What Are We Doing When We Bless?

What Are We Doing When We Bless? Edwin Chr. van Driel T I draw on the notion of “deputized speech” to unpack theologically what it means to bless. In the third section I show how this notion also helps us conceptualize what happens in the other liturgical acts reserved for ordained ministers—declaring forgiveness, baptizing, and presiding at the Lord’s table. In the fourth and fifth section I suggest that reflecting on these acts offer a lens through which to look at the very nature of ordination to Word and Sacrament. he rubrics to the liturgical material included in the 2013 hymnal Glory to God stipulate that while a deacon or elder may give the charge at the end of the service, the blessing is to be spoken by the minister.1 The 2016 Directory for Worship followed this pattern, stating that “the Service for the Lord’s Day concludes with a blessing in the name of the triune God, such as the priestly blessing or apostolic benediction. Because this blessing is an expression of the gospel of God’s grace and an extension of the ministry of the Word and Sacrament, a teaching elder ordinarily speaks the blessing” (W.3.0502). This is the first time in several generations that official denominational material has explicitly stated that “blessing” is a specifically ordered act of the ordained minister. The earlier Directory for Worship specified that the dismissal which concludes the Service for the Lord’s Day “shall include words of blessing” (W-3.3702), but did not identify by whom these words ought to be spoken. The 1990 Presbyterian Hymnal did not offer much in terms of liturgical material, nor did the 1955 Hymnbook. The 1970 Worshipbook did, but never specified who gives the blessing. Nonetheless, the position taken in Glory to God and the 2016 Directory for Worship are not “new—they are rather an articulation of long-standing Reformed practice. For example, in the Scottish, Dutch, and Swiss Reformed traditions it is clear that only ordained ministers are to give the blessing.2 Why is this? Why is it only the minister who is to bless? And what is it to bless in the first place? In this essay I offer a theological conceptual framework that helps us understand what it is to bless God’s people in God’s name. In the first section I open my exploration with some exegetical observations about the Aaronic blessing. In the second section “So They Shall Put My Name on the Israelites” In Protestant liturgies, the Aaronic blessing has traditionally been the preferred wording to bless God’s people.3 The LORD spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, Thus you shall bless the Israelites: You shall say to them, 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 peace. So they shall put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them (Num. 6:22–27). For our purposes, three features of this passage are important. First, the blessing speaks of the intimate involvement of God’s self. This is clear in the phrases chosen for the formulation of the blessing: it mentions the face-to-face presence of God, and the lifting of God’s countenance upon us. But God’s self-involvement comes out particularly in the threefold repetition of the name “LORD.” The English term stands for the covenantal name of God, Edwin Chr. van Driel is Directors’ Bicentennial Associate Professor of Theology at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Call to Worship 2 Volume 52.2, 2018 author of Ephesians (1:3). In this context it is also quite telling that the resurrected Christ parts from his disciples and enters into his heavenly rule in an ongoing act of blessing, with a gesture reminiscent of the priestly act at the end of the worship service: “Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven” (Luke 24:50–51). To receive God’s blessing is for one’s life to be incorporated in the transforming, eschatological work of God.8 The last thing to point out is that this incorporation of one’s life into God’s eschatological journey happens through the mediation of the priests. It is not that the priests have God’s blessing in hand as a power they can invoke and manipulate whenever it seems right. The priests do not “own” the divine blessing. The formulation of the blessing is a prayer: the priests, in putting God’s name upon the people, invite God to bless. But, at the same time, God promises that when the priests do this, God will bless: “They shall put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them.” That is, as surely as the people hear the words spoken over them, as surely they can know that God has become present to them and is folding their lives into God’s grand, transformed future. the personal name by which God had revealed God’s self to Moses in the burning bush, a name not known to any other nation on earth other than to Israel (Ex. 3:13–22). The name spoke of the intimate relationship between God and God’s people, and over time the phrase “the Name” became an instantiation for God’s self. Where “the Name” rests, there God is present.4 And so it is with the blessing: when the priests bless God’s people, “they put my name on the Israelites,” says God. God’s self becomes present among them. This invoking of “the Name” points at a second aspect of the blessing. When the Creator God becomes for Israel “the LORD,” when God engages Israel in a covenant, it is not simply to bless them and leave it at that. No, God chooses this people and gives them to know the Name, because God is taking them on a journey. Through this people all the nations of the world will be blessed, God promises to Israel (Gen. 12:1–3). God’s election has an eschatological goal. And so it is with God’s blessing. The idea of “blessing” was originally connoted with notions of “life,” “fertility,” and “wellbeing.” A blessing was thought to affirm and bring out the potential embedded in creation. God blesses the weather, the herds, the harvest. But over time “blessing received an ‘aspect of finality’ that thrust itself toward eschatology.”5 To be blessed is to have your feet put on the road.6 There is a reason why the very first interpretation of the priestly blessing comes in the form of a collection of psalms which speak about being on a journey, going upwards to Zion: twelve of the fifteen Songs of Ascents (Pss. 120–134) take direct inspiration from one or more strophes of the blessing’s wording.7 Over the course of Israel’s history this “blessed journeying” takes on a more eschatological color. The New Testament frequently describes the eschatological future in terms of an unfolding of God’s ultimate blessing. “When God raised up his servant, he sent him first to you, to bless you by turning each of you from your wicked ways,” Peter tells the Jews gathered in Solomon’s Portico, according to Acts (3:26). Christ’s work on the cross leads to the blessing of Abraham coming to the Gentiles, writes Paul in the letter to the Galatians (3:13–14). “It is for this that you were called,” says the first letter of Peter to its Gentile audience, “that you might inherit a blessing” (3:9). “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,” says the Blessing and Charge Blessing as Deputized Speech How do we make theological sense of a ritual that commits God to an act of blessing without the one who enacts the ritual at the same time owning that power? How can God be the one who blesses, even while the priest speaks the words? To answer these questions, I suggest we draw on a phenomenon that philosopher of religion Nicholas P. Wolterstorff calls “deputized speech.”9 Here’s an everyday example of what deputized speech looks like. The French ambassador goes to the White House to speak with the American president. In the conversation, the ambassador issues a warning, or makes a promise, or expresses a concern. And let’s say that in doing so, the ambassador speaks not as a private, informed citizen, but in her official capacity as ambassador of the French government. In that case, what the French ambassador says counts as the words of the French government. The ambassador utters the words, but what she does with these words—the warning she issues, the promise she makes, the concern she expresses—counts as an act of the one 3 What Are We Doing When We Bless? who sent her and commits the one who sent her. This is what we can call “deputized speech.” The concept of deputized speech is embedded in a distinction made in speech act theory between “locutions,” “illocutions,” and “perlocutions.”10 The locutionary aspect of the performance of a speech act is the uttering of a particular sentence. The illocution is the conventional aspect of the act one performs in saying something. For instance, in uttering a locution one can do things that can be recognized by one’s hearers as issuing a warning, making a promise, or expressing a concern. Finally, by performing these illocutions one can have a causal effect on one’s hearers. For instance, a warning may evoke the hearer to change a course of action. This is the perlocutionary aspect of a speech act. Making these distinctions allows us to think of the locutionary and illocutionary aspects of a deputized speech act as distributed over two actors. In my example, the French ambassador makes a locution; she is the one who utters the words. But the illocution made in uttering these words count as the illocution of the French government: it is the government who is said to have issued a warning, made a promise, or expressed a concern. Notice, by the way, that this form of deputized speech is more complicated than simply the conveying of a message. The phenomenon of “ambassadors” dates from before the time that we could have real-time conversation with anyone, anywhere. In fact, the phenomenon of ambassadors was developed exactly so as to deal with the physical absence of the one who had sent the ambassador. Let’s say that the scene of the French ambassador visiting the White House takes place in the beginning of the nineteenth century, long before the invention of electronic means of communications. In that case the ambassador may be called upon to formulate a position of the French government on a certain issue without being able first to consult with the home front. Therefore, the ambassador, on being commissioned in her position, would have received instructions about the government’s intentions, policies, and desires. The ambassador would be deputized to say things of a certain sort—but only if certain events take place, under certain conditions, and so on. Once instructed and authorized in this way, the words the ambassador speaks now count as the words of the one who sent her. Call to Worship The notion of “ambassadorial work” is, of course, not foreign to theological speech. It is the image Paul uses to explain his ministerial work: “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. . . . So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God” (2 Cor. 5:18–20). And it is also in this way, I suggest, we could think about the act of blessing. The priest is authorized to bless. He is authorized to speak the words of blessing—under certain conditions, in certain circumstances, and with certain words. When he does so, what he says counts as the words of God. The priest utters the words, they are his locutions—but they count as the words of God’s self. He puts the Name of the LORD upon those whom he blesses, and the LORD himself will bless them.11 Baptizing, Forgiving, Presiding, Blessing The blessing is, however, only one of four liturgical acts that in our new hymnal and new directory are reserved for ordained Ministers of Word and Sacrament. So are baptism, the declaration of pardon, and presiding over the Lord’s Table. These are also forms of deputized speech, and each one of these has the goal of incorporating the ones who are being addressed in God’s eschatological work. In baptism the minister addresses the baptized “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” That is, the address underscores that while the minister engages in a locutionary act, the illocutionary and perlocutionary aspects of the act count as the act of the triune God. When the minister makes a sign of the cross on the forehead of the baptized, she does not do so in her own name but in the name of Christ, as the accompanying liturgical formula expresses: “You . . . have been marked as Christ’s own forever.”12 The pastor pours the water and makes the cross, but it is God who does the baptizing and the marking. In doing so, God incorporates the baptized into God’s eschatological future: “God who began a good work in you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ,” as is promised to the baptized.13 As to the declaration of pardon, anecdotal evidence suggests that in many North American Presbyterian congregations the acts of confession and pardon are led by elders. But, as the new Directory for Worship states, “because of [the] associations 4 Volume 52.2, 2018 audiences about her country and its characteristics and policies, she may attend meetings and banquets and may host gatherings like that herself. But she can engage in all these activities exactly because of her core role: to represent and speak for the government that sent her. Her role as one commissioned for “deputized speech” is not one role among many, but it is the core of her identity that allows her to engage in everything else. So it is with the minister. All other ministerial work can be understood as extensions of this central calling. Pastoral conversations can be understood as the application of the pastor’s liturgical work of forgiving and blessing to people’s individual lives and circumstances. Her leading of Bible studies and discussion groups serve the further unpacking of what she has said and done in God’s name. Her participation in the governing of the church is an extension of her wielding of the keys.17 This in turn helps us to differentiate between the calling of ministers and elders.18 As one who comes to us as an ambassador, commissioned to speak to us a word from God, the pastor comes to us from beyond. She embodies the over-againstness that exists between God’s Word and us. Thus, the pastor does not come forth from the congregation, but is called to the congregation. Even in those circumstances where the pastor has been raised up by the local community (as will be more and more the case as the church once again engages in the work of church planting), the act of ordination consciously relocates the minister. At the moment of ordination, she loses her membership in the congregation and becomes a member of presbytery and is now entrusted to her congregation by the ordaining presbytery. Elders, on the other hand, are not being called to a congregation, but are lifted up by a congregation. They embody the response of the people to the word that has come to them, as communities are being formed and leaders are raised up. Finally, the notion of the minister’s calling as the work of authorized incorporation of creatures into God’s eschatological future gives us a way to consider what can and what cannot be blessed. Deputized speech comes with restrictions. The one who is deputized is only authorized to say and do certain things, under certain conditions, in certain circumstances. If the minister’s work is in the service of folding creatures into God’s eschatological work, then only that can be blessed which will have a place in God’s eschatological future.19 with the ministry of Word and Sacrament, it is fitting for a teaching elder to lead the call to confession and proclaim the good news of forgiveness in Jesus Christ” (W-3.0205).14 This is indeed the practice in other parts of the worldwide Presbyterian family.15 Here, again, the minister does not speak by her own authority, but she speaks in God’s name: “The mercy of God is from everlasting to everlasting. I declare to you, in the name of Jesus Christ, we are forgiven.”16 In pronouncing absolution, the minister folds wayward sinners back into God’s eschatological community. Finally, it is only the ordained minister who is authorized to preside at the table—which, of course, is not the minister’s table, but God’s table, and whereas it may be the minister who breaks the bread and pours the wine, it is God who feeds God’s people and provides them with sustenance in anticipation of the glorious eschatological messianic meal of which the Eucharist is a foretaste. Baptizing, giving absolution, presiding at the table, and blessing . . . express the core of ordained ministry: to speak in the name of the Lord. This essay is not the place to offer a full-fleshed theology of ordination, but I want to suggest that these four ordered liturgical acts give us a lens through which to look at the specific calling of the Minister of Word and Sacrament. Baptizing, giving absolution, presiding at the table, and blessing are not some among many activities the minister engages in, but they express the core of ordained ministry: to speak in the name of the Lord. The role of the pastor is to speak God’s own promises into the lives of those who have been entrusted to her and, through acts of blessing and forgiveness, through the waters of baptism and the distribution of bread and wine, to incorporate people into the eschatological purposes of God. It is the role of the pastor to steward and dole out God’s mysteries in God’s name (1 Cor. 4:1). She is the ambassador of God, commissioned to deputized speech. The analogy with the work of a secular ambassador is illuminating here. An ambassador does a multitude of work. She may advocate for and provide services to fellow countrymen and women, she may speak to the press and other Blessing and Charge 5 What Are We Doing When We Bless? Unpacking this idea, Calvin comes very close to the notion of deputized speech: “A Puny Person Pulled from the Dust” The take on ordained ministry outlined in the previous section may strike many as “too high.” As contemporary mainline Protestants we don’t like to think of a pastor as “over against” us—we prefer a pastor who is among us, next to us, giving voice to what is going on in our lives and our world. Moreover, the account of ordained ministry as an embodiment of deputized speech sounds as if the minister takes on a mediatory role between God and God’s people, and is that not a Roman Catholic rather than a Protestant understanding of the work of the minister? In response, I want to look at John Calvin, who surely was aware of Protestant sensibilities. While Calvin obviously could not yet apply the notion of deputized speech,—that’s a concept of twentiethcentury philosophy of language—he regularly uses the concept of ambassador to describe the work of the minister. In fact, in his commentary on Numbers Calvin invokes this very concept to explain what happens in the act of blessing: “In these words, then, the priests were appointed ambassadors to reconcile God to the people.”20 And as he comments on 2 Corinthians 5:18: [God] alone should rule and reign in the church as well as have authority or preeminence in it, and this authority should be exercised and administered by his Word alone. Nevertheless, because he does not dwell among us in visible presence, we have said that he uses the ministry of men to declare openly his will to us by mouth, as a sort of delegated work, not by transferring to them his right and honor, but only that through their mouths he may do his own work—just as a workman uses a tool to do his work” (emphasis mine).24 In fact, says Calvin, reflecting on the comment in the Ephesians letter that Christ ascended on high “that he might fill all things” (Eph. 4:10): “This is the manner of fulfillment: through the ministers to whom he has entrusted this office and has conferred the grace to carry it out, he dispenses and distributes his gifts to the church; and he shows himself as though present by manifesting the power of his Spirit in this his institution, that it be not vain or idle.”25 In other words: according to Calvin, God sends us ministers, ambassadors, people who come to us as from beyond, because in this way the gospel has a chance to land in our reality. God is not visibly and audibly present among us, but God wants to be visibly and audibly among us, because God knows that this is what we need. Therefore, God uses ministers as God’s mouthpiece, so that God’s own Word can come to us in a way we can comprehend. Rather than being an expression of authoritarianism, the pastor, as one who embodies deputized speech, embodies the good news of a God who is at work “to fill all things.” It strikes me that Calvin is exactly right. Yes, we do need people who sit with us and help us to give voice to what we feel and experience. But what is most crucial, most liberating about the gospel is that it is a Word that does not arise from our own deliberations, our own thoughts and hopes and questions, but that it comes to us from outside of us, that it breaks through all the thoughts and questions and desires we may have, and speaks to us words of truth and grace we could never produce. “You are marked by the cross of Christ forever.” “In the It is a singular dignity of ministers that they are sent to us by God with this commission, so as to be messengers, and in a manner sureties. . . . Ministers are furnished with this commission, that they may bring us intelligence of so great a benefit, nay more, may assure us of God’s fatherly love toward us. . . . When, therefore, a duly ordained minister proclaims in the gospel, that God has been made propitious to us, he is to be listened to just as an ambassador of God, and sustaining, as they speak, a public character, and furnished with rightful authority for assuring us of this.21 In his Institutes Calvin emphasizes that the ambassadorial role of the minister does not reflect any intrinsic dignity on the minister’s part. In fact, as Calvin says in a striking image, ministers are not more than “puny persons pulled from the dust.”22 But at the same time, Calvin continues, it is herein that “[God] provides for our weakness in that he prefers to address us in human fashion through interpreters in order to draw us to himself, rather than to thunder at us and drive us away.”23 Call to Worship 6 Volume 52.2, 2018 name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven.” “The body and blood of Christ, given for you.” “The Lord bless you and keep you.” The deepest words that can be said about us, the words that define us and sustain us more than anything else, do not come up from our own reality but come to us from outside of us, come to us exactly from the other side. And it is the unique calling of the minister to give voice to those words. the exact opposite of my meaning. Well, anyway, I told him it was an honor to bless him. And that was also absolutely true. In fact I’d have gone through seminary and ordination and all the years intervening for that one moment.”26 For this we show up at maternity wards and at deathbeds, for this we bless new relationships and new homes, for this we bless our people every time they leave the worship service to return to the routine of their lives: to speak to them the promises of God, to fold their lives, in their grandeur and misère, into God’s eschatological purposes. “I’d Have Gone through Seminary and Ordination for That One Moment” The narrator in Marilynne Robinson’s novel Gilead is an elderly pastor named John Ames. Ames’s best friend, Robert Boughton, is a pastor in the same town. They have become so close that Boughton named his son after his friend: John Ames ( Jack) Boughton. But the boy grew up to be a disappointment, a disgrace to his name. As his father is dying, the prodigal son comes home to visit. Things aren’t going so well, and the son decides, again, it is best to slip out of town. Pastor John, his namesake, meets up with him and walks him to the bus stop. They are standing there, surrounded by memories of lost hope and disappointment. Neither of them seems to know what to say. And then, while they are waiting, the aging pastor Ames turns to the young man and says, “I would like to bless you.” The young man, not quite knowing what it involves, nonetheless agrees, takes of his hat, bends one knee, and bows his head; and pastor Ames puts his hands on the man’s head: I’d have gone through seminary and ordination for that one moment. It strikes me that Pastor Ames’s observation is absolutely correct. There is an overwhelming amount of tasks that can appear every day on the pastor’s desk. They can range from the absolute mundane and boring to the exhilarating and deeply moving. But amidst all that, we went to seminary and were ordained so as to bless. For this we show up at maternity wards and at deathbeds, for this we bless new relationships and new homes, for this we bless our people every time they leave the worship service to return to the routine of their lives: to speak to them the promises of God, to fold their lives, in their grandeur and misère, into God’s eschatological purposes. The LORD bless you and keep you, the LORD makes his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you, the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. And I did bless him to the limit of my powers, whatever they are, repeating the benediction from Numbers, of course—“The Lord make His face to shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee: “The Lord lift up His countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.” Nothing could be more beautiful than that, or more expressive of my feelings, or more sufficient for that matter. Then, when he didn’t open his eyes or lift up his head, I said, “Lord, bless John Ames Boughton, this beloved son and brother and husband and father.” Then he sat back and looked at me as if he were waking out of a dream. Notes 1. 2. Then, turning to his readers, John Ames reflects: “To him it might have seemed I had named everything I thought he no longer was, when that was absolutely the furthest thing from my meaning, Blessing and Charge 7 Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2013), 13. For the Scottish tradition, see George W. Sprott, The Worship and Offices of the Church of Scotland (Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1882), 44–45: “. . . the benediction is God’s answer to our worship, and its proper close. In it God’s ministers put his name upon the people, and he blesses them. That a blessing is thus imparted from on high, through the channel of an ordained ministry, to those whose hearts are open to receive it, is asserted in all the What Are We Doing When We Bless? 3. 4. standards that have at any time been of authority in the church. This was so well understood formerly, and the blessing was so highly valued, that, in order to induce people to come twice to church, it was sometimes not given till the second service. . . . As the church declares that it belongs to the minister’s office to bless the people under the gospel, as it did to the priests under the law, those who are unordained only pray for a blessing. Hence the practice, so long rigidly adhered to, of licentiates [candidates for ordination, EvD] saying ‘us,’ instead of ‘you,’ and of their not making use of the sign of blessing—viz., the lifting up of the hands.” For the Dutch tradition, see G. van der Leeuw, Liturgiek, tweede druk (Nijkerk: Callenbach, 1946), 195–196: “The blessing is no prayer, or even a wish. It is a gift of God, given to the congregation through human ministry. Who receives the blessing in faith, takes something home. This is why the minister lays the blessing upon the people—that is, he doesn’t lift his arms and hands as in the orans, but he lifts his hands with his palms downward: he distributes the blessing. We have to take fully serious the ordinances given to us in ordination. That’s why it is of course wrong to replace the words “be with you” by “be with us.” That’s a false modesty that doesn’t dare to trust in God’s promises. . . . Candidates for ordination do not give the blessing, but use a concluding sentence. The blessing can only be distributed by ministers of the Word” (translation mine). For the Swiss tradition, see J. J. von Allmen, Worship: Its Theology and Practice (New York: Oxford University Press, 1965), 137–142. For contemporary American Presbyterian material that expresses the same tradition, see Peter C. Bower, ed., The Companion to the Book of Common Worship (Louisville, KY: Geneva Press, 2003), 44, 71–2; David L. Stubbs, “Ending of Worship,” in Leanna Van Dyk, ed., A More Profound Alleluia: Theology and Worship in Harmony (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2005), 148–153 [133–153]; Kimberly Bracken Long, The Worshiping Body: The Art of Leading Worship (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 62–67. In fact, this blessing was not used in the liturgy before the Reformation. Luther introduced its use in 1523, and was followed by Zwingli in 1525. Bucer and Calvin followed suit. Since then it has become the dominant blessing in the Protestant world. For references see Klaus Seybold, Der aaronitische Segen: Studien zu Numeri 6/22–27 (NeukirchenVluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1977), 11; and Marius van Leeuwen, “Wegzending en zegen,” in Paul Oskamp en Niek Schuman, eds., De weg van de liturgie (Zoetermeer: Meinema, 1998), 259–61 [257–266]. See e.g. Rolf Rendtorff, The Canonical Hebrew Bible: A Theology of the Old Testament (Leiden: Deo Publishing, 2005), 591–592, 594. Call to Worship 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 8 Horst Dietrich Preuss, Old Testament Theology, vol. 1 (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995), 183 (cf. 179–183). “Frequently the word derek, ‘way, path,’ is connected with the verb šãmar, ‘to guard,’” Baruch A. Levine observes in reference to the first line of the Aaronic blessing (Numbers 1–20, The Anchor Bible [New York: Doubleday, 1993], 227). Cf. also Jeff. S. Anderson, The Blessing and the Curse: Trajectories in the Theology of the Old Testament (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books), 271: “In its narrative context, the blessing is intended to equip the community for the journey ahead.” See L. J. Leibrich, “The Songs of Ascent and the Priestly Blessing,” Journal of Biblical Literature 74 (1955): 33–36; and Elmer Martens, “Intertext Messaging: Echoes of the Aaronic Blessing,” Direction: A Mennonite Brethern Forum 38 (2009): 163–178. As he does in some of his other works, in his Blessing in the Bible and the Life of the Church (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978) Claus Westermann makes distinction between deliverance and blessing. They express two different ways of divine relating to God’s people: “Deliverance is experienced in events that represent God’s intervention. Blessing is a continuing activity of God that is either present or not present” (p. 4). The theological tradition tends to conflate these two, Westermann argues, as all being part of “salvation.” But deliverance has to do with the need for God to set things aright, while blessing simply produces a condition of well-being (p. 3). It strikes me that Westermann’s distinction is correct and important. However, it would be helpful to introduce a further distinction: between creational and eschatological blessings. Some of the Scripture’s speaking about blessing concerns the former: “It is God’s blessing that let the child grow into a man or woman, that bestows such manifold talents, and that provides physical and spiritual food from so many sources” (p. 5). But other blessings lift creation beyond its natural baseline, push history towards an eschatological telos. (Cf. similar comments by David Kelsey in his Eccentric Existence: A Theological Anthropology (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 182–186, 447–450). It is my contention that the act of blessing ought to be looked at through this eschatological lens. It will help us not only understand what it is to bless, but also what ought to be blessed—only that which has a future in God’s reign. See Nicholas Wolterstorff, Divine Discourse: Philosophical Reflections on the Claim that God Speaks (Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 38–51. Volume 52.2, 2018 10. For an introduction of this aspect of speech act theory and an application to theological inquiry see Vincent Brümmer, Theology and Philosophical Inquiry: An Introduction (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1982), 9–34. 11. Both Anthony C. Thiselton and Jeff S. Anderson evoke speech act theory in order to analyze how words, like the words of blessing, can have a causal effect on their recipients, but neither writer reflects on the dual agency involved in the actual engagement of the act of blessing (Anthony C. Thiselton, “The Supposed Power of Words in the Biblical Writings,” Journal of Theological Studies, n.s., 25.2 (October 1974): 293–296 [283–299]; Jeff S. Anderson, The Blessing and the Curse: Trajectories in the Theology of the Old Testament (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2014), 47–51). 12. Glory to God, 18. 13. Glory to God, 19. 14. Cf. also the rubric in Glory to God: “The minister leads the Call to Confession. . . . The minister may lift water from the font, declaring the good news of God’s grace” (pp. 3, 4). 15. See, for instance, the Book of Common Order of the Church of Scotland (Edinburgh: Saint Andrew Press, 1994), 13, and the Dienstboek voor de Nederlandse Hervormde Kerk (‘s-Gravenhage: Boekencentrum, 1960), 8. 16. Glory to God, 4. The inclusive “we” probably reflect some of the ambivalence part of the Reformed tradition has always had about the mediatory nature of the ordered declaration of absolution. The magisterial Reformers did not have such problems. Martin Bucer’s Strassburg liturgy had the pastor say: “Thus, in [Christ’s] name, I declare unto you the forgiveness of all your sins, and declare you to be loosed of them on earth, that you be loosed of them in heaven, in eternity.” Likewise, John Calvin’s Strassburg liturgy read: “I declare that the absolution of sin is effected, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Cf. Daniel R. Hyde, “Lost Keys: The Absolution in Reformed Liturgy,” Calvin Theological Journal 46:1 (April 2011): 144, 146 [140–166]. The first half of this essay gives a quick overview of the liturgical development of the pronouncing of forgiveness of sin in Reformed worship. On the ambivalence in the later Reformed tradition see also Gerrit Immink, “Schuldbelijdenis en decaloog,” in Oskamp and Schuman, De weg van de liturgie, 185–191 [185–194]. 17. Special reflection ought to be devoted to the minister’s calling to preach. This too could be understood as an expression of deputized speech, be it that it is a more complicated case than liturgical acts like Blessing and Charge 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 9 absolution or blessing. The latter are clear-cut liturgical acts of deputized speech. Preaching is an act that presupposes much more self-involvement on the part of the preacher—which creates much more space for not just God’s voice to be heard, but also the preacher’s. See Nicholas P. Wolterstorff, The God We Worship: An Exploration of Liturgical Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2015), 126–145, and Wolterstorff’s essay on this theme in Edwin Chr. van Driel, ed., What Is Jesus Doing? Divine Agency in the Life of the Church and the Work of the Minister, forthcoming from IVP Academic (2019). For a description and analysis of the complicated relationship between ministers and elders in the North American Presbyterian tradition, see the excellent study by James Frederick Holper, “Presbyterian Office and Ordination in American Presbyterianism: A Liturgical-Historical Study” (unpublished dissertation, University of Notre Dame, 1988). For further reflection on this take on ordained ministry in the context of God’s presence and work within the church, see Edwin Chr. van Driel, “What Is Jesus Doing? Fresh Perspectives for Tired Pastors and Struggling Denominations,” and “Re-thinking Church,” both in What Is Jesus Doing? (see note 17). John Calvin, Commentaries on the Four Last Books of Moses, trans. Charles William Bingham, vol. 2 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2005), 246. I’m ignoring here Calvin’s situating of the blessing in the context of God’s relating to us in reconciliation rather than in eschatological consummation, as I have argued above. John Calvin, Commentary on the Episteles of Paul to the Corinthians, trans. John Pringle, vol. 2 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2005), 235–236. John Calvin, Institutiones IV.iii.1; quoted according to the Institutes of the Christian Religion, vol. 1, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: Westminister Press, 1960), p. 1054. Institutiones IV.i.5; Institutes, 1018. Institutiones IV.iii.1; Institutes, 1053. Institutiones IV.iii.2; Institutes, 1055. Marilynne Robinson, Gilead: A Novel (New York: Macmillan Publishing, 2004), 241–2. The story of John Ames blessing Jack Boughton was brought back into my memory by Lee Eclov, “The Neglected Power of Blessing,” Leadership Journal (Spring 2015): 52–54. After writing a first version of this essay I noticed the story is also recalled by Kimberly Bracken Long, The Worshiping Body, 66–67. Clearly, in her story Robinson has captured an essential expression of ministry that resonates with many clergy. What Are We Doing When We Bless?