04 June 2012

Warm fuzzy blessing and missional purpose

My one-time fellow ordinand, Doug Chaplin, has many good things to say and I'm glad subscriber to his blog, not least because he continues to have this knack of telling the truth even if it's uncomfortable (whether he'd recognise this, I don't know; we are probably aware -most of us- of how our inner and less-viewed lives may not always live up to our more carefully lived socially-viewed living). And recently he wrote a provoking but important-to-question post on a common amendment some clergy make in the blessing at the end of services. Here's the post: Blessings and warm fuzzies  and here's the guts of the issue:
... that form of blessing where clergy intone “the blessing of God almighty, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, be with you and remain with you and those whom you love, now and always. Amen.”
He questions this on the basis that

“Those whom we love” ... But the point of the dismissal is to send us into a world in which we are called to treat anyone in need as a neighbour to love, bless those who persecute us, and love our enemies. Including a cosy reference to families and friends to make people feel that the vicar really cares about them works badly against that intention.

I think he's right and I have tended to resist it myself because I've similarly felt that it is too 'cosy' and implicitly feeds the worst excesses of family-friendly ministry in excluding from view the hard cases. Of course it could be argued that those whom we love should precisely be those who are enemies or persecutors -but actually, we all know, that's not going to be the primary understanding unless we are taught it carefully. No, Doug is right; this addendum 'works' because the primary reference will be taken to be our family and perhaps some family-like friends (usually the courtesy aunts and uncles to any children we have).

Partly in response for a number of years, I sometimes fill out the blessing myself. However, I have tried to keep a connection with a missional intention, as both Doug and I understand it (I think). I may sometimes say "... and with those whose lives your lives touch." In doing so I'm trying to keep the wider view of neighbour love beyond the immediate circle and also convey the idea that we are blessed in order (at least in part) to carry/be blessing to others.
Not sure that Doug would approve, but it was helpful to see someone else articulate the disquiet I have long felt about the form I reacted against to produce my own addendum.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, at least that's two of us!

Andii said...

I'm sure there must be more, it's just that no-one feels strongly enough for the most part to put the problem with it 'out there'. The other problem though, can be that those who often enjoy putting such things 'out there' are often curmudgeonly about it. I think you avoided that.

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