Be a Blessing

A Homily for the 2nd Week of Lent 2026

What would you say is your preferred local anesthetic? What do you reach for when life becomes too much, when the feelings get too big? I refer to it here as a “local anesthetic” for two reasons. First, because it is something we can apply locally to the site we wish to numb. Second, it’s local because it is always close at hand.

So, what is your preferred local anesthetic? A typical name for such a numbing agent is Novocain. So, with this in mind, I did a little research by the way of music. Music always has a unique way of capturing something of our human condition as it reveals something about human behavior. I searched Apple Music for all songs that have Novocain in their title. At least 20 songs immediately came up. Many of them simply entitled: “Novocain!” And these were songs across genres, rock, to folk, to pop, to rap, to R&B. And they were songs from across decades of music. And next, when I searched for songs that simply mention Novocain somewhere in their lyrics, the number of songs grew exponentially.

And, of course, these songs covered territory from the absurd to the poignant. In one song, a male singer, was pleading for “Novocain for the soul.” Because, as he warbled on: “Jesus is coming back with his lawyer!” A female singer longed in song to be Novocain for her boyfriend’s pain!”

But there were more poignant songs too, musicians through word and music touching into the human condition and the reality that for all of us sometimes the losses feel like too much, the grief too deep for words, or the experiences of joy and hope just too exhilarating and therefore frightening. So, there were songs about people trying to navigate all that, but, becoming overwhelmed, they would reach for their preferred local anesthetic.

So, what is it we tend to numb out? In whatever ways we reach for our own favorite anesthesia, what is it we are seeking to dull?

We hear in our scripture today the Call of Abram: “Get up and go. And I will lead you to the land of promise.” In that single call we find the exhilaration of an adventure, the fear of the unknown, and the loss of home. And, by his willingness to engage that exhilaration, fear, and loss, what does Abram become? Well, he becomes who he is… A Blessing for all peoples!

For us to become the Blessing we were uniquely created to be; the Blessing this sometimes seemingly-cursed world needs us to be, we have to be willing to engage the adventure, navigate the exhilaration, step into the fear and face the losses. In the very real tension between grief and joy, suffering and hope, loss and healing we too are being made into the Blessings we were created to be; a blessing offered for a troubled world and for other troubled souls.

In the gospel today, we hear Matthew’s account of the Transfiguration of Jesus. What do you think Transfiguration felt like to Jesus? When the very real limitations of his flesh, its fragility, its mortality became the absolutely necessary staging ground for the divine revelation of the unlimited, total-otherness of God? I would offer that Jesus felt at once the most intense exhilaration of joy and the most intense suffering of unspeakable pain. And only, only, in the tension between the two is the complete truth of his identity reveal… Fully Human and Fully Divine… A Blessing beyond any ever given before!

For us to become the Blessings we were created to be in this world, we must be willing to stand in that same place as Christ: in the tension of Transfiguration. And from there choose the adventure which includes fear, joy, loss, grief, and hope. That means we can’t reach for our favorite local anesthetic. We need to find ways to wean ourselves off the urge we have to numb life because in numbing life, we numb and dull, disown and deny, the truth of our fullest identity: The Blessings we were created to be and to offer.

But it is true, sometimes life is too much and the feelings are too big. So, what’s the remedy? I believe it’s community. None of us were designed to walk this life, this adventure alone. So, what would it take for you, for me, to reach for a brother or sister rather than our own particular Novocain? We are all called to bear with each other the burden of the tension which transfigures us into the Blessing we were created to be.

As we continue this Journey of Lent, this on-going work of conversion, we might ask ourselves: How is God inviting me to live more fully into the Blessing He created me to be? And how am I being invited to reach out for a brother or a sister rather than my preferred mode of anestheisa?

The whole point of conversion, the whole point of Lent really, is that we, day by day, become the Blessing we were meant to be in a world that greatly needs to be blessed!