Beauty: Touching the Divine
Beauty: Touching the Divine
November 20, 2022
Col 1:10-20
Today we continue with and conclude the signposts or practices of vitality from Christianity for the Rest of Us by Diana Butler Bass. The main thesis of this chapter might be Beauty, whether in the form of an unexplainable mystery, diversity of God’s people and all of God’s creation, or even the arts, helps us touch or experience God.
The author is saying that beauty is one of those indicators of LIFE inside our churches along with all the other signposts or indicators we have already reviewed. Over the last several months we’ve discussed hospitality, discernment, healing, contemplation, testimony, diversity, justice, worship, and reflection. Perhaps you’ve noticed that we’ve added some of these items into our own worship experience. First, I incorporated some silence into our space so you can contemplate or pray. Those 30 seconds or so are not enough. We also need quiet time and conversation to reflect to learn and grow. I’ve also included testimony, a time for us to share our own encounters with the Divine and our own experiences of transformation, change, or even miracles.
If beauty is to be added to the list and is one of those things that indicates life for our churches today, we must ask ourselves, where is the beauty at Mt Salem? Before you chime in and enlighten me about this community we now share, I want to caution us. We are looking for those things and experiences that take our breath away. You know, when you grab your phone to take a picture, but the photo never does the real experience justice. Like a beautiful sunrise or when the sky is lit up in all sorts of interesting colors as the setting sun reflects off the many clouds above. Where do you encounter that kind of beauty at Mt Salem?
Responses:
Here are some things of beauty that I’ve noticed:
· The exterior of this building is beautiful. The old stone is gorgeous!
· There is beautiful stained glass in the sanctuary, but without light (sun or artificial) stained glass cannot communicate its beauty. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross said, “People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.” How do we communicate the beauty inside Mt Salem out there, to the community? How do we communicate the love and power for positive change that is present inside these walls? Thinking about the beauty of our stained-glass windows is a place to start.
· Community – the way you connect and support each other. This week I saw Neil send an e-mail that while he was still recovering, he would head to the church to help get the stove working. As I was cringing with worry, I saw a message come in from Paul replying to Neil. Paul said he would meet Neil here and wear a mask to protect himself. Paul had Neil’s back. That’s beautiful. That’s community, and that’s the body of Christ.
· There is also the natural beauty of the park all around us. I’m looking forward to experiencing all the seasons and all the colors. And then there’s the animals – all kinds of dogs, dogs, dogs, but I’ve also encountered a few red fox crossing my path at night and this week a woodpecker in the tree just outside the doors of the church.
We must also ask where is the beauty in our worship? This looks like incorporating the arts – music, drama, images, words, flowers, displays, etc. If we want beauty in worship, I will need help.
In Christianity for the Rest of Us, the author points out that the life of church buildings have gone through many phases which are evident by the time of their construction. There are many plain white sanctuaries with little decoration or distractions. Bass calls this “religion unadorned” where the architecture exists to frame the sermon, to not distract the congregants from hearing the word of God (p. 202). The author is also quick to point out that not everyone hears God the same way – that variety reflects the diversity of God and God’s people (p. 205). If you asked me, I would say that diversity is beauty; so it should be part of our building construction and planning our spaces.
We go from minimal decorations to in the late nineteenth century, against America’s expanding industrial and technical culture, Protestantism exploding into a frenzy of romantic arts, music, and architecture. (p. 207) This leads to congregations replacing or renovating buildings. I wonder if this is when those elevated sanctuaries come into vogue. Our worship structures became expressions of beauty and finding God beyond words.
Inside those buildings and inside each of us there is more beauty to be found. God is beauty, and God created us in God’s image. (p. 208). In modern times, there has been a growing emphasis on knowing God through art, music, drama, on engaging more than just the mind. I remember Karen Apostolico, a wonderful artist and painter among us once told me, “Everyone is an artist.” This is the idea behind Painting with a Twist where friends get together with a bottle of wine and all paint their own version of the same image. The way this is expressed in some churches is that someone is painting while the pastor is preaching. They don’t have to be paid professionals. They are simply expressing themselves, the scripture text, and the message for the day. Lots of churches are now filled with many canvases with these sorts of images. When I was in Florida recently, I saw a hallway lined with visual interpretations of a sermon series.
Beyond beauty we see with our eyes, through buildings, paintings, stained glass and such, there is beauty we experience. Sometimes this happens through a “knowing” and sometimes this happens through not knowing, an encounter with Holy Mystery, that which we can never know for sure. And yet there is something absolutely beautiful about the whole mystery of it all. A few examples might be that we cannot prove the existence of God, and we will never know how the world was created. As much as science tells us today, there is always a point at which science says, we just don’t know, we don’t know what causes this, how this got started, or why this occurs this way.
In Christianity for the Rest of Us, our author tells a story of a 17 yr old hearing theologians debate back and forth for hours about the virgin birth. Afterward he approached the great modern day (and now deceased) theologian Phyllis Tickle and admitted he just didn’t get it. He did not understand why people still felt the need to question. He told Phyllis Tickle his perspective on this great debate, “It is so beautiful that it has just got to be true – whether it happened or not.” (p. 209). Ahhh… can you hear the beauty of mystery there?
Can we live with this great unknowing, this thing called faith? Are we ready to accept there are different ways to know things besides data and evidence, that Truth exists in a realm beyond provable facts? One might say this is God’s realm. Diana Butler Bass speaks of this beauty and truth mash up. She wrote, “There is a remarkable elegance to those mysterious Christian things like Trinity, the virgin birth, and resurrection. They may or may not have happened, but they certainly are beautiful.” (p. 210)
Someone else wrote about the mashup between beauty and truth as well. The words go something like this:
Beauty is truth, truth beauty – that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
Anyone know who wrote that? Response
It’s John Keats, and those words are the closing couplet from his poem, Ode to a Grecian Urn. He’s saying there is something transcendent about beauty, that it goes beyond the physical limitations of human beings. The Grecian Urn existed before Keats arrived on earth, and it will remain and still be beautiful long after we are all gone. The urn is beautiful and all there is to do is appreciate its beauty, to drink it in.
Beauty and truth are somehow tied together. And yet we also know truth can be ugly and the truth often hurts. How does this square with truth being beautiful? Here is what I think. The truth hurts when it shows us how ugly we really are, how we have hurt others, knowingly/with intention, and without knowing and yet repeatedly because of our own convenience, comfort, or gain. But there is something beautiful about being willing to look at that ugly truth. The minute we look at our ugliness is the minute love and transformation are possible. As we look at and love the worst parts of ourselves and each other, we become like Christ, loving and dying for us while we were yet sinners.
One of the other readings today tells the story of Jesus telling one of the thieves who hung next to him on the cross that this day he will be with him in paradise. This day, nothing required from him, the thief. It’s all accomplished through God in Jesus Christ. That’s beautiful! That’s something we can’t explain yet we all want to soak up.
Today is Christ the King Sunday. It is how we end the Christian year, celebrating Christ’s reign over all God’s creation, all that seen and unseen. This image of Christ as King has been troublesome throughout history. The image of a King sitting above his subjects, a king that rules with power and might when this world uses that type of authority to do harm is definitely problematic. I know a top-down kind of king is not the kind I want ruling in my heart. I want to walk with people, love them, and lift them up, not rule over them.
But the reign of Christ is a peaceful reign. Unlike the Pax Romana, the peace offered through Caesar and the oppression of the Roman Empire that killed thousands and thousands of people including our Lord, Jesus Christ. There is truth and beauty in the ugliness of the cross. I can’t explain to you how it works but a king that will suffer for his subjects is unlike most of the kings I have learned about in this world, and one I want to follow, learn from, imitate, and serve.
I chose the text from Colossians this morning because of how beautifully it speaks about the reign of Christ. Let me read verses 15-20 to you again from The Message. The translator of this text often does an amazing job at communicating the text with simple yet beautiful words. I hope you can receive the love of his pastor’s heart and the amazing love of Christ the King though these words:
15-18 We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen. We look at this Son and see God’s original purpose in everything created. For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels—everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him. He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment. And when it comes to the church, he organizes and holds it together, like a head does a body.
18-20 He was supreme in the beginning and—leading the resurrection parade—he is supreme in the end. From beginning to end he’s there, towering far above everything, everyone. So spacious is he, so expansive, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross.
I don’t have the answers. I don’t know what we are supposed to do with all this beauty – the great mysteries of our faith, the beauty of the people who are Mt Salem UMC, the beauty of our physical building, and the beauty of this incredible state park in which we’ve been placed. I may not have answers, but I am willing to live in the questions with you. And the one thing I do know about beauty is that it is in the eye of the beholder which means it must be shared to even be appreciated. I hope you will be in the questions with me as we rediscover how to share the beauty we have been gifted.
Amen.