blessed and a blessing
This is the first time ever that I am going to bless a bank. And to say it bluntly now, it is one of those things that interests me the least. For one I don’t know anything about how it works, and for another I hardly passed math and accounting in high school and college. Even now, being in charge of our chapel, I could not balance the little collecta that we receive and I have to ask somebody to do it for me. It is not because I am not interested with money. In this regard I follow the official line of our former rector in the seminary when it comes to handling the so called “root of all evil.” He often said, money is not the problem. It is the solution to our problems.
So this is your work. This is what you have asked me to bless. Specifically you are asking God today to bless your work, to bless your transactions, to bless your decisions. In effect therefore there is a presupposition that such work is worthy of God’s blessings, that the transactions they make will be experienced as a touch of good fortune, that your work will in effect be felt by your clients as a blessing rather than a burden and a pain. I believe that is what you mean when you say BPI will bring you farther.
My boss is a carpenter – he was the son of Joseph the carpenter. In our gospel today we read that people have little regard for him for he is just a carpenter after all. They would understand if he talks about the proper height of a doorway or the proper position of a post for their houses and buildings. But this man is talking about God, he is talking about religion, and that they could not take these well. And yet they recognized that he talks wisdom. They recognize that his mighty hands can work miracles and blessings as magnificently as he handles a hammer and chisel.
You are bankers here. You will earn high regard if you talk about money, or the financial health of the nation. But I also believe, and I hope your future clients would also believe that you can fit God into a transaction, and frame a loan in justice, compound deposits in integrity and Christian honor, and build up a small business from the point of view of charity. In other words, do not just ask God for a blessing, be a blessing yourself to people who will find their way to your door.
PS. I never miss classes in the seminary just for a blessing. But I always wanted to go inside the vault of a bank. And this may be my only chance to go inside a vault. Hopefully it is not empty.
Vaults represent in a way the prestige of a bank for it symbolizes trust – that something in that bank can protect the fruits of one’s labor.
Do not forget that your work is an entrustment. People trust you. It is my hope that God will also trust you as strongly and as solidly as the vaults you keep. He gives you his blessings now. He entrust that those same blessings will be passed on to the people you will deal with. Money after all may not be a problem or the root of all evil, but it may very well be the solution to such. May you be blessed and may you be a blessing.
So this is your work. This is what you have asked me to bless. Specifically you are asking God today to bless your work, to bless your transactions, to bless your decisions. In effect therefore there is a presupposition that such work is worthy of God’s blessings, that the transactions they make will be experienced as a touch of good fortune, that your work will in effect be felt by your clients as a blessing rather than a burden and a pain. I believe that is what you mean when you say BPI will bring you farther.
My boss is a carpenter – he was the son of Joseph the carpenter. In our gospel today we read that people have little regard for him for he is just a carpenter after all. They would understand if he talks about the proper height of a doorway or the proper position of a post for their houses and buildings. But this man is talking about God, he is talking about religion, and that they could not take these well. And yet they recognized that he talks wisdom. They recognize that his mighty hands can work miracles and blessings as magnificently as he handles a hammer and chisel.
You are bankers here. You will earn high regard if you talk about money, or the financial health of the nation. But I also believe, and I hope your future clients would also believe that you can fit God into a transaction, and frame a loan in justice, compound deposits in integrity and Christian honor, and build up a small business from the point of view of charity. In other words, do not just ask God for a blessing, be a blessing yourself to people who will find their way to your door.
PS. I never miss classes in the seminary just for a blessing. But I always wanted to go inside the vault of a bank. And this may be my only chance to go inside a vault. Hopefully it is not empty.
Vaults represent in a way the prestige of a bank for it symbolizes trust – that something in that bank can protect the fruits of one’s labor.
Do not forget that your work is an entrustment. People trust you. It is my hope that God will also trust you as strongly and as solidly as the vaults you keep. He gives you his blessings now. He entrust that those same blessings will be passed on to the people you will deal with. Money after all may not be a problem or the root of all evil, but it may very well be the solution to such. May you be blessed and may you be a blessing.
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