Curses and Blessings

AM Psalm 78:1-39 • PM Psalm 78:4-72
Lev. 26:1-20 • 1 Tim. 2:1-16 • Matt. 13:18 -23

After reading today’s passages, I became acutely aware of how my own beliefs about God’s role in our lives differ from many found here. Overall, it is very typical of my thinking that certain events, feelings, relationships are a “blessing” from God, warranting a prayer of gratitude. Yet, when painful events, such as the death of a loved-one, occur, I never imagine that my pain is a curse from God or that God is testing my faith. The definition of “curse” used here as a noun is: “evil or misfortune that comes as if in response to imprecation or retribution.”

In the Parable of the Sower (Matt. 13:18-23), Jesus describes how the planting outcomes differ with the type of ground each is sown in: rocky ground, among thorns, and good soil. The blessing given the seed that falls on good soil yields “the one who hears and [significantly] understands it . . . indeed bears fruit.” Blessings of all kinds seem to thrive in this nutritive matter.

This parable lends understanding to the text of the Hebrew Bible’s at Leviticus 26:1-20. This passage contains five subdivisions of sacrificial law which follows from the message in Chapter 16. The fifth of these laws focuses on “blessings and curses”; it promises to punish failure of His commandments: “I in turn will do this to you; I will bring terror on you; consumption and fever that wash the eyes and cause life to pine away” (v.16). Are not these words curse-like?

Psalm 78, a history of God’s people in the wilderness, describes how they “tested God in their heart by demanding the food they craved.” They failed to trust in God’s powers and subsequently, they still sinned. God’s retaliation was to make them “vanish like a breath,” and continue “their years in terror.”

Analogously, in A Journal of the Plague Year, Daniel Defoe describes London’s suffering in 1665 of the Black Plague [1] Despite its dismal subject, the book is captivating to anyone interested in the history of the age and perhaps, of the most miserable epidemic available to us in such detail. It puts COVID-19 in perspective.

Defoe’s narrator is horrified by the profane accusations to God of the agonizing death of the plaque. Citizens have had no context of the extraordinary suffering; so many voices called out in futility and betrayal in London’s crowded streets. In so many ways the attempt at containment (futile largely) was successful only by getting out of the city to an isolated country home.

Passages in Psalm 78 give the basis for later belief in God's capability to curse his people: “The anger of God rose against them / and he killed the strongest of them, and laid low the flower of Israel. In spite of all they still sinned; / they did not believe in his wonders. / So he made their days vanish like a breath, and their years in terror (vv.31-33).”

May our search for understanding continue to bear fruit.

1 Defoe, Daniel. A Journal of the Plague Year. Orig. publ. 1722. This ed. London: J.M. Dent & Sons, Ltd. 1908 & 1948.

Written by Pamela Mellott

In this time of fear and trembling, Kerby and I pray for the loving parishioners we've worshipped with at 8:45 and 11:00 a.m. We ask God's blessings on each of the powerful Christians who lead us, Our Rector, Father Evan, Mother Suzanne, and Father Chuck, as well as others. We pray for the aesthetics of St. Paul's every brick and board, every worshipful window. And thank you, Lord, for our children. In gratitude, Kerby & Pamela