Coins in the Cracks: A Pastor Poet’s Apologetics
Luke 15:1-3, 8-10
Treasure Hunt
 |
| God's Found Coin |
Nor the lamp that lights
the room as she wraps
her head in a bright bandanna,
tucking in some stray bangs
—you are not the wrap,
either, by the way.
You are not her straw-colored
eye as it sweeps the room
for signs of lost treasure.
You are certainly not the floor plan,
modern map with a vivid X
marks the spot. You are not
that red X, crossed arms bright with meaning
—that place she’ll settle her shovel’s blade,
sure of finding your silver (needing polish).
But you crouch there
beneath cross and dirt,
chest of hidden worth,
silent and not wanting to be spent
—used up for such costly things
as she desires for her home.
You are not the broom, lamp, wrap
or map nor even the chest itself.
You are her treasure within
stamped plainly with her shining
image. And you are to be spent freely
—on the world
she holds so dear.
I have certainly felt like that lost coin these past 7 days.
My first full week back at Plymouth has been filled with celebratory reunions with several of you and diving right back into the heart of ministry among you.
Sabbatical gave me all that we had intended it for
—renewal in mind and spirit
—intentional time with family and friends
—I feel filled up
—RICH!
…and here comes God wanting me to spend that richness
in preparing a sermon.
I kept trying to convince God, “I’m not ready yet!” and, like the little coin,
I wanted to crawl into a crack and hide.
God’s broom wouldn’t leave me there—so here we are.
~~~
Jesus gives us such beautifully drawn images:
when you’re in a place of needing to be found,
God with her broom comes along,
bristles brushing insistently against your tarnished skin,
sweeping you back into the light.
And this parable follows immediately upon that of the lost sheep,
in which Jesus paints for us a fleecy lamb in the brambles,
silently shivering – too afraid to bleat –
awaiting God with his rod and his staff to the rescue.
In the parables, Jesus shows how God searches for all of us, how God reaches for us
through images:
pictures painted with words
so our mind’s artistry can draw the lines
to our own lives.
We don’t actually have to believe in a literal
shepherd-wandering-the-hills God
nor a bandanna-bedecked-broom-wielding God
—no more than we believe in a throned-sovereign-in-the-clouds God—
but the pictures of a shepherd and a woman with a broom
evoke for us a meaning, the understanding of a God that
Jesus was trying to paint for us.
God seeks us out when we are lost, reaches for our wandering spirits in so many ways:
including through images and art.
In fact, sometimes, in some of our lost places,
beauty is the only place we’re able to see God.
The ways that we encounter God through creativity—
the ways that God reaches out to our spirits through art, the written word, dance, music—
the ways that we distill beauty and the essence of Divine Love through creation—
this is the theme around which my sabbatical spiraled.
~~~
Over the last year or so, I’ve had the privilege to gather in spiritual community with a group of local artists at one of their studios. Each week, a member of the group brings a piece we are working on to share it, receive feedback, and allow the Spirit to speak to us through the work.
As a word-person, I’ve had to grow into a whole new appreciation for engaging sculpture, mixed media and canvas art. And several times, sitting with these friends’ offerings, I’ve come face to face with God—
reaching out for me in one of my own lost places,
the cracks I find myself hidden in
in that particular moment.
I’ve found God seeking me out, healing and inspiring me.
Last week, one person in our group brought her photographs for our meditation.
Among them there was an image of the sun’s setting light across a lake—
through a lens of chicken wire.
And it was the chicken wire, bright against fiery water,
that captured my soul in a way I can’t explain.
It made the image extraordinary, and fed my
need for mystery—that transcendence that we
cannot ever name or touch, but we know it’s there.
God—
seeking us out—
reaching for us:
Through chicken wire
Or a broom
Through poetry
And painting
This annual art show that Plymouth’s Congregational Life Committee began a few years ago is a way we may encounter God as God is reaching out for us. The Divine desires to touch us, inspire us and claim us again as precious parts of God’s creation.
~~~
Not everyone has found this holy place of creativity.
Some of you may have heard Christian voices critiquing as wasteful time and resources spent on art.
Kilian McDonnell, one of my favorite poets,
has written about this very challenge of art as a serious activity.
He began writing poetry at age 75 and continues (now in his 90s) in the monastery of which he’s a part. In a description about his poem, “Kilian Does Not Have Enough to Do,” which is an apologetic or defense of his artform, the poet explains:
“During this period I was writing poetry two full days a week while finishing some theological projects. From my brother monks I received mostly encouragement….However, another senior monk sniffed: ‘Kilian has idle hands. He writes poetry.’ This was too good to miss,” he realized: “[so he] turned it into a poem.”[i]
~~~
Some art utterly confounds the dualism we expect of
either creation of beauty
or works of mercy.
Artist, poet and United Methodist minister Jan Richardson
shared several artistic images in this vein
at a conference I attended in August.
The first is the 16th century masterpiece called the Isenheim Altarpiece created by Matthias Grünewald.
The altarpiece was commissioned for the hospital chapel of Saint Anthony’s Monastery in Isenheim…(then part of Germany), where monks ministered to victims afflicted with the disfiguring skin disease known as Saint Anthony’s Fire. Monks, hospital staff, and patients at St. Anthony’s would have related in a very personal way to the ravaged body of Christ as it appears in the central Crucifixion scene of the closed altarpiece. …Christ’s presence is at once horrifying and compelling…. [It] reminds the sick and their caregivers [that] the physical body is only temporary. For those who keep Christ front and center, eternal life free of pain and suffering awaits. On the altarpiece’s exterior, references to St. Anthony, who survived torments by demons and devils, and St. Sebastian, who was miraculously saved after being shot through with arrows, reinforce the message of healing and spiritual salvation through faith.[ii]
Grünewald painted the altarpiece for mercy and care
and a way for people to experience God’s loving reach toward them.
The images expressed God’s love for the hospitalized sufferers
and their caregivers, who needed it so desperately.
Grünewald’s art of mercy survived its plague of the 1500s
and continues to have purpose for modern seekers,
people needing to experience God’s draw on their lives.
In 2005, finding inspiration from the Isenheim Altarpiece,
a group of 130 South Africans from a small village
created a monumental artwork that speaks eloquently
of the power of individuals joining together
in sorrow and in hope
to give life to a work that
honors those who have suffered.
By its vibrancy, the Keiskamma Altarpiece inspires and informs us about life in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province, which is one of the nation’s poorest and most afflicted by the AIDS epidemic. The creative project quickly turned an exercise in dealing with grief into a transformational act of communal therapy.
The Keiskamma Altarpiece’s images speak poignantly of loss but also of the hope growing again within the village. It is “a contemporary icon of how the human spirit can rise above adversity and create art of enduring strength and beauty.”[iii]
~~~
Art in and of itself can be transformational, merciful and justice-seeking:
all things that God desires of us,
her little coins that sometimes need to be
spent on seemingly frivolous things
for the life of the world.
So there is my own apologetic, my own defense, for creativity in our faith lives.
I hope you will spend some precious time
with the works displayed in the art show
and pay attention to how God is seeking
to find your spirit
through them.
Amen.
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