breaks: "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has looked favorably on his people and redeemed them..." (Luke 1:68).

Blessings leak. Blessings are hard to contain. Like the syrup at a boisterous pancake breakfast, they manage to get all over everything: hands and feet, clothes and tablecloths, hair and chairs. Blessings are messy that way. Blessings leak onto everything they touch. That’s God’s way of reaching out to the whole of creation.

Hear the reach of divine blessing in the rest of Zechariah’s song. A stunned crowd wonders, "What then will this child become?" (Luke 1:66), and Zechariah tells them. "You, my child, will be called the prophet of the Most High..." (Luke 1:76). Zechariah began by blessing "the Lord God of Israel," but within a few verses the blessings have bled out onto the infant John, who will "go before the Lord to prepare his ways" (Luke 1:76). The blessings won’t stop there: John will bless people with the news that the kingdom of God is at hand.

Finally, hear these blessings come full circle in Jesus’ ministry. In his first sermon, he calls out disciples by blessing them. In his last sermon, the Great Judgment (Matthew 25:31–46), he shows the same disciples how they have blessed him: "Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink..." The ones who were blessed in the beginning of Jesus’ ministry have become the ones who bless.

The Upcoming Bible Study
Blessings leak, and as we receive the blessings of Jesus’ Beatitudes, we become a blessing to others. The arc of Christian discipleship falls between Jesus’ first and last sermons. Like a rainbow stretching across a wonderful landscape, these blessings bear the wild promise of the world according to God. In this year’s Bible study, we listen with fresh ears to Jesus’ first sermons, tuning our ears to the frequency of blessing.

These are targeted blessings. They are not scattered randomly, nor are they simply cast into the wind. Rather they are directed to people, more specifically to people in certain situations.

The first four Beatitudes target people in situations of suffering: those who are poor in spirit, deep in grief, meek, or persecuted for righteousness’ sake.

The second four Beatitudes target people who help those who suffer: those who show mercy, make peace, display purity of heart, and fight for justice.

To understand these targeted blessings, each session invites participants to identify places in their own lives where they have suffered or been a companion with those in suffering. We will find ourselves blessed.

These blessings bear stories. Each of these targeted blessings evokes a biblical story of one of our foremothers or forefathers in the faith: Hagar and Ishmael, Ruth the Moabite woman, Moses. Remembering these stories allows us to better understand the blessing.

These blessings point to Jesus.

In his first sermon, Jesus is the one blessing. By his last sermon, he shows that he is the one who is blessed. Each of the Beatitudes directs us to a specific part of Jesus’ story. As we remember his story, we learn more of what it means to follow him.

These blessings fall on disciples. They empower us, making us over into the kind of people Jesus calls us to be. Blessings empower us for a life of service. So blessed, we become a blessing to others. Each Beatitude suggests a facet of Christian discipleship: the long-tempered character of biblical meekness, the heart’s truest longing, the spiritual poverty we cultivate so that God might fill us.

Finally, blessings get concrete. Each Beatitude suggests a practice of discipleship: forgiveness, holy conversation, service, discernment. You are encouraged to come up

with other practices, but the point is to root these blessings in the real world.

When I accepted the invitation to do this project a year ago, I had no idea what I was getting into. But the text showed me the way. Through these blessings, I stumbled into the stories of countless biblical authors and figures. I found the pain of the world in these stories; I also found the promise of God. I invite you to do the same. You will be richly blessed, as I was.

Be blessed to be a blessing.

Martha E. Stortz is professor of historical theology and ethics at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, Berkeley, Calif., and the author of A World According to God (Jossey–Bass, 2004)