Art & Faith, Session One

Art and Faith:

The Art of Storytelling

(from my lecture to Guatemalan Pastor's conference, January 2011)

To begin our session this morning, I would like to look at a story we are probably all familiar with. It is the story of David and Bathsheba. Do you remember it?

King David, a man after God’s own heart, is supposed to be off at war with his army, but is instead lounging around his castle in his capitol city. While wandering around one afternoon on the terrace, he spies Bathsheba, one of his top soldier’s wives, bathing. He sends for her, he has his way with her, he sends her home, and assumes his sin has gone undetected. But sin always complicates things and the next month Bathsheba sends word to the King that she is pregnant.

This is, you remember, a problem because her husband is where King David is supposed to be… off at war. And the punishment for adultery (well, for women who commit adultery – not that she had a choice) is stoning. As if being forced to participate in an adulterous act weren’t enough, now Bathsheba faces certain death should her neighbors notice she is showing. King David tries to cover his sin by bringing Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah, home from war, congratulating him on his hard work and giving him a few days to recuperate with his wife. One would think the unsuspecting Uriah would be thrilled! A compliment on your service from the king and paid vacation with your wife, who wouldn’t jump at the opportunity?

Unfortunately, what King David forgot was that during the last war, in a moment of zealotry, he had made a law forbidding anyone in military service to participate in sexual acts. Their devotion must be reserved only for God and winning the current battle. Uriah was a faithful man, and even though the King granted him permission, he couldn’t break the law by going to bed with his wife when all his comrades were still at war! So passing off Bathsheba’s pregnancy as Uriah’s own doing wasn’t going to be an option for King David. And as David’s sin entangled him even more, he sent Uriah back to battle with a letter to the general of his army Joab, “put Uriah in the front line of battle.” Yes, Uriah carries his own death sentence to Joab. But of course, because Uriah is a faithful man, he doesn’t open the letter. King David’s request to Joab that he put Uriah in the front line of the troops and then have the rest of the troops pull back seems suspicious to Joab. Don’t ask questions, just do it, the letter read. But while Joab doesn’t know the King’s reasons for this strange act – putting one of his best military leaders in the front line to have him killed, Joab devises a better plan and puts Uriah on the task of fighting near the wall of the opposing city, also a position that would ensure his death, but one that would look much less suspicious to the troops. Uriah goes there to fight and of course dies.

Upon his death, King David and Bathsheba mourn for the required period and then in an act of false chivalry, King David takes Bathsheba to be his wife so the his valiant warrior’s wife is taken care of. Sin committed. Sin protected. It took a lot of work, but King David got away with it.

Or so he thought.

Because who then pays a visit to the King at his castle?

Nathan.

And what does Nathan do when his request to see the King is granted?

He tells a story.

He doesn’t read from the Mosaic Law scrolls, he doesn’t call down the wrath of God upon him. He doesn’t even ask the King what really happened.

He tells a story. "Once upon a time," Nathan starts, "there was a man with a little lamb..."

Nathan uses his imagination to communicate creatively with his king, to help him understand what he had done wrong. Nathan used a familiar art form to talk about God.

The imagination is inseparable from the human mind. It is a gift from God to color our language and brighten our minds. Whether or not we pay attention to it, the act of imagination is all around us. We must first recognize this. Recognize our inability to escape imagination and its function in our language and theology, and secondly we must allow our imaginations to be used by God to help us better understand theology and ultimately our relationship to our Creator. Imagination must not be seen as secondary to intellectual pursuits or theological propositions, imagination is not superfluous or something we do when we have time. To fail to use our imagination or render it secondary to theology or hermeneutics or morality is to deny a part of whom God has created us to be – imaginative people.

When we hear the word art, we often thing of the physical arts: paintings, sculptures, mosaics. But for this session, I would like to focus on an imaginative art form that we cannot see with our eyes, but rather hear with our ears, process with our minds and connect to in our hearts. I want to talk about preaching, the art of storytelling.

One of our greatest preachers spoke mostly in stories; often using the rhetorical device we call parables. Of course I am speaking of Jesus Christ. Think back with me. What did Jesus say when the Pharisees would approach him with a trick question? He told a story. What happened when the disciples asked him to explain something they’d been arguing about? He told them a story. When he preached on top of the hill we now call the Mount of the Beatitudes, he told stories.

Once upon a time, there was a woman searching for a coin. Once upon a time, there was a farmer planting seeds. Once upon a time there was a Samaritan man traveling on a road…

Jesus was a great storyteller and we can learn from him how to design our own sermons. But first, I would even like to look even further back than Christ’s lessons and return to the book of Second Samuel.

While many of you may probably remembered the first story we re-told today, there is another story just a few chapters later that I would also like to examine. After the Bathsheba incident in Second Samuel, King David has a string of bad things happen to him (most of which the prophet Nathan predicted would happen as a result of his sin with Bathsheba). The son born to Bathsheba and David becomes very ill and dies. David’s son from a different marriage, Amnon, rapes his half-sister, Tamar. And his son Absalom, from yet another wife, murders his half-brother Amnon for the sin he committed against their sister Tamar. Absalom then flees Jerusalem and David in left to mourn the division of his household and the violence that has befallen his family. Turn in your Bibles to 2 Samuel chapter 14. Remember Joab, King David’s general from the last story? Well he returns in this one. Noticing how devastated his King is over the loss of two sons (one to death and one to exile), Joab devises a plan. Read 2 Samuel 14:1-11:

Now Joab son of Zeruiah perceived that the king’s mind was on Absalom.Joab sent to Tekoa and brought from there a wise woman. He said to her, ‘Pretend to be in mourning; put on mourning garments, do not anoint yourself with oil, but behave like a woman who has been mourning many days for the dead. Go to the king and speak to him as follows.’ And Joab put the words into her mouth.

When the woman of Tekoa came to the king, she fell on her face to the ground and did obeisance, and said, ‘Help, O king!’ The king asked her, ‘What is your trouble?’ She answered, ‘Alas, I am a widow; my husband is dead. Your servant had two sons, and they fought with one another in the field; there was no one to part them, and one struck the other and killed him. Now the whole family has risen against your servant. They say, “Give up the man who struck his brother, so that we may kill him for the life of his brother whom he murdered, even if we destroy the heir as well.” Thus they would quench my one remaining ember, and leave to my husband neither name nor remnant on the face of the earth.’

Then the king said to the woman, ‘Go to your house, and I will give orders concerning you.’ The woman of Tekoa said to the king, ‘On me be the guilt, my lord the king, and on my father’s house; let the king and his throne be guiltless.’ The king said, ‘If anyone says anything to you, bring him to me, and he shall never touch you again.’ Then she said, ‘Please, may the king keep the Lord your God in mind, so that the avenger of blood may kill no more, and my son not be destroyed.’ He said, ‘As theLord lives, not one hair of your son shall fall to the ground.’

So what happens in this text? Two things that I see: again we have a woman telling the king a story, using imagination to communicate a message of truth, but because she is given the words to say and told to act them out, I think we also have one of the earliest recorded theatrical plays here in this chapter! While many of us know Nathan’s story to King David about the rich man and the poor man and the many sheep versus the one little lamb, often we skip over this similar passage where Joab hires a woman to tell David another story to help him see the grievous sin he is committing.

Let’s go ahead and finish reading the story so we know how it ends… verses 12-23.

Then the woman said, ‘Please let your servant speak a word to my lord the king.’ He said, ‘Speak.’ The woman said, ‘Why then have you planned such a thing against the people of God? For in giving this decision the king convicts himself, inasmuch as the king does not bring his banished one home again. We must all die; we are like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be gathered up. But God will not take away a life; he will devise plans so as not to keep an outcast banished for ever from his presence. Now I have come to say this to my lord the king because the people have made me afraid; your servant thought, “I will speak to the king; it may be that the king will perform the request of his servant.For the king will hear, and deliver his servant from the hand of the man who would cut both me and my son off from the heritage of God.” Your servant thought, “The word of my lord the king will set me at rest”; for my lord the king is like the angel of God, discerning good and evil. TheLord your God be with you!’

Then the king answered the woman, ‘Do not withhold from me anything I ask you.’ The woman said, ‘Let my lord the king speak.’ The king said, ‘Is the hand of Joab with you in all this?’ The woman answered and said, ‘As surely as you live, my lord the king, one cannot turn right or left from anything that my lord the king has said. For it was your servant Joab who commanded me; it was he who put all these words into the mouth of your servant. In order to change the course of affairs your servant Joab did this. But my lord has wisdom like the wisdom of the angel of God to know all things that are on the earth.’

Then the king said to Joab, ‘Very well, I grant this; go, bring back the young man Absalom.’ Joab prostrated himself with his face to the ground and did obeisance, and blessed the king; and Joab said, ‘Today your servant knows that I have found favour in your sight, my lord the king, in that the king has granted the request of his servant.’ So Joab set off, went to Geshur, and brought Absalom to Jerusalem.

Storytelling. It’s not just something we do to entertain small children or make people laugh at parties, storytelling is essential to our very nature and when used creatively can communicate with people messages from God.

How many of you can tell me the story of the Good Samaritan? How about the story of the 10 Bridesmaids? Or what about the story of the shepherd and the one lost sheep? Or the story of the wicket tenets?

Now how many of you can recite the laws concerning violence from Exodus 21? Or can you tell me the decree made by King Darius in Ezra chapter 6? Or can you list the neighbors or even the tribes of Israel who receive Judgment in the book of Amos?

Maybe you can. But I can’t. What I can remember though are stories. Because storytelling is art. And art changes us.

Let’s review the overarching Biblical story…

• Creation
• Patriarchs/Matriarchs (Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob, Rachel... and Joseph who ends up in Egypt)
• Egyptian Slavery
• Exodus (Moses!)
• Wilderness Wanderings (40 years)
• Period of the Judges (Deborah, Samson...)
• United Monarchy (Saul, David, Solomon)
• Divided Monarchy (Israel & Judah, a whole slew of kings and prophets too)
• Babylonian Exile
• Second Temple Period (Persia conquers Babylon and lets the Israelites return to Jerusalem)
• (Maccabbean Revolt – Apocrypha, intertestimental books)
• Jesus
• Church

If we want to reach our congregants in a new and fresh way, we need to learn how to be storytellers. We need to learn how to re-tell the text for the week in our own language. You’ll notice that at the beginning of our session, I re-told the entire story of David and Bathsheba. Often when a text is read, people zone out, they stop paying attention. They’ve heard the words too many times, or maybe the style of the words is so foreign that they’ve learned to mentally check out before the text is finished being read. But when we, as pastors, retell the story in our own words with our own language, then the people begin to hear the story fresh and new again.

Retelling the stories we hear over and over again in our own words is one way to engage our congregations creatively.

When we read a biblical story, we are already hearing it filtered through many people and communities already. Think with me. We have the author of the text who is first telling the story. Then we have the biblical redactors, the people who put the story like the one of King David and the wise old woman in the specific book like Second Samuel and then there was a community of people who decided which stories needed to be included in the canon of the Bible and where they should go within the canon. Then there is the church’s interpretation of the biblical stories throughout history from the first church fathers, to the Christian mystics, to the Roman Catholic Church to the Greek Orthodox Church to the early Protestants to Christians who were born after the Enlightenment and the list goes on and on. And finally we have the story filtered through our own tradition, and we interpreted by our pastors, teachers and parents…

In other words, these stories are complicated and before we even read them out loud, they have thousands of years of interpretation and storytelling already imposed upon them.

And when we read the stories, we bring our own story to the text as well.

Flannery O’Connor writes that “What we bring to and do with texts matter… as much as what texts… bring to and do with and to us.”

Our stories are important, and they affect how we read the Biblical story.

And truthfully, God is not just asking us to tell the biblical story. God asks us to tell our stories too. And so today I would like to give you some time to practice that.

Your story is sacred. My story is sacred. Why? Because it is the story of the people of God and we are God’s creation. God, the first artist, molded us from clay, breathed into our lungs and offered us this world to live in and create our own art in.

So we need to tell our good stories. We need to tell our bad stories. We need to tell the story of a good God who is at work in our complicated lives. We need to tell our stories of life lived abundantly.

Now, there’s a catch. You live in a predominantly Catholic/Protestant nation. You are in the majority. And when a religion is in the majority, just like we Christians do with texts we’ve heard over and over again, so do our neighbors begin to tune out the Christian message when it is told over and over again with the same foreign jargon.

So when you begin to think about your story, I want you to think about telling it creatively. It is easy to tell your story using church or religious words. I could probably write each of our stories out here on the board.

"I grew up in church where I received the gospel of Jesus Christ when I was years old. I confessed with my mouth that Jesus is Lord and believed in my heart that God raised him from the dead and I was baptized in town by Pastor . And I felt the joy of my salvation and have been trusting in the Lord’s providence ever since."

If this is your story, scrap it. Wad up the piece of paper and throw it out the window and start over. Instead, when you tell your story, you need to tell it the way you would tell any story. Make it creative and make it yours. Leave the churchy talk behind and use your own words, your own metaphors, tell your own story. Jim Rayburn once said, "It's a sin to bore a kid with the Gospel." What he means is, be creative. Don’t preach doctrine. Preach your story.

When you are speaking to people who aren’t Christians, or to people who are hurting and need to hear a story of hope, words like salvation, justification, sanctification and all those other “tion” words don’t make since. Those are words that shut people out. They are words and concepts that people “within” the club of Christianity know and they are not words that invite people into conversation or into the church.

In other words, you don’t have to know a certain language to be able to tell your story. You and your parishioners can tell your story with the two things God’s given you: the language of your culture and the imagination in your mind.

What makes your story sacred is not the verses of the Bible you can recite or the path to salvation that you can lay forward, what makes your story sacred is that it’s yours. When the Pharisees come to Jesus and ask him about the laws of adultery, Jesus tells them, “You’re missing the point.” The point of the law is not who can deliver a letter of divorce and in what time frame. The point is we are supposed to love one another and do our best to respect each other.

You don’t have to know a single thing about the Bible to tell your story. The members of your congregation don’t have to have memorized the Baptist distinctive, the four spiritual laws or even the 10 commandments. They just have to be able to talk… about their parents, their first job, their spouses, their children, their jobs, their hobbies, their pain, their passions, their traditions, their favorite song on the radio, and in that, they are telling the story of them and God.

A pastor in my hometown writes, “The Western church has had four centuries of viewing salvation in a mechanistic manner, presenting it as a plan, system or formula. It would be much better if we would return to viewing salvation as a song we sing.”[1]

Your story is sacred simply because it is yours and you are a child of God. My story is sacred not because I’m an ordained Baptist minister from the United States of America with a Masters degree from a seminary there, but simply because I am a child of God.

Good art points beyond itself and helps us recognize the human condition and hope in a divine intrusion. Good art calls us to more faithful relationship with the world, a relationship that witnesses to beauty of a Creator. In this way “art can be a powerful source of truth-telling, sometimes even uncovering the stories we would rather forget.”[2]

And we were fashioned by a creative Designer. Vigen Guroian writes, “God is more like a cantor who chants his Creation into existence and rejoices everlastingly over its beautiful harmony. His song continues, and its melody moves and inspires humankind to restore beauty and harmony to a Creation that is fallen and misshapen.”[3]

So What’s Your Story?

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[1] http://brianzahnd.com/beauty-will-save-the-world/

[2] http://www.boundless.org/2005/articles/a0001487.cfm

[3] The Melody of Faith: Theology in an Orthodox Key

Art & Faith, Session Two

Art and Faith:

finding beauty and claiming it…

(From my lecture series to Baptist pastors in Guatemala, January 2011)

What is art? It’s a question my professor posed to us in my seminary class my final semester seven years ago. What is art? Is art good?

Art, I believe looks like a lot of different things, and art, I believe, has a lot to do with faith. James writes, “Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.”[1] James echoes the Psalmist who writes in chapter 16 verse 2, “I said to the LORD, ‘You are my Lord; I have no good besides You’.”[2] In other words, all good comes from God. If we see something in this world that is good, that is of God, for goodness cannot be attributed to anything but God.

It is with this presupposition that we approach our topic “Art and Faith” today. All good comes from God.

I would also like to presuppose that Beauty exposes God. We see beauty, which excites us, and reminds us of what is good. Beauty allows us to catch a glimpse of the deep longing of the soul. As such, Beauty mediates truth and goodness to us. And in that way it is wonderful when it reminds us of all that is good in the world and of the goodness of God, but beauty has a painful side too, because it represents what we cannot yet have.

While in the United States art in churches has made resurgence in the past fifteen years, in the grand scheme of church history, art and faith were not concepts that remain segregated. Rather, art has played a vital part of Christians worship and faith journey since the beginning.

In archaeology we find fresco walls and floors in houses of both Jewish and Jewish-Christians. We find mosaics and drawings, sculptures and paintings. As the church developed into a separate entity, indeed, a religion of its own, iconography developed as a way that people could connect with God. If you’ve ever heard a song that stirred your soul, or seen a painting that moved you to tears, or watched a play in a theater the drew you into contemplation of the divine, then you understand the point of iconography. And while in the US, we worship in boring square buildings with grey walls and brown folding chairs, early Christians took great pride in their worship buildings and even their architecture was designed to draw people’s eyes heavenward.

There’s a beautiful story about Prince Vladimir the Great, the pagan monarch of Kiev, and in this version of the story, Prince Vladimir was looking for a new religion to unify the Russian people. He invited missionaries from many countries to come to Kiev: Moslem Bulgarians, German Latins, Jews and Greeks. Islam, Judaism, Roman Catholic, and Orthodoxy.[3] The Prince asked them about their creeds, and each of the visitors offered him a summary of his own belief system. Upon counseling with his boyars, Vladimir sent 10 wise men to check out each of these men’s worship places in person. The envoys that had investigated Christianity in the Byzantine capital of Constantinople reported finding a faith characterized by such transcendent beauty that they did not know if they were in heaven or on earth. "And we went into the Greek lands, and we were led into a place where they serve their God, and we did not know where we were, on heaven or on earth; and do not know how to tell about this. All we know is that God lives there with people and their service is better than in any other country. We cannot forget that beauty since each person, if he eats something sweet, will not take something bitter afterwards; so we cannot remain any more in paganism."[4] When the Russian envoys arrived in Constantinople they were impressed to the depth of their souls by the splendor of the St. Sofia cathedral, the harmonious singing of the royal choir and the grandeur of the service conducted by the Patriarch.[5] What affected the envoys and persuaded Prince Vladimir to embrace Christianity was “not its apologetics or ethics, but its aesthetics—its beauty. Thus we might say it was beauty that brought salvation to the Russian people."[6]

Additionally, much of the beautiful art that decorates cathedrals and churches across Europe came from Papal Commissionings. In the Pope’s budget was a line item for “Art.” Beautiful physical expression of what we believe about God. Of course from this Papal Commissioning we get one of the most famous works of Christian faith: the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

“Beauty will save the world.” Fyodor Dostoevsky once wrote. And my former pastor, Kyle Lake, at the end of every service would say, “Love God, Embrace Beauty and live life to the fullest."

What these two men were getting at is what we noted before. Beauty is redemptive and it is all around us. So we must cling to it.

And we must claim it.

A pastor in my home town asks and answers his own question, “Along with apologetics and ethics is there also an aesthetics that belongs to the gospel of Jesus Christ? Yes! Beauty is integral to the gospel."[7]

Oftentimes as Christians we try to separate ourselves from our culture. We try to be “in the world, but not of the world.” And in the U.S., many Christians reject what they call the “secular” world because they figure what good can come from people who aren’t of God. Well, a lot of good, I’d wager. Remember those verses we read earlier? All good comes from God. So when a Hollywood movie teaches us about peace, I can call that story good. Or when a novel about politics exposes corruption in the world and demands restitution be made, I can call that good. Or when a song on the radio tells the story of love conquering all, I can call that good. And all of that goodness comes from God.

Enuma Okoro, a conservative Baptist woman who gives conferences about art and faith in the U.S. writes, “I've come to believe that the arts are an essential tool for spiritual formation. Perhaps surprisingly, I've also come to recognize and appreciate that even art devoid of intentional Christian imagery can have transformative effects on how I understand the human condition and my relationship to God."[8]

As Minister of Discipleship at my last church, I was given a grant to create an intimate Black Box Theater (seating between 50-115 people). With a team, we began the theater troupe: Trinity Street Players (our church was located on Trinity Street). We used this sacred space on this fourth floor quadrant of our church to produce not "Christian" plays meant to manipulate or moralize our audiences, but good theatrical works, that we invited the city of Austin to participate in watching, laughing, crying and learning from. It was a theater that could produce well-written plays and musicals for the entertainment, education and enlightenment for not only our own members, but the greater Austin arts community. And in doing that, people began to audition for these shows who were from other churches (I'm always a fan of collaboration!) and some were people who don't attend church at all. One person who hadn't even come yet to see one of our productions but heard about our theater and our church said, "Now that's a church I could get behind!"

Regarding worship...

“We are generally more accustomed to defend Christianity in terms of its truth and goodness. But beauty also belongs to the Christian faith. And beauty has a way of sneaking past our defenses and speaking to us in unique ways. To a generation suspicious of truth claims and unconvinced by moral assertions, beauty has a surprising allure.”[9]

Liturgical elements to consider when reflecting on how to integrate art into worship...

• Architecture
• Building structure
• Interior – baptismal fonts, pews, chairs, etc.
• In a worship space/décor
• Interior Design
• Colors
• Wall art
• Stained glass
• Pews/ chairs
• Pulpit, choir, etc.
• Music
• Lyrics
• Musicality
• Story
• Sermon Testimony
• Retelling scripture
• Poetry
• Dance
• Liturgical dance
• Congregational dancing (children’s movements - putting motions to songs)
• Theater
• In worship
• As an art form (Trinity Street Players performed The Diaries of Adam and Eve by Mark Twain, Inherit the Wind by Jerome Lawrence, Steel Magnolias by Robert Harling, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson, You Can't Take It With You by Kaufman & Hart, The Fantasticks by Jones & Schmidt, and Shadowlands by William Nicholson.)
• Film
• In worship – illustrate a sermon or illustrate a theme
• As an art form: Films and Faith, or God In the Movies small groups or sermon series...

To elaborate...

ARCHITECTURE: God specifically requested "Bezalel ... to devise artistic designs" in Exodus 35, God requested that the tabernacle curtains be made of "fine twined linen and blue and purple and scarlet yarns, with cherubim skillfully worked"[10]; not to mention the breathtakingly beautiful detailed tailoring of the priestly vestments in Exodus 39.[11]

ART: used in worship “in a culture that has become increasingly visual, the traditional spoken sermon is failing to reach people, he said, and may explain why attendance has fallen off in many mainline churches."[12] Check out the following images (more were used in my powerpoint and are listed below):[13]

Portrait of You As the Good Samaritan by James B. Janknegt

Praying at Gethsemene by He Qi

SONG: George Frideric Handel found the lyrics for his Hallelujah chorus in the book of Revelation which would be read better not as a document telling us about the end time, but as a book of songs and poems for a persecuted people to recite and sing and give them hope. Revelation doesn’t have any plans or formulas, but the songs of a broken people.

SERMON: Gail Godwin says, "Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater." We addressed this yesterday.

POETRY: Walt Whitman writes, “After the seas are all cross’d, (as they seem already cross’d,)
After the great captains and engineers have accomplish’d their work,
After the noble inventors, after the scientists, the chemists, the geologist, ethnologist,
Finally shall come the poet worthy of that name,
The true son of God shall come singing his songs.” Use poetry in your worship services!


THEATER: In worship – "If dramas are performed and immediately interpreted propositionally for the community, this is an act of irresponsibility toward our mind’s ability to imagine and discern and toward the Holy Spirit’s working power. Theology must always be watchful lest anything in the church’s way of stating the gospel reduce rather than enhance its credibility.”[14]

At my last church, I ran an experiential, alternative worship service. Each week I brought in a different worship leader and speaker. The service was created from my ideas about the Genesis 1 creation story: lots of colors and sound and movement. So, on one wall of the chapel where we met, I ran a powerpoint of works of art related to the theme or text and quotes from theologians, historians, comedians, etc. On the other wall was our liturgy which included biblical readings, poetry, prayers, responsive or congregational reading, songs for the congregation to sing, solo pieces by the musician of the week, etc. Lighting candles was another liturgical element (we tried even to engage our sense of smell - without offending any allergy sufferers). In addition, we had silence as a part of our worship service, and the sermon was limited to 10 minutes long. And speakers could do one sermon or two shorter 5 minute spoken words. Remember, in the Genesis text God said, "Let there be... and it is good!" And that's it! So the entire service was not centered around a sermon that served as the climax to the service, but rather all elements of the service were given (or tried to be given) equality opportunity for God to communicate with the people and for us to worship God.

I tell you this not so that you can go recreate this service in your own church. Be yourself! Allow for indigenous worship in your community. Don’t imitate!

Helpful Resources

• www.artsandfaith.com
• www.imagejournal.org
• http://www.faithink.com

“It is difficult to pinpoint what it is exactly that makes our spirits respond in a raw and instinctive way to the arts. Perhaps it is because engaging the arts reminds us that we are made in the image of a divine artist, a God who colored the sky and the flowers; who delights in trees that are pleasing to the eye; who specifically requested us to make things that are beautiful."[15]

It is imperative that we let the imagination and God do their work…. Key is spotting goodness and allowing it to be good. All good comes from God. We don’t have to re-appropriate everything cultural to make it our own, but we can learn from our cultural arts, we can let them teach us. And we can offer back to them…

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[1] James 1:17

[2] Psalm 16:2

[3] http://www.suite101.com/content/origins-of-eastern-orthodoxy-a4436

[4] (Primary Chronicle, trans. George Kalbouss)

[5] http://www.fatheralexander.org/booklets/english/saints/vladimir_prince.htm

[6, 7, 9] http://brianzahnd.com/beauty-will-save-the-world/

[8, 10, 15] http://www.boundless.org/2005/articles/a0001487.cfm

[11] Exodus 36:8

[12] Diane Reynolds summarizing Douglas Adams.

[13] White Crucifixion by Marc Chagall, a Jewish artist; The Thankful Poor by Henry Ossawa Tanner (an Episcopal Minister’s son); Praying at Gethsemene by He Qi a Chinese Christian; Portrait of You as the Good Samaritan by James B. Janknegt; The Return of the Prodigal Son by Rembrandt; The Baptism by Maria Alquilar, a Haitian; Sistine Chapel: Creation of Adam by Michaelangelo, Italian renaissance (commissioned by Pope Julius II); Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus ou Crucifixion) by Salvador Dali, a Spanish atheist turn Catholic Nuclear Mystic; Japan's Madonna Basilica of the Annunciation, Nazareth.

[14] J.I. Packer

Imagining the Question

So I attended another conference last week, this one in Nashville. While I admit that I hadn't given the conference a second thought until I heard it was in Nashville (where two of my best friends live), it ended up being a great conference for little blurbs of inspiration and insight into the soul of God.

One such insight came in the form of an activity we were asked to participate in by Dave Odom. We were to write down a question - a question our church should ask or is asking, a question we have of the church - and write it on the top of a piece of paper. Then we pass the paper to the person on our right. They too have written a question and have passed it to the person on their right, and so on. We were told to write a one or two sentence reply to that question. Then we were to fold down the top of the paper so it covered the initial question and only the response remained visible. Then we passed the paper again. Now at person #3, they write a response (or question) to what is exposed on the paper (the initial question being covered up). They write their response, fold the paper down further over the response they read and pass the paper on. You get the point.

The exercise is one for the imagination and was based off of this short video. Skip to minute 1:45 to see how a small lick on the piano can, with a little imagination, change to a beautiful variation.



"The arts are showing us again and again the possibilities for transformation... how things can be, even in this world."

I loved the activity and will definitely be using it with my college students, young adults and senior adults when I get the chance. And if you're curious about how my paper turned out, here it is...

1. (I chose a question our church is or should be asking): How can we maintain our history of "musical integrity" while exploring other creative acts of imagination beyond Classical/Hymnic music in worship?

2. Julie responded to that with... "Try global music - it's harder to critique music of another culture, even though we all know all music is created within a culture; but for some reason there seems to be a greater allowance for "creative acts" within music named from Mexico or Spain or Kenya or Australia, etc."

3. DJ read (only) what Julie wrote and he replied, "Global music also expands theology and ecclesiology , transcending and challenging pre-conceived notions about Congregational Life, God, Holy Spirit and Mission."

4. Lara read DJ's response and wrote her own reaction to his blurb: "What would it be like to just throw it all out - our learned notions of theology and ecclesiology - and start over from scratch from our current context in life today?"

5. A man whose name I don't know read hers and responded with... "Can we/should we throw out people's experiences of God/church from the past just to make it into our image? 'If Jesus were like me...' But it is good to seek to join the good of the past to the new of today."

6. Some lady who did not understand the exercise very well and had to have it explained to her 500 times hopefully only read what guy #5 wrote and responded with: "We can never assume the past is bad and the current/future is good or vice versa. There is richness in our pasts and in the present and future. Take that richness and use it for good."

7. And the CBF church planter guy finished my paper up with a response to Confused #7... "Savor the words from our past. Their richness sustains us for the days ahead."

It's interesting to take the six responses and read them in light of the initial question. But it's also neat to read them just against the context they had, the sentence before and imagine where the conversation was going or might have come from...

A First and a Second

I spent a long weekend (Thurs-Sat) in one of my four "hometowns," Waco, TX. And surprise surprise, it was a great visit.

I drove up in the rain, then the hail and finally the snow to attend George W. Truett Seminary's Winter Pastor's School. And for the first time in my life, I attended every part of the conference. From the Truett Alumni Dinner on Thursday to the final session on Saturday morning, I participated 100% of the conference. Wasn't even tardy once - not even to the morning activities!

This is unusual because usually at conferences the point is two-fold: to receive inspiration through the teaching or seminars or whatever but also to relax - take time for yourself, chill in a hotel, check out a local museum, take a break from church. In this way the conferences are restorative. Education and vacation all in one.

But this conference was in Waco. It's not an exciting destination. There's no aquarium to see, no national gallery to visit, no real sight-seeing opportunities. And even if there were... been there, done that. On top of that, while I had old friends to catch up with, I had been to Truett two weeks before to preach and had already caught up with many of them.

Not to mention that the real reason I had come to this conference was because my favorite Old Testament scholar, Walter Brueggemann was speaking on Prophetic Preaching. Squeal!

And that's where my second comes in. Two years ago in 08, I was invited to participate in a Round Table Discussion with Walt in Atlanta. That gathering was so small that I SAT NEXT to this amazing scholar. So this was my second time to hear him and I was excited. So excited in fact that I printed off a picture of him and me from the conference two years ago and re-introduced myself to Dr. Brueggemann and asked him to sign the picture.



He wrote, "We look good together!" and then handed it to me and laughed.

I almost died.

It was an amazing conference. He spoke about the dominant narrative we live in, namely one of therapeutic, militant, technological, consumerism. He charged us as pastors to preach God's alternative narrative of hope and possibility. He charged us to help our congregations penetrate the denial, name the fear and muster the courage and freedom of the reality over which God governs. He charged us to relinquish and receive; to deconstruct the given world and help people relinquish it (as Walt's therapist says, "Do you wanna keep livin' that way or let it go?"; to construct another world and help people receive what is given. Why? Because God brings to nothing the things that are, and calls into existence things that do not exist. God is a god of the impossible. And what exactly must we relinquish in our modern context? We must relinquish the western, white, male, straight world of domination and invite into the story the poor, women, non-whites, gays and lesbians. But just like ancient Israel, we struggle to receive the new world God is giving us of new people and new economics. And in light of our upcoming Christian liturgical season, we must take the Friday stuff and the Sunday stuff and be a map for what's happening in the world.

Of course he took two days to exegete texts and explain his thesis, but there's a little to whet your appetite.

And if being reminded of our faith and called to God's new narrative of hope and possibility, of building up and planting weren't enough, I got to see the Eades.

The Eades are the family I lived with during most of my years in Waco. Wes (the dad) once called me his boomerang child (the one who just kept coming back). The youngest daughter, Olivia, was six when I moved into the house apartment... and is now 14. Yikes. And she's 5'7. I can't believe I used to hold her on my lap. And it was just like old times. All five of them were living there (before the oldest transfers to Tx State and the middle son moves to Missouri to start college) perhaps for the last time in a long time, or ever. We sat around in the living room just like they always have (it was too cold to sit on the porch) and drank wine and watched Glee and talked therapy and discussed what it means to be a neighbor. And of course we laughed at each other. It was so fun.

Tomorrow I'm back to work for an almost 12 hour day straight thru. College Bible study is Monday and I begin directing You Can't Take It With You on Tuesday. Life will be crazy from here on out. So it was nice to have a preemptive replenishing before I inevitably will be depleted.

And first and a second. And now on to my third...

Science and Faith

For those of you who live in Austin, or nearby, FBC is hosting a Science and Faith Conference on this Saturday. You'll hear presentations from a geologist/old testament scholar, physicist/string theorist, and a Bapto-Catholic theologian.



So that should be interesting.

If you want to come, you need to make a reservation with Karen in the church office 512-476-2625. It's $35 bucks to attend, but that includes lunch and snacks. If you're uber poor, we have scholarships.

Remember when Trinity Street Players did Inherit the Wind last spring? That was in preparation for this conference (which was originally scheduled for last year).

Maybe we'll see you there...

Moltmann: Session Three

I got to be an interlocutor for this Session (more on this later!!) so I will refer you to my friend Joe B's blog. His notes are there.

Moltmann: Session Six

A congregation who is not accepting of disabled persons is a disabled church. (Moltmann's older brother was disabled and died when euthanasia began in Germany).

We often associate reason as being created in the image of god but how do people without reason fit into the Imago Dei.?: "The Imago Dei is two things, it is a relationship with God. The relationship of God to EVERY human being and this cannot be destroyed neither by disabilities or sin. So we must respect God in every person we meet. The other part is our ability to respond to God."

Regarding the framers of our constitution who were influenced by Locke. Inalienable human rights. Some contemporaries have said there's no such things. People who share a language create those. Theologically what do you think about America's foundation and our thoughts on inalienable rights.: "In 1978 I wrote about human rights and God's rights. All churches in the World Alliance of Service have signed up. How do we apply the rights of humans to the rights of nature? Every Chinese and every African person has inalienable rights. If you create a crime against this we have an implementation for holding people accountable in the UN. But the US didn't sign this. The world community must be based on human rights or there will be no world community. Every child in Africa says, 'Am I not a human being?' After that we belong to race or society or whatever. Inalienable rights - whether John Locke said it or whomever, it's true!"

"God is neither he nor she nor it. God is God. We should not use Gods divinity to justify the domination of man over women. The image of a trinity is neither the Father or the Son or the H.S. but a community. This can be reflected in human relationship. Let them all be one like you in me and I in you Jesus says. So no human being is the image of the Father and no human is the image of the son. It's community. Which we call parouasis or love."

Talk to us about the schism that happens in American churches regarding sexuality: "Let me first say this is no problem in Germany. We never have a struggle about sexuality or homosexuality. The church is about the gospel not about sex. We believe in the justification of faith alone. It is heresy to see it another way. Whomever believes by faith alone is SAVED and is certainly able to be ordained in a Christian community. Why should I not bless a partnership in two human beings. Homosexuality is neither a sin nor a crime. Why is this more important than the question of war and peace for example."

"People who died are with us and they are watching over us and can feel occasionally their presence. If a life was cut short God will bring what He had begun with the human being to it's intended end. Death cannot hinder God to do this because God is God. This is my trust and the future world we may see them again if seeing is the right expression for an intimate relationship. "

What is the church?: "For a long time we said it is the body of Christ. after Vatican 2 we talked about the people of God. If we say this we must say that God has two parts of his people - Israel and the church. The mission is not only through the church but also through Israel - the Jews. This is my understanding of the mission of the church. To take care of the poor people and of the Jews. We have a book in common and a hope in common. We should dialogue with Israel. Not with all the other dialogues. Because if we convert the other person the dialogue ends. A dialogue needs a common ground and with Israel and we have that."

On the one hand we have the mission of the risen Christ whoever hears you hears me, on the other hand we have the inviting voice is Christ whoever visits them visits me.

I still believe strongly in the face to face community. Cyberspace may be nice to communicate but a cyberchurch would be a church without the Eucharist. You can see and listen but you cannot feel, touch, or smell. The near senses are underdeveloped and our far reaching senses are over developed. This has effects on our communities! I believe in local face to face communities where we can see each other and be a community with full senses.

How do you see the role of communion and Eucharistic in the church?: I believe strongly that you do not celebrate on the Lord's table our theories about his presence but his presence! we may have different theories but let's celebrate his presence first and then after let's talk about our different theories. If we start with out different theories we will never come to the table. Every dialogue is better when we have eaten and drunk first. Jesus invited all who are heavy and burdened not just catholics or just Presbyterians. that would not be the Jesus I know. Wine for the priest and bread for the community (catholic church) is heresy.

Do we need to go to church: when time is a commodity, etc.?: "For those who have a church attending church is an issue of community. For the unempleyed it's not an issue. The church is both a gathered people and a sending into the world. Like inhaling and exhaling air."

Moltmann: Session Five

"Unless you confess God cannot bless." Saw this sign but I don't give God the power to forgive me. It's like we've handcuffed God. - Jones

You cannot make as a human being conditions to God. This wouldb eto make God an object an idol. God will bless whom God will bless. The initiave is God's initiative and> God will bless you and then you can confess whatever is on your heart. God is God, not a bargain partner for you and your religion. this is completely heathen. If we do this then God will do this. It's a denial of the freedom of God and it's ot Christian. I am completely opposed to this bargaining for our destiny. This is pure capitalism. - Moltmann

But Jesus' teaching about prayer seems to be all about keep bothering God and you will get what you want. - Jones. "But this is not Jesus' only teaching on this. Whenever you pray you know that God knows already what you need otherwise it would be nonsense to pray. the hearing of God proceeds your prayer." Moltmann

Can we pray for something that's already happened? Is God separated from time so that I could pray for something in the past?:

"There's a long tradition for prayer for the dead because they are included already in the prayer of Christ. i think I am praying for the dead because the dead are not dead. They died but we cannot say that they are dead now. they are sleeping until the day of awakening. they are with us. they are watching over us. they are not in a modern sense dead and gone and annihilated. they are present. if you believe Romans 14 then we have a community with the dead in Christ and a community of hope because we are raised from death together. we need to overcome this modern thought of death is annihilation."

Zimzum: prior to creation all there was was god and in order to create god limited god's self and made space and room for creation. How does that relate to panentheism and does that mean God bound God's self to time?:

"I'm not the first person to take up this kabalistic thought. Christians have been doing this for 300 years now. Before God created the world he decided to become the creator. the first act of creation was inside God. Before He created heaven and earth he needed space and room for creation that another limited and finite reality of heaven and earth can be and can co-exist with God. Normally we understand creation as act but to take oneself back to oneself to let another being develop and flourish is also very creative." Moltmann

"If God as a being by nature is timeless but part of God's self limitation that wie're in that God has bound himself to time so God is experience time with us." Jones "Yes otherwise he couldn't be called the living God. A living God he must be able to have life giving relationship to other living beings." Moltmann

Hegel - God is unfolding history:

"Hegel did not develop an understanding of the trinity. It has nothing to do of the Christian understanding of Jesus, Abba and the Holy Spirit. Hegel had no eschatology. Panentheism everything is in God. But this is only one side of the biblical understanding of God. The other idea is that God is in everything. God dwells in the highs and the lows with the broken hearts. He's dwelling with Israel a cloud by day and fire by down. Shekinah. In the NT you have a mutual indwelling especially in the letters of God. Parousis. Mutual indwelling. So whomever remains in love God is in him. Also in John Calvin. The glory of god is already reflecting himself in all things. but we have no eyes to see it. So was God in the Tsenumi or with the terrorists. This is nonsense."

Theosis - god in each human being. Do you believe in this: "yes."

Martin Luther - God became a human being so that we unhappy gods could become fully human. "So God became a human being to liberate us from our God complex." Moltmann

Original Sin: Judaism doesn't have a doctrine of original sin. Can you comment on Augustine?: "I think these ideas of Augustine is leading to a christian form of gnosticism. Procreating is bad. Original Sin is like AIDS that we deliever from one generation to another. This is gnosticism this is not the OT form of life. We have received life and we should give life to another generation. So original sin ahs notheing to do with sex and procreation. The idea is more collective Guilt. I think this was the understanding of Luther. Everyone is guilty of evreything which happens in the world because everything is related to everything. There is a collective destiny because we share into everything and everything shares in us. But this has nothing to do with Adam or Eve. Did it enter with Adam or eve, this is all speculation. Guilt came into the world through Cain and Able since this time it's one against the other. This is more realistic I think."

"The other people's religion I give so God may give so you must make sacrifices to the Gods so God will give you God's blessing. If you don't do it right the God gets angry and you experience disease or whatever. So you have to look around and figure out who brought the wrong sacrifice to God. Jonah. This is all not biblical. The scapegoat is given by God. He is not asking this from the people but is giving this to Israel so that all the sins can be put on the scapegoat who then takes the sins out into the desert. God doesn't NEED a sacrifice. He GIVES it to the world. The initive is God'sinitiave. They used the Temple language but something completely different is meant."

So God is always the protagonist. The initiator. How is God the protagonist in allowing trinitarian love to overflow?: "Love takes God outside of himself and therefore he creates creatures which can resonate. He is not in need of the creation. The creation is a result of his overflowing joy and love."

"Dispensationalism is not a Christian idea. You can talk about this without mentioning Christ. Jesus was just one part of it. What is lacking is the new beginning that comes in the resurrection of Christ in anticiaption of the general resurrection and the new creation. So the new has already begun and the future is not very far away because it is already beginning. Prophet Isaiah: don't remember the things of old. Behold I create a new thing. Not one dispensation after another."

Will there be a moment in time of Jesus' return?: Yes. We have this linear concept of ttime and this is the time of our clock. In this linear concept he will not come. But we have another concept of time, the kairos. Our life experiences are not according to clock time but to kairos. A good time. This Kairos is an anticipation of the eschatological moment. 1 Cor 15. You can put it in terms of fulfilled time or life. In fulfilled time you don't care about the clock anymore you live in the eternal moment. When you come into the intensity of living you take the clock away.

Do you separate from Reformed Theology when you say we cooperate with God?: "I don't see that putting everything on God is a very Christian understaning of God. God enables us and gives us chances and energy to work in accordance with his will. and to resonate to his tune. and take responsibility which includes response. If God were all in all already then yes. But now it is our responsibility."

Who is the trinitarian God in nature?: "My question for science is: do you understand what you know? We need a hermeneutics of nature. We need to interpret the science. So science explains but we need understanding and interrupting. A doctor measures your blood pressure and your temp and takes all the data he can get from your body if you're not well or sick. So he takes the data and then he takes the data as symptioms of a disease and he interprets this as a disease you have and then the therapy can begin. The data is symptoms and now we must interpret these symptions to understand what we know. For example, to understand the data we get from climate research and economic research and interpret them and react in order to get over the danger which is come. The hermeneutics of nature. We put whatever we know of nature in the transcendant dimension. We can see the H.S. in the transcendant cycle of every human being. More complex life forms are open systems transcending themselves. This is an expression of a transcendance of the Spirit. You must speak of the H.S> herself and the energies of the H.S. Every Christian is filled with energies of the H.S. and therefore they form different communities with different gifts and energies. But only one spirit. The positive energies are from the spirit. The annihilating ones are not from the spirit. In each criminal or negative act of destruction there is energy which much be redeemed. Redeem the sinners, redeem the sin. Turn it into a positive life giving energy."

"If death will be no more. There will be a creation without organic death. ALL the death will disappear. That maybe a brand new biology a brand new physics, etc.
Evolution: nothing new, only evolving.
Emergence: something new; the old is new according to the qualification of the parts.
I think something new is always happening."

"At the end God will be All in All. So the end is not the annihilation of the world (Luther) but the deification (Greek Orthodox) or transformation (Reformed) of the world. "