How Do We Bless the
Lord?
Psalm 103:1-8
1
Bless the LORD, O my soul, *
and all that is within me, bless his holy Name.
and all that is within me, bless his holy Name.
2
Bless the LORD, O my soul, *
and forget not all his benefits.
and forget not all his benefits.
3
He forgives all your sins *
and heals all your infirmities;
and heals all your infirmities;
4
He redeems your life from the grave *
and crowns you with mercy and loving-kindness;
and crowns you with mercy and loving-kindness;
5
He satisfies you with good things, *
and your youth is renewed like an eagle's.
and your youth is renewed like an eagle's.
6
The LORD executes righteousness *
and judgment for all who are oppressed.
and judgment for all who are oppressed.
7
He made his ways known to Moses *
and his works to the children of Israel.
and his works to the children of Israel.
8
The LORD is full of compassion and mercy, *
slow to anger and of great kindness.
slow to anger and of great kindness.
When I
heard the words of the psalm as a child, I wondered in what possible way I
could bless the Lord. How could a puny, scrawny kid, who possessed little more
than dolls and stuffed animals, offer a blessing to God, the source of all
blessings? As I grew older, I
thought the very idea that someone like me could speak a blessing on God
Almighty sounded terribly presumptuous.
I’ve been
glad to have the opportunity this week to ponder the words of Psalm 103 and
come to a better understanding of what they mean. Thinking of God as a holy parent—and being a mother and
grandmother myself—I started to consider what a joy it is when young children
offer gifts. There are few things I prize more than the little plaster cast of
Lillian Grace’s hand or the pictures she has colored for me for display on my
refrigerator. Thinking about the pure delight those things give me, I begin to
understand why God may enjoy the blessings offered up by His children.
After my
parents died, when I was cleaning out their house, I found in Mama’s kitchen
two pretty worthless gifts I gave her when I was a child. One was an amber
Pyrex casserole dish that I won in a raffle at Wolftown Mercantile and proudly
presented to her for Christmas. Now my mother made wonderful cakes for the
holidays—fresh coconut, German chocolate, a buttery pound cake, and a delicious
sherry-drenched fruitcake. That casserole dish was filled with one of those not-very-good
mass-produced fruitcakes, but even so, my mother oohed and aahed over my gift
and appreciated it enough that she kept the dish all those years, even after
the casserole lost its top. She also kept a tile trivet I made for her at 4-H
camp. Now I keep those things to remind me of the blessing of a mother’s love.
If God thinks like a parent, and we are told God does, then maybe our puny
human blessings bring God joy.
We have a
big book at our house called The Book of
Legends, and it is a compilation of
stories and scriptural interpretations by some ancient rabbis. These old
stories and sayings were the teachings Jesus, as an observant Jew, would have
heard in the synagogue when he was growing up. Although he was never officially
named a rabbi, Jesus proved that he was himself a master of the midrash—an
exposition of the underlying meaning of a scriptural text.
I got out The Book of Legends to see what I could
find out about humans blessing God, and how pleased I was to find a midrash on
Psalm 103! This is the way the
story goes:
A certain
man came to Rabbi Gamaliel and asked him, “In what place does the Holy One,
blessed be he, reside?” Rabbi Gamaliel
replied, “I do not know.” The man became indignant at this answer and retorted,
“Is this your wisdom? You pray to God every day, and yet you do not know where
his place is?” Rabbi Gamaliel,
astonished at the impertinence of his questioner, retorted: “See here, you ask
me about something that is thirty-five hundred years away from me. [The
thirty-five hundred years represents the time and distance since creation.] Now
I shall ask you about something that abides with you day and night, and
you tell me where its place is.”
The man replied, “And what is that?”
Rabbi
Gamaliel replied, “It is the soul, which abides within you. Tell me precisely where
does it abide?” Of course the man
was stumped by this question, and he answered, “I do not know.” Rabbi Gamaliel
chastised the man, saying, “You do not know the place of something that abides within
you day and night, and yet you ask me to tell you where God’s soul abides,
something that is thirty-five hundred miles away from me! Not even the
celestial creatures that carry the throne of glory know where God’s place is,
nor in what place his soul abides. Therefore, they say, ‘Blessed be the glory
of the Lord, wherever his place may be.’”
When we
speak of our connection to God, we sometimes say that God resides in our hearts.
Sometimes we say, like Elijah, that we hear the “still, small” voice of God
speaking deeply within us. It seems that the place where we experience God’s
presence with us is the place where our soul is touched by the soul of God.
When we
say, “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy
name,” we speak from that mysterious place of connection with God. We acknowledge the greatest blessing
God has bestowed upon us: a portion of God’s own immortal soul.
How
do we bless the Lord? We
gratefully accept that God is the best part of each of us: the divine spark of
life.
Amen.
