July 8, Numbers 6:22-26 "The Blessing"
The intent of this sermon is to complete the presentations of the parts of worship liturgy that are in almost every service. We conclude our services with a blessing. This practice has its foundation in Numbers chapter 6. What impact does the blessing have on you before you leave a worship service? As many have noticed, when we close a service with the priestly blessing of Numbers 6, I often add a phrase "the Lord treat you as his favourite children." You may have wondered why I add that phrase. The sermon will explain that. Here is the passage. Your reflections are invited.
22 The LORD said to Moses, 23 “Tell Aaron and his sons, ‘This is how you are to bless the Israelites. Say to them:
24 ““‘The LORD bless you
and keep you;
25 the LORD make his face shine upon you
and be gracious to you;
26 the LORD turn his face toward you
and give you peace.”’
27 “So they will put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them.”
21 comments:
The Benediction (Final Blessing)
We have reached the conclusion (final movement) of a worship service. Perhaps we should call “the interlude of worship”, because we are sent out and blessed to continue our worship of the Triune God (Matt.28: 19-20). These final acts of the service can headed “sending forth”. They help us make the transition back to the tasks of work, family and service.
From time to time our announcement could perhaps also be made towards the end of the service, because the announcement turn our thoughts to our shared church life outside of the public worship service.
Of course, a benediction could also take place somewhere in the middle of a service. A good example of this might be in response to a baptism or with the exchange of the peace of Christ.
Closing song:
Commissioning: in our church we rarely do this at the end of a service, but when I think about “commissioning” is would seem to make sense to do this before the benediction. Commissioning at Immanuel occurs for “special occasions”, such as the commissioning of a Mexico team. But perhaps it would be good to remind ourselves that we are all commissioned each and every Sunday to do the work of the people again in the upcoming week: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you”
After having received these “worship marching orders”, what wonderful assurance to receive the proclamation of a final blessing offered to all: “The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD turn his face toward you and give you peace.”
Along with communion this is my favourite part of the service. God smiles on us, looks us in the eyes, and blesses us. Of course we should all respond with a final communal “AMEN!”
Benedictions can take various forms. In the New Testament we kind find them in such passages at Luke 2: 29-32, Jude 24-25, 1 Thess 5:23, Heb.13: 20-21, Rom.15: 13, Rom.16: 24, 2 John 1:3, Col.3: 15-17, Eph.6: 23-24, 2 Cor 13: 11b, 13, Rom.15: 5-6, Ps.67: 1-2, Ps.121: 7-8, 2 Thess.2: 16-17; Phil.4: 7,
In making yet another “plug” for the hymnal supplement “Sing! A New Creation”, this hymnal arranges songs and litanies by following (somewhat similar to the ordering of songs in the Psalter Hymnal) the four-fold pattern of worship of Gathering, the Service of the Word, Prayer and Sacrament and Sending Forth, while at the same time including an ordering of songs along the special celebrations from the liturgical calendar. Toward the end of this worship songbook, just after the section called “Lord’s Supper”, it has two more sections. The second last one is called “Service” and the last one is called “Blessing and Parting”. The song #288 “Benediction / My Friends, may you grow in peace on in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior” has become one of my favourite closing songs. I guess in part because it combines blessing, doxology and AMEN all in one song. But it also combines our horizontal and vertical acts of worship into one final song of farewell. In the first half we exhort each other to mutually grow in the things of God. And seeing that as Reformed people we believe that we all are prophets, priests and kings, here in this part of the song we bless one another in our priestly roles. This is followed by the Doxology: “To God be the glory, now and forever”. This is the part in the song where we communally raise our hands as a bodily (incarnational) act of worship, praise and adoration.
The text of this song is largely derived from 2 Peter 3: 17-18: “Therefore, dear friends, since you already know this, be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of lawless men and fall from your secure position. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen.”
This song also demonstrates the reciprocal nature of the blessing: We bless (praise God), who blesses us (“as His favourite children”).
One final comment relating to “Sing! A New Creation”. It actually has a sung version (#291) of God’s words given to Aaron in Num.6:24-26 (written by Barbara Boertje, minister of music at 1st Reformed Church in Granville, MI).
In Reformed Worship Journal #69 John D. Witvliet gives these answers to questions from readers under the heading “On ordination and worship leadership”: http://www.reformedworship.org/magazine/article.cfm?article_id=1257
Q What’s the big deal about having a pastor give the greeting and benediction with raised arms, or even lead the sacraments?
Does the pastor have a special power? Isn’t this actually a bit superstitious?
—California
Q I really, really miss having the benediction led by our pastor with raised arms. Having the praise team leader say “see you next week” doesn’t cut it for me. Help!
—Texas
A Here is a tough issue to address briefly!
For starters, the raising of the hands at the benediction is not a matter of “supernatural power.” A pastor doesn’t have power in and of himself or herself. Ordination is the recognition of a particular pastoral relationship, not the status of a person. Recognizing that we all share the office of believer, ordination means that the church and the ordained leader joyfully agree to live in a certain kind of relationship, to play certain roles in community life. The ordained person is challenged to proclaim the gospel as a representative of Christ, to exercise Christ’s authority in a Christ-like way, and to speak words of blessing in ways that help the congregation know that Christ’s promise is effective here and now. The congregation agrees to respond to this person with respect and attention, listening to the words this person speaks as having particular authority—an authority that is always grounded in Christ’s authority and held accountable by the church.
One of the requirements for being a pastor is to understand both theologically and functionally that the sacraments, preaching, the greeting and benediction, and even ordination don’t have power in and of themselves. And one task for ordained leadership is to work against (not unwittingly promote) “quasi-magical” approaches to worship, where we begin to think that a certain ritual action by itself generates divine presence or action, a temptation for worshipers in every century since the prophets of Baal, and a temptation for practitioners of both traditional and contemporary worship styles.
At the same time, ordained leadership is designed to help us appropriately experience the “vertical” nature of worship, that worship truly is an encounter between God and the gathered congregation. Reserving the greeting and benediction or certain gestures (such as the raising of arms) for the pastor is a provisional strategy chosen by a tradition, denomination, or congregation in order to heighten the significance of these words, to help people hear them as a here-and-now statement of God’s ever-present, ever-new promise. This gesture is a like a little liturgical drama in which we hear the spoken words as God’s own, present-time promise. The goal is to remind us that worship is more than a merely horizontal experience whereby we simply share our own wisdom or faith with each other.
If worship were basically horizontal, then goodbye would suffice. If it is also vertical, then a congregation should long for hearing God’s word of blessing pronounced with a kind of joyful solemnity. This practice can offer great spiritual comfort. Many people look forward to the benediction as the most meaningful part of worship—a simple, direct, dramatic, present declaration of God’s promise never to leave us. Why would anyone want to either make this cute or cut it out altogether?
In sum, the primary reason for reserving certain actions to ordained persons is to avoid the extremes of a superstitious or magical conception of worship on the one hand and a flippant or merely horizontal approach on the other.
Q I am a worship leader who is not yet ordained. How should I lead the benediction?
—Michigan
A Consider a simple reading of a scriptural blessing: “Hear God’s promises, as recorded in 1 Thessalonians 5: ‘May the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do this.’ Praise God for this sure promise.” Or consider a prayer for God’s blessing, such as a prayer based closely on Psalm 67: “Almighty God, be gracious to us and bless us and make your face to shine upon us, that your way may be known upon earth, your saving power among all nations.”
Q Isn’t that way too fussy? You’re telling me that lay leaders can use basically the same words, but can’t raise their hands, and that they need to introduce the blessing by identifying the text from Scripture rather than speaking them as their own words. Am I hearing you right?
—Michigan
A No doubt some readers will be amused by this discussion. To some, the whole concept of ordination sounds either quaint or overly hierarchical, especially in our anti-authority age. Further, some traditions that maintain ordination have never operated with these distinctions about liturgical leadership and will simply find this discussion curious. Other traditions, conversely, will find it hard to imagine that any lay person would even want to question the practice of reserving certain actions for ministers.
For starters, while Scripture records examples of liturgical gestures like the raising of hands, it is nearly impossible to make a good case that Scripture definitively limits these gestures to ordained people. That is an argument that needs to be inferred from the precedent of Old Testament priests, which is not a particularly strong form of scriptural interpretation.
And, like all matters of church order and polity, it is possible to push all these questions to bizarre legalistic extremes. I think of one church where a lay leader reads the Lord’s Supper liturgy, but a pastor had to read the words of institution. Or another where a lay leader could extend his arms horizontally for a blessing but only the ordained pastor could extend her arms more vertically.
A matter of churchly tradition or polity should be more about enhancing pastoral wisdom than following legalistic practice. (Perhaps church order documents should be written up to sound more like Proverbs than Leviticus.) Often the kernel of pastoral wisdom is forgotten on this topic.
In sum, a congregation covenants to hear the pastor’s words, including the benediction, as representing Christ. A pastor humbly agrees to the monumental task of speaking as God’s spokesperson. Lots of spiritual accountability keeps this relationship healthy. The gestures are simply a natural outworking of that provisional relationship.
“the Lord treat you as his favorite children” – a few comments
Any time we add words to Scripture, we need to be very careful not to give the impression that, along with the preceding words from God (scripture), these words are somehow part of scripture as well (perhaps some kind of moderns translation).
The word “favourite” is not to be found in Scripture, but its root word “favour” can be found some 150 times. Favouritism can be found some 9 times. And most of those times the word favouritism is used in a negative context.
The Bible itself is clear about God and “favouritism”, for Peter tells us in Acts 10: 34-35 “how true it is that God does not show favoritism but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right.”
The dictionary gives (among several) this meaning: a person who is specially loved, trusted, or provided with favors by someone of high rank or authority.
When the word favoritism is used, we think of partiality, of loving someone more than someone else. An example of this could be Jacob favoring Rachel of Leah, or Jacob favoring Joseph.
So in light of the above, perhaps an explanation of the addition to the words of the benediction in Numbers 6 is perhaps long overdue and necessary.
June 3rd we celebrate Trinity Sunday. I would like to close this contribution with this prayer:
Lead us and bless us – Ruth Burgess (Iona Community)
God our Maker,
Star-giver,
Warm us.
God in Jesus,
Storyteller,
Call us.
God the Holy Spirit,
Traveller,
Caress us.
God of all our nights and days,
Lead us
And bless us.
The Benediction is a wonderful way to conclude our worship service in that it reminds us that God is with us as we go into the new week, and it is His presence in us that gives us peace. The final phrase of "the Lord treat you as His favorite children" has always made me feel uncomfortable and I was never sure why that was being said. God has no favorite children but loves equally. Rom. 2:11 says "For God does not show favoritism" but has let His favor rest on all mankind when He gave us His Son. Lk. 2:14.
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