Have you ever wondered if you might have a great masterpiece hanging on your walls?I know someone who did!Anne, a member of our congregation in Lewknor, Oxfordshire, was a brilliant artist, she has drawings in the National portrait gallery, but on her wall at her very modest house she had a drawing by Delacroix of a rearing horse, a preparatory sketch, I think, for the oil painting, ‘Napoleon crossing the Alps’. Anne knew it was a Delacroix, but the thieves who came to rob her did not. Though Anne had inherited a large fortune from her parents she lived a very frugal life, and there was nothing of value in her house except the drawing by Delacroix, which the thieves knew nothing about.In our museums and art galleries there are stored away in the vaults hundreds of paintings whose provenance is unknown or uncertain, and the art series ‘Britain’s lost masterpeices’ goes searching for them.Our painting this week is called ‘Virgin and child with a Pomegranate’, and was stored in the collection of the National Museum of Wales. Bought by a remarkable pair of sisters, Gwendoline and Margaret Davies, it was attributed as a Botticelli, but later downgraded to a copy. Bendor Grosvenor, the presenter of the show, thought he would have another look, and after conservation and infra-red examination revealed under drawing typical of the Renaissance artist hand and studio, it was reclassified as a Boticelli masterpiece. This is the sort of story Jesus would have told. It is a tale of the hidden treasure we have within us. We can all imagine and identify with the disciples in the storm tossed boat, not knowing that asleep in the stern is the master of the wind and waves. Jesus is talking about us! As Paul counsels:‘For we live by faith, not sight’ 2 Corinthians 6:7We have two parables in our readings which speak of the hidden riches which we possess, though we may not know it. Like the story of the lost masterpiece, the parable of the seed speaks to us of the hidden presence of the Kingdom of God within us and amongst us. Jesus tells us that this Kingdom, like the seed, lies hidden and sometimes completely ignored, but within that seed is a powerful force of nature that will generate growth and abundance, given the right soil and climate. The seed has, Jesus says, within itself, all that is necessary for growth. The Farmer can add nothing to it, the power lies within the seed. Not only does the seed grow ‘All by itself’ Mark 4: 28, but it is able to produce an amazing abundance, far beyond what we might believe possible. Its small size is not to be misunderstood as a limit to its future growth.‘The smallest seed you plant...becomes the largest of all garden plants’ Mark 4: 31 – 32The Parables often come just before an event which Jesus will use to teach the disciples their true significance. Here in Mark we find the story of the stilling of the storm. Jesus is now in a boat, crossing with the disciples to the other side of Lake Galilee, when a storm overwhelms them, but Jesus is asleep. In panic they wake him and indeed rebuke him for his lack of concern. Jesus is however in control, he is with them just waiting for the call. With a word of command the storm is stilled. Mark records their terror as they see the almighty power of Jesus in action.“Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?” Mark 4: 40.Like the seed, Jesus is there, his power though hidden, is available to them, only waiting for the disciples to call on him in faith.The Church in Rome, for which Mark wrote this Gospel was passing through a storm of persecution. It was small and powerless and clearly feared that it would be destroyed if the persecutions continued much longer. This account of the disciples' despair must have encouraged them to trust in Christ's presence with them and to believe that despite their powerlessness they could call on him, not only to save them, but to strengthen them.History bears witness to their faith, as the Church not only survived, but thrived and grew far beyond what they could have thought possible. Like the Mustard seed it grew to a size that enabled it to nurture and sustain others.The Church today faces a similar crisis as our secular culture threatens to overwhelm us. We too can be confident that Christ is not just with us, but the power within us, not just to help us survive, but to strengthen and enable us to grow. Like the lost Botticelli we may have forgotten that we have hidden away and forgotten all the resources we need not just for ourselves, but the needy world around us.
The Fountain - Marcel Duchamp 1917The Fountain may look like a cheap joke, but the fundamental motive was to call into question how art is defined and to shine a light on the 'rules' we use to attach meaning and merit to works of art. Jesus in the parable of the 'divided Kingdom' calls into question the 'rules' that give merit and meaning to life. Jesus - The Disruptor : Mark 3: 20 – 30/2 Corinthians 4:13 – 5:1The events of the last few days marking the D-Day landings in Normandy give us pause to reflect on the sacrifice of those men and women who put their lives on the line for the sake of the freedom of Europe and the future of generations to come. All those who have commented on the heroism of the ordinary men and women of the armed forces ask the same question. ‘Would this generation be prepared to make the same sacrifice?’And then there is another dimension to the story of D-Day, the cost of civilian life. Thousands of French citizens died in the bombing raids that flattened Cherborg and Caen, and yet the invading armies were welcomed in by a grateful people. France was liberated from the grip of Nazi power and given back its dignity as a nation.The invasion of France in 1944 provides us with an excellent analogy to understand the parable of the ‘Kingdom divided against itself’.Jesus the Liberator In our readings Mark records an incident when Jesus liberates a man in the grip of evil forces, like a Kingdom in the grip of enemy forces. To liberate this kingdom the ‘Strong man’ who has captured it must be bound and thrown out.Jesus puts the problem like this: “No one can enter a strong man’s house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man. “ Mark 3: 27Jesus’ enemies, however, accuse Jesus himself of using evil powers to drive out evil, replacing one devil with another! Such a person, though, would, Jesus points out, be like a ‘Kingdom divided against itself’. You can’t drive out evil with evil.In other words, we might say, a Kingdom or a person in the grip of forces beyond their control can be said to be possessed and in need of liberation by someone with the intention not to bind them, but to give them their life and dignity back.Jesus the DisruptorThis is a strange parable, for Jesus seems to be suggesting that he is the thief in this tale who relieves the strong man of his booty!‘But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property without first tying up the strong man’; then indeed the house can be plundered.’ Mark 3: 27Such language reminds us of the bondage in which humanity finds itself. We are held in the grip of powerful forces that control our lives. Only the one who has defeated evil not by evil but by love, one who has replaced the rule of evil with selfless service can offer us freedom.Mark pictures Jesus as a ‘Distruptor’. As we saw last week he changes the 'rules' by which we live in the world, making room for a new dynamic of love and freedom that he calls ‘The Kingdom of God’. In this new world of freedom we are no longer in the grip of forces that control us, but given the grace to take our lives back.Freedom in the Holy SpiritJesus uses strong language because he knows the strength of the enemy. He carries with him many attractive possessions all offering immediate reward, but he cannot offer freedom because in return for those attractive possessions he wants control of our lives.What Jesus offers us is a different driver, the Holy Spirit who comes into our lives as a gift not a reward. The freedom the Holy Spirit brings is indeed a freedom from possessions,that is, things that possess us!The strong man in Jesus' parable is in fact weak for he is a captive of his possessions; if he is to be really strong then he must first be captured by the Holy Spirit who brings life and freedom.Perfect freedom then is found in service to God and neighbour. When the Holy Spirit guides our choices and decisions not in the pursuit of the ‘temporary’, short term interests, but in what Paul calls the ‘eternal and unseen’.‘We fix our eyes not on what is seen but what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, what is unseen is eternal.’ 2Cor. 4: 18.It could be said that our society has moved in exactly the opposite direction. We have as a Nation lost that vision of faithfulness to future generations that we will see and pursue short term interests that may rob those generations of a future.We will need that spirit of sacrifice that motivated a whole generation of young men and women to forgo their youth so that those who came after might have theirs. Rev Simon Brignall
I have one last painting from our visit to the French riviera. ‘La joie de vivre’ 1946. Picasso had escaped from the darkness of a post war Paris to Antibes. Here like so many artists he found a new lease of life and renewed creativity that produced great works in both painting and ceramics.The painting is a scene taken from Greek mythology and portrays a mythological garden of Eden in which nymphs and fauns frolic. In the centre of this garden is Picasso’s Eve, his new lover Francoise Gilot, beside her Picasso places himself, depicted as a Centaur, half animal half man, serenading the beautiful Gilot. Two ‘Kids’, literally baby goats, play beside them, (Gilot was soon to become pregnant).Behind them on a clear blue sea is a boat, representing their escape from the darkness of war. They have arrived in a world coming into being after the destruction of the past five years. The French artist, poet and dramatist Antonin Artaud captures in verse this post war world in words that echo the images of Picasso.“We are not yet born, we are not yet in the world, there isn’t yet a world, things have not been made, the reason for being has not yet been found.” Antonin Artaud 1946A new world announcedAlthough Picasso's vision is taken from Greek mythology, not Christian iconology, it speaks of a primordial longing for a new, reborn world. This is the message of Jesus to the disciples at a confusing time, he is about to leave them, but they are not to despair because the way is being prepared for the arrival of something ‘yet to come’ John 16:13. We might call this time of preparation the ‘In between’ times as we await the arrival of God’s kingdom in all its fullness and glory. To help us to prepare we have the light of the Holy Spirit who gives us a vision of what is promised.The Spirit of Truth: Like the bright light, and blue seas of the Mediterranean, captured in Picasso’s ‘Joie de vivre’, the Holy Spirit brings the light of another world to us. John speaks to us, in his gospel, of Jesus as the ‘true light that gives light of every man’, and now Jesus makes it clear to the disciples that this light is to continue the work he has begun. “He will testify about me” John 15: 26. This the light of Christ sent into the world both ‘to guide us into all Truth’A Person and a Promise: Picasso, escaped the darkness and like many other artists ran towards the sun finding new life. The Holy Spirit has the same effect on people, some will welcome and embrace Jesus as Lord and Saviour, but others will prefer to live in the dark. Like every light the Holy Spirit illuminates as well as exposes darkness.A new world: Picasso imagined a new world, or a world restored to its classical past. The vision shared by Jesus with his disciples, is not of the past, but a world renewed where peace is made possible by forgiveness, where barriers are broken down and fellowship made possible by his reconciling love, where there is no condemnation because judgement has been passed on the prince of this world.Picasso donated all the paintings and ceramics of these productive years to the Musée Grimaldi, now renamed Musée Picasso in Antibes to be shared with the world.The Holy Spirit is sent into the world to bring new life, to stir up the gifts and graces given to us that we might share our light with the world. This new world must be announced in every community so that we can all get a vision of what is to come.Rev. Simon Brignall
RogationIn the UK at this time of year, spring we relive the experience of our rural ancestors. Rogation, a time when the Farming community traditionally walked the boundaries of their land and prayed for the crops that they had planted. During this annual ritual they would often set up or renew the boundary stones that marked off their land. But Rogation also marks a bridge in the seasons. As we move into Summer and the fields and hedgerows turn green, the flowers bloom, and the weather, we hope, begins to get warmer we feel the urge to get out and explore our world. These markers reminded our ancient forebears of the thin veil between the natural world and the spiritual world. The turning seasons brought them close to the mystery of life and they set up great monuments like Stonehenge to welcome the coming of new life into the world. Though most of us no longer live as close to nature as they did, we still wonder at the miracle of nature, and we can echo the words of Gerard Manley Hopkins, who wrote ‘The world is charged with the grandeur of God’ The natural world is, perhaps, the place where most of us encounter for the first time the mystery of life. It is the place we meet with God. In the beauty of a sunset or the delicacy of a flower, the joy of new birth, or the grief of death we wonder at the mystery of the universe. Such moments of ‘Encounter’ can become ‘Sacred spaces’ when the veil between heaven and earth becomes thin. Sacred SpaceChagall captures this mystery in a painting called ‘Sacred Space’. in it he depicts a place where heaven meets earth and where we connect with the past and future. The painting, in a series telling the story of the Jewish people, Jacob, the father of the 12 tribes of Israel, falls asleep at a place called Bethel, (later Bethlehem), his head lying on a pillow of stone. He is fleeing from Esau, his brother from whom he has stolen the family inheritance. During the night he has a dream of angels ascending and descending a ladder. In the morning, as he awakes, he knows that this place is Holy, and so he takes his stone pillow and builds an altar. A place where he can recall his encounter with the Divine. Like the boundary stones, and monuments set up by our ancestors, the stone marks a place that links Jacob across the generations and reminds him of the encounter with God through the thin veil that separates us from the angels. The stone pillow becomes for Jacob not only a boundary stone marking the place that will one day be his inheritance, but as Chagall portrays it, a bridge back to his ancestors from whom he has inherited this place, and forwards to his descendents who will be the inheritors of this place. Notice how he places, once again, the crucified Christ, who is to be born in Bethlehem in the far right hand top corner of the painting. The story of Jacob’s ladder is one of the moments in the history of the Jewish people that Chagall wanted to capture because it speaks of God’s faithfulness through the generations, through suffering and death to deliverance and freedom. The Christian cross describes a ‘Sacred Space’,Chagall's painting also follows a cruciform pattern. He shows us in the vertical plane our relationship with God and in the horizontal plane our relationship with the world around us which we have inherited from our ancestors, and will pass on to our descendents. In both encounters there are both boundaries that tell us about our inheritance and remind us of our sacred duty to pass on that inheritance unviolated, and bridges that invite us to explore. Let us first explore some of the bridges that Jesus talks about. The Horizontal plane“Remain in my love”: John 15: 9-17. As Jesus describes the relationship between himself and his disciples he talks in terms of a ‘Love’ that is a bridge to God and to others. He calls us to leave behind fear and doubt. He invites us to explore and enter into the new world of God’s Kingdom, On the altar of love we are also to stop and examine ourselves and our relationships with others before God. The Vertical“I no longer call you servants” Jesus also describes a ‘Love’ that breaks down barriers. Servants serve their masters out of fear, but Jesus invites us to step out in faith and enjoy a new relationship with The God of love who calls us friends. Here we are free to explore a new world of possibilities. “The Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.” God’s love, then, makes prayer possible as we are invited to break through that ‘thin veil’ that separates us from God’s Kingdom and claim His promises. The Sacred“If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away” Some markers are there to speak of Holy places, they mark exclusion zones that we must respect. These holy places could in modern Safeguarding parlance be called ‘Safe Spaces’ are there to protect us and others from potential dangers. It is significant that the ‘marker’ that Jesus sets up here is not a series of rules but our treatment of the ‘other’. “My command is this: love each other”.John 15:12 Here is a clear marker, it sets a limit to the way we are to treat each other and indeed the world around us. We are to respect and cherish God’s creation as we respect and cherish ourselves. If we cross this boundary, Jesus warns, we are cut off from the life of God and will wither and die. Love is then, like Jacob’s pillow, both a boundary and a bridge, inviting us to leave behind fear and doubt and explore God’s kingdom. But we also called to remember the boundaries of love that God has established, boundaries that protect the ‘sacred space’ we all inhabit. A prayer for peace in the Holy land.O God of all justice and peace we cry out to you in the midst of the pain and traumaof violence and fear which prevails in the Holy Land.Be with those who need you in these days of suffering; we pray for people of all faiths – Jews, Muslims and Christians and for all people of the land.While we pray to you, O Lord, for an end to violence and the establishment of peace,we also call for you to bring justice and equity to the peoples.Guide us into your kingdom where all people are treated with dignity and honour as your children for, to all of us, you are our Heavenly Father.In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen. Rev. Simon Brignall.
