From Our Archives

Debie Thomas, Leveled (2022); Debie Thomas, Blessings and Woes (2019). 

This Week's Essay

On January 20 last month, here in the United States we had a collision of the calendar that was hard to ignore. On the same day, we observed both the inauguration of Donald Trump and the celebration of Martin Luther King Day. Whatever you might say about these two controversial people, they lived their lives in very different ways.

And that's what three of the readings this week do. They contrast two ways of living, and in doing so they challenge us to make our own choices.

Jeremiah 17 contrasts the cursed and the blessed: "Cursed is the one who trusts in mere mortals, who depends on flesh for his strength." Your life will be like a withered shrub in the desert wilderness. Conversely, those who trust in the Lord will be blessed, like a tree planted by water that never withers, never fears a drought, and always blooms.

Psalm 1 pronounces blessings on the righteous, who "do not walk in the counsel of the wicked, stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers." Echoing Jeremiah, they will live like a tree planted by endless water: "whatever he does, he prospers." The wicked "are not so." They will be like the leftover husk blasted by a scorching wind.

Jeremiah by Michelangelo, 1508-1512, the Sistine Chapel.

In the Luke 6 version of the Beatitudes, Jesus reverses the blessings and curses, in two distinct ways. First, he says that the blessed are not those who prosper, but rather the poor, the hungry, the weepers, and the marginalized. And the cursed are not the losers but the winners — the satisfied, the rich, the happy, and the respected. Second, instead of a focus on being blessed, in Luke 6:28 Jesus tells us to give a blessing: "Bless those who curse you."

These three texts are part of a broader Jewish tradition of blessings and curses. Recall how God "cursed" the earth because of Adam's disobedience. He "blessed" the one man Abraham and the one nation Israel in order to "bless all peoples on earth." In Deuteronomy 11:26, Moses set before the Hebrews "a blessing and a curse." The extended passage Deuteronomy 27:9 to 28:68 specifies almost ninety verses (!) of blessings and curses, and in chapter 30 Moses contrasts the ways of "life and prosperity, death and adversity." Jesus pronounced "seven woes" on the religious leaders. He "cursed" the fig tree. At the Last Supper he "took the bread and blessed it."

What, exactly, is this Biblical tradition of blessings and curses telling us? Here are five suggestions.

In her article "Blessings and Curses" (Christian Century, July 2023), Amy Frykholm notes that if we read these texts in a superficial way, you end up with a very distorted view of God. Read simplistically, Deuteronomy 28 "feels like a tiny carrot attached to a great big stick wielded by a God ready to rain blows on our heads at any moment: 'The Lord will smite you with consumption and with fever and with inflammation and with fiery heat and with the sword and with blight and with mildew.'”

And that was the takeaway by her friend Marilyn. Deuteronomy 28, she said, "is my father on steroids.” He punished your failures. He withheld his conditional love. “He would beat us if he thought our fingernails were too dirty,” she said. “This is the God I’ve been trying to escape all of my adult life.” So, whatever these blessings and curses mean, they are not a crude description of a cruel God.

Statue of Jeremiah by Enrico Glicenstein, 2017.

Nor are they a formulaic description of everyday reality. Common sense tells us that. Sometimes there's a cause-effect relationship between blessings and woes, good and evil. But all too often, the opposite is true — the wicked prosper and the righteous suffer. This is the vexation of Job, and likewise the Preacher. As Frykholm notes: “If what happens to the fool also happens to me,” asks the writer of Ecclesiastes, “then why have I been so very wise?” (2:15).

When the disciples asked Jesus if a man was born blind as a punishment for sin, he categorically repudiated the idea (John 9). Similarly, Jesus rejected the idea that some people were "worse sinners" because Pilate murdered them, or because a tower fell on eighteen people and killed them. "I tell you, no!" (Luke 13).

Our world of blessings and sorrows is not black and white, but many shades of gray. Tragedies like those that Jesus mentions are not necessary signs of divine judgment. Both good and bad things happen to both good and bad people. And maybe most important of all, Jesus warns us about making such cruel and presumptuous judgments about other people. 

Third, in the ancient world, says Frykholm, blessings and curses were a way to "bind" a legal treaty, and to specify the consequences of keeping or breaking promises. The Bible borrows such "standard fare" from the political world and transfers it to our relationship with God himself. We're not merely making a covenant with some political power, we're entering into an agreement with God himself. Our covenant with him has consequences because it encompasses every aspect of our lives.

Mosaic of Jeremiah, 1140-43, Santa Maria in Trastevere, Rome.

Fourth, Frykholm's Jewish friends also suggest that the ancient curses in particular are a rhetorical device or type of word play. Her friend Joanne compared the ancient curses to the way that cursing later developed in Yiddish-speaking culture. It was easy for her other Jewish friends to remember such rhetorical curses.

“May you be reincarnated as a chandelier so that you will hang all day and burn all night.”

“May your teeth fall out the day before Purim — except two that don’t meet.”

“May your daughter marry the Angel of Death and may a gentile come to tell you about it.”

According to Joanne, such word play is from "those without political or cultural power — those who of necessity wield the power of the word because the power of the sword is denied them." The curses are too clever or sophisticated for mere rage, says Joanne. "They are a celebration of weakness, not strength.” This logic sounds similar to how Jesus blesses the poor, the weak, the hungry, and the despised, and curses the powerful and the privileged. They also evoke the imprecatory psalms that, perhaps, we should take rhetorically rather than literally.

Finally, in the blessings and the curses, we are challenged to "choose life." "Take hold of the life that is truly life," says Paul. Seek the "abundant life" and "living waters," says Jesus. Align yourself with the goodness of God. Live a life of gratitude amidst the joys and sorrows that we all experience. And why not bless a friend this week by forwarding them one of the Celtic prayers below.

Weekly Prayer

The Blessing of God

Originally from the Carmina Gadelica III, 201
Taken from Esther de Waal, editor, The Celtic Vision (Liguori, MO: Liguori/Triumph, 1988, 2001), p. 165

The blessing of God and the Lord be yours,
The blessing of the perfect Spirit be yours,
The blessing of the Three be pouring for you
Mildly and generously,
Mildly and generously.

The Love and Affection of the Angels

Originally from the Carmina Gadelica III, 207
Taken from Esther de Waal, editor, The Celtic Vision (Liguori, MO: Liguori/Triumph, 1988, 2001), p. 166

The love and affection of the angels be to you,
The love and affection of the saints be to you,
The love and affection of heaven be to you,
To guard you and to cherish you.

NOTE: For sixty years the folklorist Alexander Carmichael (1832–1912) traversed Scotland's Outer Hebrides isles collecting and translating the traditions of its Gaelic-Catholic people. His eventual trove contained a little of everything — their ballads, prayers, proverbs, hymns, charms, incantations, runes, poems, tales and songs. Carmichael's labor of love was published in six volumes across seventy years as Carmina Gadelica("Hymns of the Gael") Hymns and Incantations, With Illustrative Notes on Words, Rites, and Customs, Dying and Obsolete: Orally Collected in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. Carmichael published the first two volumes in 1900. His daughter Ella continued the project. Volumes 3 and 4 were published by his grandson, James Watson, in 1940–1941. Volumes 5 and 6 were published by Angus Matheson in 1954 and 1971.

Dan Clendenin: dan@journeywithjesus.net

Image credits: (1) Wikipedia.org; (2) Wikipedia.org; and (3) Web Gallery of Art.