I’m nursing a lingering concern that by blessing those who curse, I might be implicitly approving of bad behavior. If I extend love to those who do and say things that hurt me and others, am I sanctioning their destructive acts?
In Western culture, the concept of giving a blessing is often synonymous with the idea of giving approval. Asking for a blessing can be a way of asking for permission or acceptance. So, for instance, when a guy wants to marry a girl and he asks for her father’s blessing, in essence, he’s asking for approval. Does the father permit him to marry his daughter? In this context, the father’s blessing signals his approval of the match.
This understanding of blessing often mingles with what we think the call to bless means in Scripture.
But here’s the thing: In the context of the Sermon on the Mount, the call to love enemies doesn’t mean approving of immoral behavior or character; instead, blessing is goodness poured out regardless of the worthiness of the recipient. That’s why Jesus says blessing those who curse reflects the phenomenal generosity of God who is even “kind to the ungrateful and wicked” (Luke 6:35). In this context, blessing, Jesus shows us, operates in the arena of common grace.
God’s blessing is an expression of common grace before it ever reflects saving grace (a dimension of blessing we’ll explore in the next chapter).[i] When Jesus calls us to bless our enemies, he calls us into a ministry that reflects the grace of a God who showers goodness even on those who don’t deserve it. To bless those who curse is to extend unmerited favor, undeserved mercy, unearned grace. God blesses those who long for his blessing and the scoundrels who don’t. He sends rain on the rulekeepers and the rulebreakers, on the thankful and the unthankful, on the hardworking and on the lazy cheats, on the devoted and on the indifferent. God blesses indiscriminately, and he asks us to do the same. And if you want to be like him, says Jesus, “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:36).
Fear of condoning sinful behavior often causes Christians to withhold blessing from those we perceive to be living outside of God’s grace. But Jesus challenges this stance. He says that there’s no one—no one at all—from whom Christians should withhold blessing. If we’re called to bless even enemies—even those who insult, deride, and persecute followers of Jesus—then there is no one we’re not called to bless. So, that means we’re called to bless those we get along with and those we don’t. We’re called to bless those whose political views align with ours, and those whose don’t. We’re called to bless those within the walls of our congregations and those without. We’re called to bless people in all walks of life everywhere along the social spectrum, because to bless in this inclusive way reflects the common grace and good character of God, who “causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matthew 5:45, niv). When we live this way, we show ourselves to be children of God (Luke 6:35-36).
When we love this way, we share in Christ’s suffering. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer said in his classic The Cost of Discipleship, “Perfect, all-inclusive love is the act of the Father, it is also the act of the sons of God as it was the act of the only-begotten Son,” and “The love for our enemies takes us along the way of the cross and into fellowship with the Crucified.”[ii]
Loving the haters isn’t accepting bad behavior; it’s a way of resisting it. Blessing our enemies isn’t condoning aggression; it’s a way of subverting it. Blessing those who persecute isn’t celebrating violence; it’s a way of breaking the cycle of hurt. Remember that blessing is always oriented toward seeing a future good realized in someone’s life. So that means that we don’t accept the evil of the present when we bless our enemies; instead, we’re begging the Lord to transform everyone involved, to work through the hard and make it good, to work within the sin-stained dividing lines and bring reconciliation.
In our discussion of Jacob blessing his sons, we saw how he censured the violent anger of Simeon and Levi in the context of a family blessing because calling out their destructive behavior was for the protection and good of the community as a whole. Similarly, there may be instances when we feel compelled to confront violence, abuse, or injustice for the sake of protecting victims and promoting lasting peace. In these situations, blessing may take on a critical prophetic edge, but the internal attitude that motivates our words and actions must be love, not hate. Our aim should be redemption, not damnation.
It takes extraordinary grace to be insulted and return a blessing. It takes extraordinary generosity to be taken from and offer to give more. It takes extraordinary restraint to receive a blow and turn the other cheek. It takes extraordinary resolve to look evil in the face and speak truth in love. But it is precisely this extraordinary grace, generosity, restraint, and resolve that changes the world.
Taken from Given: The Forgotten Meaning and Practice of Blessing by Tina Boesch. Copyright © 2019. Used by permission of NavPress. All rights reserved. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
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[i] There are some contexts where being “blessed” by God does indicate being “approved” by him. In the Beatitudes, those who are “blessed” are those who have been welcomed into the Kingdom of God. So, it is true that in that context, those who are “blessed” by God are those who are “saved” by God. In the next chapter, we’ll explore how God’s blessing ultimately dovetails with salvation. But this specific kind of blessing that has soteriological implications doesn’t cancel out God’s common blessing of all that sustains life in the world, as Jesus demonstrates in .
[ii] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1959, 1995), 150.