CREATOR, CREATED, CREATE  - Sunday Message at Four Winds Mission

When Father Brad asked me to speak today.  I said yes without hesitation.  He suggested I talk about what I'm  passionate about, beauty and art.  I quickly agreed.  As I prayed and studied I realized that to talk about the importance of beauty and artistic expession I needed to start at the beginning, Our Creator.

I was watching a movie at home last week, Words and Pictures with Clive Owen and Juliette Binoche.  The story follows a writer and painter who teach at a private prep school.  The writer  is convinced of the supremacy and power of words, and the painter tells  her students “don’t trust the words, the words are lies”.   They spend much of the film trying to convince their students and each other that either words or pictures are the preeminent form of communication.  They both assert that when skill-full creativity is infused with truth it has the potential to move hearts, to reach beyond the mind to the soul.

Is that true and if so why is that?

Let’s look to the beginning. The Creator.  His creation.

Genesis 1:1

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

John 1:1-5

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

From Genesis 1:1 to John 1 God is the creator. And it is through the person of Jesus that creation was made.

Jesus is the word, with God from the beginning, God himself. This is a mystery man has wrestled with through out history. 

"The Jews believed in,YHWH, “the One Who Is,” the Sovereign One, was not simply the objectification of forces and drives within the world, but was the maker of all that exists. 

The theme is summed up in the Jewish daily prayer, the Shema: “YHWH our God, YHWH is one!...

Classic Jewish monotheism, then, believed that

(a) there was one God, who created heaven and earth and who remained in close and dynamic relation with his creation; and that

(b) this God had called Israel to be his special people. ...This God was both other than the world and continually active within it." 

JESUS AND THE IDENTITY OF GOD by NT WRIGHT 

In 1 Corinthians 8:6, Paul adapts the Shema itself, placing Jesus within it:

yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.

When we recite the Nicene Creed we confess:

WE BELIEVE in one God,

the Father, the Almighty,

maker of heaven and earth,

of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,

the only Son of God,

eternally begotten of the Father,

God from God, Light from Light,

true God from true God,

begotten, not made,

of one Being with the Father.

Through him all things were made.

John 1:9 - 16

9 The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. 12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. 14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. 15 John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me." 16 For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.

The creator of the Universe, amazingly decided to make man in his image and chose to become like us, flesh and blood.  When the reality of that sinks into our hearts it is like an atomic blast of light, that changes everything.  It changes our identity, our perspective, our hopes and desires, down to our very soul.  And we see Him everywhere. His glory and grace are evident in the beauty of creation.   And we cannot keep silent.  We too, like John, must bear witness to the light.

The beauty of creation inspires awe in all hearts, even in the hearts of those who do not know the creator.  There is a deep silent awakening that moves our heart to worship and long for the creator.

-KENYA

In 2007 Joe and I had the opportunity to go to Kenya with Compassion to meet our sponsor child, Darwin. From the moment we landed in Nairobi I knew we were in a place like no other.  A land full of contrasts.  Where else can you set down a modern jet on runways surrounded by giraffes.

The fingerprints of God seemed even more obvious in this land of stark contrasts.  Breath taking beauty alongside unimaginable poverty and suffering.  But from the plains of the serengeti to the slums of Kibera there was beauty.

After 2 days in Nairobi we flew to Masai Mara in the Rift Valley for safari. What an amazing gift to be able to see elephants, and cheetah, giraffes and lions in their natural habitat.

The morning we left to fly back to Nairobi we drove from the camp to the airfield.  As we crested the ridge to drive into the valley I was flooded with sorrow to have to leave behind such beauty.  In that moment, overwhelmed by the majesty, the glory, the grace, with tears streaming down my face,  I wondered if this emotion was a shadow of how Adam and Eve felt as they were sent from the garden.  To leave such beauty was heartbreaking.

Our hearts cannot help but to respond to God’s creation.  It strips away our distractions, our worries, our idols, and we come face to face with God.

When we arrived back in Nairobi we were taken to Kibera to tour a compassion project there. Kibera is the largest urban slum in Africa, one of the largest in the world. It’s home to anywhere form 300,000 to 1 million residents. Our drivers let us out on railroad tracks high up a hill overlooking the slum below. The filth and extreme poverty were unlike anything I had ever experienced.

But even in the midst of it was the of small faces filled with hopeful eyes, big smiles, greeting us with the only english they knew “How are you?” Men dressed in work clothes, some even in suits returning from work.  Children walking home from school, Mothers buying food for their families at the meager market, neighbors visiting with neighbors.  So many similarities to my daily routine.

I was reminded that all of us long for love and grace and beauty.  We long for Jesus, the one who created us, the one who pursues us, the one who’s very exisitence is clearly seen in His creation, his beauty. And we long to manifest that beauty in our communities, our homes, no matter how primitive or impoverished our shelter, we strive to make it beautiful.  In Kibera that was  a tin can planter  filled with life, shreds of fabric adorning the doorway.

Why do we long for beauty, why do we desire to create? 

           Genesis 1:27

           So God created man in his own image,

             in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

Because we are made in God’s image we too are creative. Our response to beauty flows out of our longing for him.  Our desire for the beauty around us, beauty created through us, is to remind us of the grace and glory of God.  It is a retelling of the gospel.  It is a practice of worship.  Worship of our creator, not the creation.

In Exodus Belazel and other craftsman were called together to create a beautiful environment where God would be worshiped. The daily worship of God to be worked out by his people. The tabernacle was ornate in a way that was not practical or pragmatic but in such a way that the beauty reflects God's glory and inspires   man's heart to worship.

"The first 34 chapters of Exodus narrate the defining actions of salvation and revelation.  The final six chapters narrate the preparations for the continuing worship that would assimilate that salvation and revelation into the fabric of their common life week after week, month after month, year after year after year, for another thousand years, at which time Jesus would bring it all to a new beginning.

The story of the Red Sea and Sinai, with Moses playing a leading role, defined the life of God’s people.  Telling retelling that story in a place of worship would keep their identity alive.  With Bezalel playing a leading role, the account of planning, designing and constructing a building for worship  provided a form for rehearsing and practicing their identity in the materials and circumstances of their lives for as long as they lived."

Eugene Peterson in For the Beauty of the Church

  

As Jesus renews and restores us we not only begin to see the world through his perspective.  We see Him in the world, we see him in the rising sun cutting through the morning fog, we see him in the vulnerable fragile gaze of a newborn, we see him in the tedious bumper to bumper commute, we see him as we embrace the last moments of our loved ones life.

To artists God give the ability to see what is not yet there.  Michelangelo is quoted as saying in reference to his magnificent work, David:

In every block of marble I see a statue as plain as though it stood before me, shaped and perfect in attitude and action. I have only to hew away the rough walls that imprison the lovely apparition to reveal it to the other eyes as mine see it.’—Michelangelo

EVERY work of art is an act of faith.

Makoto Fujimura  is an artist and founder of - International Arts Movement in NYC.  International Arts Movement is a community of artists and creative catalysts gathered to wrestle with the deep questions of art, faith, and humanity. His beautiful work is unique in that it marries the Japanese tradition of Nihonga painting  with abstract expressionism.

He said in Refractions...

“In other words, the language of the arts translates the universal longing for peace into the tangible experience of the desire for peace.  The arts provide us with language for mediating the broken relational and cultural divides: the arts can model for us how we need to value each person as created in the image of God.”  
He goes on to say;

“Create we must, and respond to this dark hour.  The world needs artists who dedicate themselves to communicate the images of Shalom.  Jesus is the shalom.  Shalom is not just the absence of war, but wholeness, healing and joy of fullness of humanity.  We need to collaborate within our communities, to respond individually to give to the world our Shalom Vision. “

In the beginning creation was good. With the fall, the fullness of creation was lost. Sin brought darkness.  Jesus came in the form of the man bringing light into the darkness and the darkness can't overcome it.  But sometimes it doesn’t feel that way.

We don’t have to go to Africa or India to experience the depths of brokenness in our world.  There is sickness and death, poverty and injustice, all kinds of brokeness around us in our families and neighborhoods.  Although our world is fallen, corrupted by sin, the light of Jesus shines through in the beauty of creation and the beauty of what man creates. It reveals the grace and glory of Jesus

Each of us feels a longing to create. To be the source of a reflection of the beauty of Jesus. To be a conduit of the light that brings the life. So we create. For some of us that means painting a beautiful painting, for others it's composing a beautiful melody. But more often than not our creation takes the more ordinary form of a delicious nutritious meal, a freshly painted wall in our home, or decorating for a holiday.  In each of these the grace of Jesus can be seen. Beauty can cause our defenses to drop down and the Holy Spirit has his way with our hearts.

All of us have creative expression within us. Some of us have been given specific artistic talents for the good works God has created us to do.  But In our culture finding our place as an artist is difficult.   When we are young every drawing we do, every song we sing is praised and encouraged.  But as we get older we are told that our works aren’t good enough, someone else is better, more talented.  That creating art is a waste of time.  Work and practical responsibilities are more important.

We need to encourage one another.  The world wants to diminish our creativity, it tells us that there is nothing special in our works of beauty.

I think I knew by the age of 5 that I was an artist.  A calling encouraged by my godfather, our family priest, with the gift of a handcrafted drawing box.  Much of my childhood was spent with graphite stained fingers. That was up until the moment when I felt like the world told me my gift was not good enough.  Jesus does bring restoration, and can resurrect the dreams of our childhood.  But it is still a struggle.  There are questions that plague the artist.

Am I truly an artist?

What is the purpose of art?

Does art glorify God?

Is creating art a worthwhile use of my time?

Does the world need art?

What am I called to create?

What will other artists think of me and my work?

We desire relationships with other artists so that we can wrestle with these questions together, learn from each other, walk the creative journey together and in the process worship and glorify God. 

These questions and desires birthed:

Creative Communion

Illuminate/Engage/Birth

Illuminate - The glory of God revealed in and through artistic expression.

Engage - With God, our communities, and the mediums we create in.

Birth - Incarnations of beauty, truth and love, the Kingdom on earth.

We need to create together and be patrons of the works of beauty from those around us.

We are most fully alive when we are living out what we are created to be and do.  I was reminded of this recently when I was shooting a short film this summer with my oldest son. 

I was spending a few moments with a friend of his who was there to take still photos.  She and her husband have know Joey for several years.  I told her how much fun I was having working with him. It was a delight to watch him create this film with the amazing group of artists he brought together.  She then commented that “ Joey is so fully alive, smiling, laughing, full of joy”.  This was after several long days of grueling work in 90 degree temperatures, fighting to bring his vision to life, with the most minimal of resources.   His joy was full in that moment because he was living out the creative calling of God.  We all are most fully alive when we are walking in our calling.

Joey couldn’t do it alone.  We can’t do it alone.  Friends gave hours of work as a gift.   People in our body fed us so we could keep working the long days it took to finish the project.  Kevin gave us use of his space and donation of materials so that we could create the set we shot in.  But most importantly, Jesus was with us throughout the process of seeking to tell us story exploring loss and grief and humanity in the face of technology and our own finite nature.  A story that can speak to our contemporary culture.

Tolstoy said “The destiny of art in our time is to transmit from the realm of reason to the realm of feeling the truth.”

"In other words, the language of the arts translates the universal longing for peace into the tangible experience of the desire for peace.  The arts provide us with language for mediating the broken relational and cultural divides: the arts can model for us how we need to value each person as created in the image of God."  Makoto Fujimura - Refractions

On November 29th  we are hosting:

Out of the Darkness, Into the Light

Physical expressions in visual art, film, dance, word and song of the coming of Christ - Advent                                   

A Celebration of Advent Thru the Arts

Through this celebration we offer our community an opportunity to experience a tangible representation of what Advent is and can be. In preparation artists will be inspired to be intentional in their approach to Advent and process it through their medium.

Advent is a fitting time to enter into the fullness of our calling as an artistic community:

"Advent is one of the greatest and most mysterious seasons of the Christian calendar. Advent celebrates the incarnation, the mind-blowing reality of the God of the universe becoming a man: living, breathing, walking on earth as we do. But even as it celebrates Christ's arrival on earth and his rescue of it, Advent also looks patiently to the future return of Christ to bring all wrongs to right, once and for all. Advent accepts the tension of the already and the not yet. It welcomes waiting. It is merriment and melancholy together, beauty so sublime that, like the best art, it simultaneously comforts and rocks us to the core.

It is perhaps not surprising, then, that the mystery and magnitude of Advent lends itself so well to artistic exploration. Like Advent, the arts also accept tension and welcome waiting. The incarnation itself lends dignity to artistic and cultural pursuits. Christ didn't come as a cerebral concept or an ethereal force. He came as a physical man; a man who worked with his hands as a carpenter; a man who enjoyed eating and drinking with friends; a Jewish man who told stories and interacted with the cultural rituals, traditions, tropes and expressions all around him."

— Barry H. Corey, President, Biola University Center for Christianity, Culture and the Arts.

Within our body there is an abundance of creativity.  Gifted musicians and singers, visual artists and writers.  Creativity flows from our youngest, to those of us who aren’t so young anymore.  I believe that God has brought us together in this place at this time to be an artistic community that brings light into the darkness of Spring Hill and beyond.

Every gift we’ve been given from prayer to encouragement to hospitality to artistic expression, can be used to bear witness to the light.  Our light and life, Jesus Christ.  For the glory of God.