A Homily for the Second Sunday of Lent
Readings: Genesis 12:1-4a   2 Timothy 1:8b-10   Matthew 17:1-9

Bless you! It is a line not much used anymore, except when someone sneezes. Previous generations, perhaps less reluctant to show their faith, used to say it as a way of acknowledging another’s act of kindness or basic goodness: “Bless you for bringing us this food,” or “Bless you for seeing it that way.” 

The irony of the old is that one invoked God’s blessing upon those who had shown themselves to be God’s blessing. You perceived them to be a boon from God, so you asked that God in turn be good to them. “Bless you!”

There are so many ways we can review our lives, however long they might be: our great accomplishments, our deep regrets, memories, happy and sad, that we have never shed. There are the opportunities we have omitted and the disasters that thankfully detoured around us. And of course we can seek the sins that still shame us.

Here’s another retrospect. This Lent, let’s take Irving Berlin’s advice and count our blessings, though of a quite particular sort. Who are the people who have been God’s blessings to you? 

If we are accustomed to looking with eyes of faith, there will not be many days that lack such individuals: The person waiting on you yesterday did not need to be so kind. But let’s consider only those mountain tops of God’s goodness to you. This alone will take a great deal of time because each peak deserves attention. 

Who comes to mind when you deliberately look for those who have been your blessings from God? Your parents? Your siblings? Aunts and uncles? Your friends from school? Teachers? Coaches? Mentors? Your spouse? Children? Grandchildren? A priest or religious? 

Your list will reveal that God blesses us through affirmation, challenge and simple presence. 

Country music is particularly good at cataloging these sorts of blessings. At its best, it is the Gospel strummed into chords.

Remember Holly Dunn’s “Daddy’s Hands”? Soft when you were sad but “hard as steel” when you’d done wrong? 

There’s Brad Paisley’s tribute to good stepdads, “He Didn’t Have to Be.” When you consider what that man did, you can only pray that you are half the dad he was. 

George Strait spoke for many spouses when he sang, “Carrying Your Love With Me.” Wherever life takes you, your spouse is everything you need and your strength for holding on. 

And in “There Goes My Life” Kenny Chesney sang about a baby who came way too soon, who is now his life, his future, his everything. 

Hopefully looking for those who have been God’s blessing to us bespeaks both God’s goodness and God’s challenge to us. What does it mean to serve God, to be a disciple of Jesus? It means striving to become God’s blessings to others.

Abraham is told:

I will make of you a great nation,
and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
so that you will be a blessing (Gn 12:2).

And what do his chosen disciples hear on that mountaintop when Christ is transfigured before them? That Jesus is God’s own goodness, God’s blessing in their midst.

This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased;
listen to him (Mt 17:5).

God blesses us with so many gifts, at least when we have also been “blessed” with eyes of faith. And the greatest of these blessings are like the Lord Jesus himself: a flesh and blood person in whose eyes we see something of heaven, in whose arms we sense God’s presence, someone whose very voice is that of benediction.

After you have counted such blessings, beg the Lord to help you be one for others in turn. For you can be a blessing to others. Those who once blessed you are still with you, in the very sinews of your soul. You can be for others who they have been for you.

The Rev. Terrance W. Klein is a priest of the Diocese of Dodge City and author of Vanity Faith.