May 29 - Artful Vision

Sunday May 29 -  Artful Vision

John 8:1-11

Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him and he sat down and began to teach them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery; and making her stand before all of them, they said to him, ‘Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?’ They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, ‘Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.’ And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground. When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders; and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus straightened up and said to her, ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’ She said, ‘No one, sir.’ And Jesus said, ‘Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.’

Art enlarges our world. Art changes the way we see ourselves and see the world we live in. All art and creativity is in some way autobiography because it comes from within us and expresses something of the place from which it derives. Art shows us ourselves.

Hatred and anger narrow our vision. Those with stones in their hands see something less than human, an infected animal to be put down, an object to focus their rage upon. 

Jesus was engaged in art-making in the midst of this episode. What was Jesus writing or drawing in the dirt that day? We don’t know. The crowd of men is using the Mosaic legal code as a justification of their abuse of the woman (and it is always appropriate to ask where her co-conspirator in adultery was in this whole encounter). Jesus took the time to be creative. He typically did not answer their direct but implied question. (Do you say that we should follow the law or not?) In is dust-writing or doodling he sees a completely different issue. It is not the men against the woman. Not us against them. Not anybody against anybody. Jesus sees that we are all in this together.  No one is without sine, no one is perfect. All of us are doing our best to figure out how to get along in this complicated, messy, imperfect world. Or we should be.

So, what was it that allowed Jesus to see the situation so differently than everybody else? Maybe, just maybe, it was because he did not react instinctively. He took the time to bend down and write or draw or do something creative in the dust. That moment of creativity freed him from giving a yes or no response, a this or that vision, an us or them approach.  Art connects us to the whole.

Good News: Jesus shows us an inclusive, compassionate vision.

Subject: Jesus’ example invites us to engage in creativity for compassion’s sake.

Experiential Field: Art connects us to God and enlarges our vision of the world.

The art of Ted Lyddon Hatten challenges us to look at the world differently, deeply, to sense the underlying connections of our relationships and actions.  His Good Friday installation reminded its viewer that myrrh is excreted from a particular tree when it is “wounded.” Ted invited participants to sprinkle myrrh on a world map where they saw the world as wounded. The myrrh reappeared on Easter, brought for anointing the body but there was no body to be found. The glass of expectation was cracked open. Ted uses art as liturgy. He invites worshippers to interact and contemplate their relationship with the art. Ted has agreed to be with us via Skype, and will send us more images of some of his work. How might we make our worship space a place to encounter art? And how will we invite our participants to engage in creativity and art on this day?