We believe these words from the Bible are the oldest written words we posses from the Bible. Now understand the distinction, because this is kind of a tricky statement. In my house, the oldest words I have a copy of are probably some of the words in the Bible. I think that the oldest words in the Bible are likely some of the words from the book of Deuteronomy (maybe these “A wandering Aramean was my father” 26:5). Scholars debate exactly which ones. But arguably, words from Genesis would be the oldest of all the words that we have a copy of. So by having a Bible in my house, those would be the oldest words I have a copy of. But the oldest actual words I have are probably a book from the seventeenth century that Joel Mattison gave me. I have actually have a copy of those words.

 

So what are the oldest words that we actually have a copy of from the Bible? Do you think you know? It’s these words that I’m getting to read from the Book of Numbers. We have these words on a silver cylinder, kind of a scroll. I say “we”… I don’t have them. The state of Israel has them. But they are on a scroll with these words from the sixth chapter of Numbers, found in a burial cave outside Jerusalem. We know they date from at least the year 600 B.C., which means that they are four hundred years earlier than the Dead Sea Scrolls, even. If they are on a silver scroll in the burial cave, that says that they are words that have been probably a copy of even older than that, because somebody thought they were important enough to get from the point in the tradition where they were inscribed on a silver scroll. Hear these old words, precious to the community of faith.

 

 

This text is likely familiar to you. I say that because the words are so old and thus, as a part of that precious to the community of faith, that you probably have been hearing them for a while. In fact, these words are probably as used as any other words, except for maybe the Gospel lectionary text, which is used by millions of Christians around the world today. But these words from the Book of Numbers are used not only in Christian, but also in Jewish worship every Sabbath. So frequently, they may be the most used. They are precious to the community over time. “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon, and give you his peace.”

 

Used across traditions, and used across communities of faith, both in the Christian and in the Jewish tradition. These are precious words to us. When we say these words, we are invoking a blessing, which is something that is multi-layered in its meaning. What does it mean to bless somebody? In part, it means to ask that God’s good will be upon them. To invoke that good will.

 

But to my surprise, when I looked up the word “bless” in the Anchor Bible Commentary, it said that the primary factor of blessing has to do with the statement of relationship between the parties. It’s not just about invoking God’s blessing on the person, but also about stating and affirming that your relationship together is a good one, is a healthy one, is a strong one. Praying for that, in wishing for that, so that when we say, “Bless the children,” we are saying something about our relationship with them. Or when you bless one another, we are saying something about our relationship together as people, as a community.

 

And when I think about the different times I’ve been blessed, or sought people’s blessing, that rings so true to me. I think, Chuck, about the time in 1990, when the folks from Gastonia presented that call to me and I felt it with such conviction, the Spirit at work in my life. One of the hardest things about it, for me, was coming to you and saying that I was being pulled by this call. Because it meant a separation. It meant my doing something differently that what you and I had covenanted together. I remember coming to your office and trying to tell you this, and you were saying to me, “What do you want from me?” and my saying, “I want you to bless me.” And you immediately said, “Then you have my blessing.”

 

It was such a release. I wanted to hear in some way that it was okay between us, that our relationship was still intact.

 

I think about the marriage of Keith and Kathy Nelson. I imagine Keith going to Kathy’s father and asking for his blessing in asking Kathy if she would marry him. When you think about it, in part he is not only asking for his good will and for his permission, but he wants to know that his relationship with her parents is going to be in the good way and path. At first, that didn’t make much sense to me. But now that I’m the parent of a 22-year-old daughter, I can understand now essentially what you may be saying there is, “Please don’t kill me!” I get that at this point in my life.

 

The primary factor of blessing, says the Anchor Bible Commentary is the statement that the relationship between the parties is good and well. The blessing declares the positive relationship between the parties. When I took Joe off to college, I wanted to say something to him. I wanted to give him some memorable words, in that parking lot, leaving in a moment. I decided what I would say would be these words from the sixth chapter of Numbers. The words of Moses to the children of Israel. Out there in what must have been a hundred degrees in Tallahassee in that parking lot, I tried to do it. At that moment, I tried to say, “The Lord bless…” and I just choked. He said, “Don’t start, don’t start.” It was kind of his blessing me, saying this is going to be okay. The Lord be with you, and it’s good between us.

 

The primary factor of blessing is the statement of relationship between the parties. Even as we invoke God’s good will, God’s good relationship. And so how significant it is that Moses said to the children of Israel as they wandered in the desert, as they again and again violated that relationship with God, that Moses reassured them it is well between God and you. God forebears you. God tolerates you. God loves you. “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you his peace.”

 

I don’t know if you hear it, we say these words so often that it just becomes familiar to us, and we neglect to hear them. But there are three parts in it, and each part is followed by a tag at the antecedent. “The Lord bless you, and in that blessing, the Lord keep you.” There is something in the Lord’s blessing of you that sustains you, that helps you to endure, that helps you to persist.

 

“The Lord make his face to shine upon you.” Remember, the Lord—the Old Testaments tell us this, as well as the story of the Transfiguration, that whenever God shows up in a powerful way, there is something of life and glory that is present, so that in the Old Testament when the Lord gave the Ten Commandments to Moses, and the Lord passed by, Moses had to hide in the cliff of the mountain. It was such a powerful experience, that not even looking on the face of the Lord, but just the Lord passing by, it was such a powerful experience that the Hebrew scriptures say his hair turned white. And when he came down from the mountain, his face was kind of shiny still. The Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious…” so that when you encounter the glory of God, it does not kill you, but it is gracious to you.

 

And the third: “The Lord lift up his countenance upon you (his larger face, his face over the whole community), and give you his peace.” Give you his shalom, with all of the things that means. Not just the lack of violence, but your welfare, righteousness, your harmony together as a community. Your ability to be productive and to get along and to be vital. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you his shalom on you together as a people.

 

A primary factor of blessing is the statement of the relationship between the parties even as we invoke God’s good will, God’s relationship on the person that we are speaking to.

 

That is so hard for us, isn’t it, in some way in this day. It makes a witness to it for many people in their lives. In some way on this day, we know we are always seeking our father’s blessing for our mothers, for our grandmothers, or our aunts, or someone in our life who has mentored us and been a powerful leader for us. We are seeking their blessing.

 

So Jacob sought Esau’s blessing. So Jesus blessed the little children. They brought little children that he would bless them. So we are seeking in some way the statement from those we love and admire, that it is well with us. That our relationship is well.

 

Teddy Atlas has a book out. It’s kind a surprise that he wrote a book, because he is a boxer, and even more famous as a boxing trainer. He’s written a book about his experiences, particularly about his experience growing up. He grew up in New York, and he writes kind of like a guy who grew up on the streets of New York might. He talks in this book about his relationship with his father. His father was a doctor, and he saw a great many patients in Brooklyn. He was very busy from early in the morning until late most evenings. As a result, Teddy didn’t see as much of him as he might have wanted to. He thinks that’s a part of why he got into fighting, because he got into more brawls than perhaps he imagines he might have if he had been with his father instead. At any rate, while his father was a healer, Teddy became a fighter. His father was at some odds with him about what he ended up making his vocation, and perhaps you can understand why.

 

In his book he says, “I found that I admired my father, but I sought some sort of relationship with him, some kind of reconciliation. I wanted his blessing. Perhaps I got it. I do believe he got to a good place in his seeing that I had an honorable profession training fighters. He used to come as an adult, when I became an adult, to my fighters’ fights. You know, he would come, and before he would come he would throw sutures in his pocket, knowing that ‘hey, he’s going to a fight – he’s not going to an opera, right?’ So he got a connection with me and what I did. But you know, he wasn’t the kind of guy that he told too many things about how he was feeling, and he didn’t share too much of that. We just didn’t connect much that way.

 

“But years later, after he had died, I got on a bus. There was a man who got on a bus with a blue uniform. He came over to me and he said, ‘You’re Teddy Atlas, the boxing trainer, aren’t you?’

 

“I said, ‘yeah.’ He sat down and proceeded to tell me that he had been a patient of my father’s for twenty-five years. He said, ‘I just want to tell you, Teddy, that I went into your dad’s office in the last years of that practice, and I sat down next to him. He started talking to me about his son, the boxing trainer.’”

 

Teddy says, “That was the first time, ever in my life, that I understood that my father was thinking sometimes about my work, or about me, or about what I was doing.” He goes on to say, “You know, that was a nice thing that that man did. He blessed me in doing that. It was a decent thing for him to know that this was something I needed. And unfortunately, I probably wasn’t big enough to tell my father what I wanted to tell him until he was dying in the hospital and I thought it was safe to tell him I loved him, because he was unconscious at the time. I’m not sure he could hear me. But part of me wants to think that he did.”

 

Part of me does, too. We’re seeking always the blessing of others, aren’t we. Especially our mentors, our fathers. Seeking to bless those we love. If not our father’s blessing, then the blessing of our sons or our mothers or our aunt or our uncles or our coaches or our teachers.

 

Who are you a blessing to? Whose blessing are you seeking? You cannot coerce people’s blessing from them. You find the story of Jacob wrestling with an angel all night, trying to coerce that blessing out in the Bible.

 

You can’t coerce people’s blessing from them. But you can bless them in turn. On Sunday mornings when we park to go to our respective services, Pastor Geoff Koehler will often say to me, “Be a blessing!” and hold his hand up like that. That’s what I want to say to you today as you go forward into this Sunday afternoon. Go out there and be a blessing to someone. Maybe somebody in your family. Maybe somebody near you. Perhaps somebody that you’re estranged from, or that you’re apart from, and you’re not at the point where you can speak to them yet, then you can pray for that person. “O Lord, bless them.” “O Lord, be a blessing to her.” “O Lord, bless her and keep her. Make your face to shine upon her and be gracious unto her.” I hope you’ll be a blessing to someone today.

 

Gordon MacDonald tells the story of going in to see his grandfather when his grandfather was very old and in the nursing home. He knew his grandfather was near the end of his life, and he had a number of grandchildren. Gordon said, “I sat by his side and at the end of our visit, knowing I might not see him again, I said, ‘Grandfather, before I leave, I want to ask you to bless me.’”

 

His grandfather, being a great man of faith and piety, said, “Of course, I will.” And he lifted out his hand in the practice of the sign of blessing, he placed it on his head and he said, “O Lord, we pray now that you will pour out your blessing on…. What’s your name, Boy?” he said.

 

“It’s Gordon, Grandfather.”

 

“I pray that you’ll pour out your blessing on Gordon, Lord. As he grows older, as he walks through this life, we pray that you’ll be the Good Shepherd in the life of …. What’s your name, Boy?” 

 

“It’s Gordon, Grandfather.”

 

“And Lord, help him always to act with wisdom and with righteousness. And keep him safe from the perils of this life. O Lord, we pray for your blessing on…” and then a third time… What’s your name, Boy?”

 

It’s Gordon, Grandfather.”

 

MacDonald says, “I didn’t worry that he couldn’t remember my name. Because I knew it was God’s blessing.”

 

And one of the things we affirm when we bless someone, or when we are blessed, when we seek their blessing, is that we stand in the mortality and the humanity of our relationship with them. And in this life, in our humanity, we are not able to be all things to all people. We are not able to bring to fulfillment every human relationship.

 

And so we can say these words, which throw our lives on God. “The Lord bless you and keep you.” It’s better than your blessing.

 

“The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you.” It’s healing, you see.

 

“The Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you his peace, his shalom.” So that even when our memory gives out, God remembers us. God is capable of blessing us beyond our own means. God is able to sustain us. God is able to sustain us and to give us his shalom. Even when healing may not be in front of us on a given Sunday afternoon. I hope you go forward this afternoon, and I hope you’re blessed by those you love. I hope that happens to you, but even more so, I hope you seek to be a blessing.

 

The Lord bless you and keep you.

 

 

©John T. DeBevoise 2006