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| Portrait of Luca Pacioli, by Jacopo de Barbari |
Colossians 1:15-20
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence. For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.
Have you ever played that game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon? It's basically a party game based on the Six Degrees of Separation concept with the actor Kevin Bacon in the center. Word on the street (and by "word on the street" I mean "something my wife told me") is that Kevin Bacon 's agent created the game to promote his client. By that point the young Kevin Bacon had starred in several films with numerous high profile actors. Those actors themselves had starred in films of their own with other high profile actors. So if you keep following the line then you can connect Kevin Bacon to any actor in Hollywood's past and present. So when you think of any great actor, you also think (by association) of Bacon. Occasionally life gives us amazing cases like that: individuals that tie seemingly unconnected things in surprising ways. Like when comedian Steve Martin also became a Grammy winning Blue Grass banjo player. You know that Eddie Murphy could've been a comedian/ Grammy winning musician combo too, if he just hadn't kicked Rick James out of his house for muddying up his new couch.
By now many of you are aware that I am interested in Christianity and Art. You may have also picked up that I do paintings myself. What you probably don't know is how I pay my bills (and how rude of you to ask). I work in Accounting. Yes, I know that most of you don't see the connection and I didn't either... until I learned about Luca Pacioli. He was a 15th century Italian Franciscan monk and mathematician. He is generally recognized as the father of Accounting for codifying the double entry bookkeeping system that is still used in contemporary accounting. His work for the powerful de Medici family (who ruled Florence and were mammoth patrons of the Arts) put him in close proximity to Leonardo Da Vinci. He served as Leonardo's math tutor and together they collaborated "De Divina Proportione." In this work he discussed such things as the golden ratio, a geometric concern that is important to both painting and architecture. Luca Pacioli is one of those rare individuals who is the central tie between seemingly disparate things. However I know of at least one other individual that is a central link between images, bookkeeping and religion: Jesus Christ. St. Paul's verse for today in Colossians is all about that connection.
In this Epistle to the young church in the city of Colossae (in modern day Turkey), St. Paul describes Jesus Christ as the image of God. Scripture reveals that God by nature is invisible. This would have seemed like a disadvantage by potential converts from other religions. They most likely would have come from religions with idols that either represented their gods or were recognized as their gods. Their idols of wood, stone or gold provided for them a point of contact with their notion of the divine. It gave them something at hand that they could have faith in. Religious belief was a very visual and tactile thing. It also proved to be a very lucrative thing for the artisans of the time. Idol image production was such a large industry that it had its own labor unions (or guilds) in certain cities. Paul had encountered the angry side of one of these art guilds before in Ephesus. Paul came to Colossae preaching about a God of the entire universe. A God who could not be seen or touched like these Pagan idols. But then that very God who had created the cosmos humbled himself and took the form of a simple carpenter and prophet from a small town in northern Judea (basically Israel's name as a province in the Roman Empire). It is the equivalent of someone telling you that God had appeared in the form of an auto mechanic from Guam. But many believed! Why? They may have believed because though there was majestic about the appearance of this crucified rabbi that Paul spoke of, there was something that revealed the divine in the message that he spoke. It was a powerful message that it made the listeners reevaluate their notion of who and what a god was. Was Divinity a golden statue of an anthropomorphized beast or natural force, or was Divinity a being that valued mercy so much that he would take the form of a servant and die for it? If they did believe in this message of good news from Paul then they had also received the one who had sent him, Jesus Christ, who was actually God Himself. This game of Six Degrees of Separation had just connected these young Gentile believers with the God of Eternity.
St. Paul goes on to state that not only is Christ the revealed image of God and His agent of creation but he is also His agent of reconciliation. Christ as the reconciliation of all things and in his sacrificial death on the cross he reconciled the world back to God. If you have ever spent any time in accounting (or doing personal bookkeeping) then you know that it all comes down to reconciling. Reconciling that an account (or several) are balanced. It is why Accounting is called "accounting." You must account for things: money, inventory, sales, etc, etc, etc, multiple hours of mind numbing etc. Accounting is the measure and tracking of ones possessions and transactions and it therefore touches every area of an entity's enterprise. It is all very important to any financial endeavor because it is the measure of consistency. It is how things are maintained and their smooth operation is ensured. In Luca Pacioli's double entry bookkeeping, the "double" refers to the two columns on each ledger page: one for credit and one for debit. An account is reconciled by matching the debits with the credits. If there is no match then there is a problem and a deeper audit needs to occur. Consistent failures of government audits (usually in the subject of taxes) is what leads to jail time or a fine. Now I know that you utterly hate the "guys down in accounting" at your job, but in the end they are the ones who are keeping everyone out of jail. That fear of judgment and punishment is why accounting exists in every company... even Heaven (it's a large family run non-profit). Christ is God's accounting system. To use Luca Pacioli's double entry bookkeeping method, God has several accounts that are all under the general title of Creation. The accounts have various names such as oceans, Jupiter, ducks, stars, three toed sloths and other miscellaneous accounts. The largest account (or at least the most important one in my view) is for Mankind. This is also the account that presents the most problems. Mankind's books never balance. What we owe God and what we give God are never equal. We receive more than we pay and that is not a just system. God's ledger has two columns: one is labeled Justice and the other is labeled Mercy. An audit of Mankind's account revealed that our sins had become so grievous that Mercy was overused. God would only be fair in exacting Justice upon Mankind for our offences. That is what God's judgment is: an acknowledgment of debt to the Divine and a subsequent collection upon that debt. The execution of this collection of this debt would prove painful. That is where Christ stepped in. Being both divine and human, Jesus understood that mankind did not have the equity in blood to meet God's judgment. So Jesus took the judgment upon himself. The capital that this poor Jewish prophet possessed was his life and he gladly gave it as collateral to settle our account with God. In Christ's sacrifice lies not only the reconciliation of Mankind's account but the salvation of all Creation. Christ is the unique individual that ties God to mankind in the bond of sacrificial love.
Therefore it is in Christ that we see the image of God: an image of one that is both the source of creation and but the consistency of Creation. Jesus is integral to the making and maintenance of everything that God deems as precious. He is the head of both Heaven's Design and Operations departments. You may hear a ring of scriptural harmony between this verse in Colossians and the opening of the Gospel John. They both testify to Jesus being the face of God that did not remain afar in the heavens but came down to Earth and "tabernacled" among us as one of us: bearing our burdens and relieving our shame. He became the God that we could see and touch. As the Holy Spirit he becomes the God who dwells within the hearts of our mortal flesh. In Jesus God put an end to the Six Degrees of Separation that distanced Him from us. Therefore I can say without reservation that Jesus is even better than Bacon.
Have you ever played that game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon? It's basically a party game based on the Six Degrees of Separation concept with the actor Kevin Bacon in the center. Word on the street (and by "word on the street" I mean "something my wife told me") is that Kevin Bacon 's agent created the game to promote his client. By that point the young Kevin Bacon had starred in several films with numerous high profile actors. Those actors themselves had starred in films of their own with other high profile actors. So if you keep following the line then you can connect Kevin Bacon to any actor in Hollywood's past and present. So when you think of any great actor, you also think (by association) of Bacon. Occasionally life gives us amazing cases like that: individuals that tie seemingly unconnected things in surprising ways. Like when comedian Steve Martin also became a Grammy winning Blue Grass banjo player. You know that Eddie Murphy could've been a comedian/ Grammy winning musician combo too, if he just hadn't kicked Rick James out of his house for muddying up his new couch.
By now many of you are aware that I am interested in Christianity and Art. You may have also picked up that I do paintings myself. What you probably don't know is how I pay my bills (and how rude of you to ask). I work in Accounting. Yes, I know that most of you don't see the connection and I didn't either... until I learned about Luca Pacioli. He was a 15th century Italian Franciscan monk and mathematician. He is generally recognized as the father of Accounting for codifying the double entry bookkeeping system that is still used in contemporary accounting. His work for the powerful de Medici family (who ruled Florence and were mammoth patrons of the Arts) put him in close proximity to Leonardo Da Vinci. He served as Leonardo's math tutor and together they collaborated "De Divina Proportione." In this work he discussed such things as the golden ratio, a geometric concern that is important to both painting and architecture. Luca Pacioli is one of those rare individuals who is the central tie between seemingly disparate things. However I know of at least one other individual that is a central link between images, bookkeeping and religion: Jesus Christ. St. Paul's verse for today in Colossians is all about that connection.
In this Epistle to the young church in the city of Colossae (in modern day Turkey), St. Paul describes Jesus Christ as the image of God. Scripture reveals that God by nature is invisible. This would have seemed like a disadvantage by potential converts from other religions. They most likely would have come from religions with idols that either represented their gods or were recognized as their gods. Their idols of wood, stone or gold provided for them a point of contact with their notion of the divine. It gave them something at hand that they could have faith in. Religious belief was a very visual and tactile thing. It also proved to be a very lucrative thing for the artisans of the time. Idol image production was such a large industry that it had its own labor unions (or guilds) in certain cities. Paul had encountered the angry side of one of these art guilds before in Ephesus. Paul came to Colossae preaching about a God of the entire universe. A God who could not be seen or touched like these Pagan idols. But then that very God who had created the cosmos humbled himself and took the form of a simple carpenter and prophet from a small town in northern Judea (basically Israel's name as a province in the Roman Empire). It is the equivalent of someone telling you that God had appeared in the form of an auto mechanic from Guam. But many believed! Why? They may have believed because though there was majestic about the appearance of this crucified rabbi that Paul spoke of, there was something that revealed the divine in the message that he spoke. It was a powerful message that it made the listeners reevaluate their notion of who and what a god was. Was Divinity a golden statue of an anthropomorphized beast or natural force, or was Divinity a being that valued mercy so much that he would take the form of a servant and die for it? If they did believe in this message of good news from Paul then they had also received the one who had sent him, Jesus Christ, who was actually God Himself. This game of Six Degrees of Separation had just connected these young Gentile believers with the God of Eternity.
St. Paul goes on to state that not only is Christ the revealed image of God and His agent of creation but he is also His agent of reconciliation. Christ as the reconciliation of all things and in his sacrificial death on the cross he reconciled the world back to God. If you have ever spent any time in accounting (or doing personal bookkeeping) then you know that it all comes down to reconciling. Reconciling that an account (or several) are balanced. It is why Accounting is called "accounting." You must account for things: money, inventory, sales, etc, etc, etc, multiple hours of mind numbing etc. Accounting is the measure and tracking of ones possessions and transactions and it therefore touches every area of an entity's enterprise. It is all very important to any financial endeavor because it is the measure of consistency. It is how things are maintained and their smooth operation is ensured. In Luca Pacioli's double entry bookkeeping, the "double" refers to the two columns on each ledger page: one for credit and one for debit. An account is reconciled by matching the debits with the credits. If there is no match then there is a problem and a deeper audit needs to occur. Consistent failures of government audits (usually in the subject of taxes) is what leads to jail time or a fine. Now I know that you utterly hate the "guys down in accounting" at your job, but in the end they are the ones who are keeping everyone out of jail. That fear of judgment and punishment is why accounting exists in every company... even Heaven (it's a large family run non-profit). Christ is God's accounting system. To use Luca Pacioli's double entry bookkeeping method, God has several accounts that are all under the general title of Creation. The accounts have various names such as oceans, Jupiter, ducks, stars, three toed sloths and other miscellaneous accounts. The largest account (or at least the most important one in my view) is for Mankind. This is also the account that presents the most problems. Mankind's books never balance. What we owe God and what we give God are never equal. We receive more than we pay and that is not a just system. God's ledger has two columns: one is labeled Justice and the other is labeled Mercy. An audit of Mankind's account revealed that our sins had become so grievous that Mercy was overused. God would only be fair in exacting Justice upon Mankind for our offences. That is what God's judgment is: an acknowledgment of debt to the Divine and a subsequent collection upon that debt. The execution of this collection of this debt would prove painful. That is where Christ stepped in. Being both divine and human, Jesus understood that mankind did not have the equity in blood to meet God's judgment. So Jesus took the judgment upon himself. The capital that this poor Jewish prophet possessed was his life and he gladly gave it as collateral to settle our account with God. In Christ's sacrifice lies not only the reconciliation of Mankind's account but the salvation of all Creation. Christ is the unique individual that ties God to mankind in the bond of sacrificial love.
Therefore it is in Christ that we see the image of God: an image of one that is both the source of creation and but the consistency of Creation. Jesus is integral to the making and maintenance of everything that God deems as precious. He is the head of both Heaven's Design and Operations departments. You may hear a ring of scriptural harmony between this verse in Colossians and the opening of the Gospel John. They both testify to Jesus being the face of God that did not remain afar in the heavens but came down to Earth and "tabernacled" among us as one of us: bearing our burdens and relieving our shame. He became the God that we could see and touch. As the Holy Spirit he becomes the God who dwells within the hearts of our mortal flesh. In Jesus God put an end to the Six Degrees of Separation that distanced Him from us. Therefore I can say without reservation that Jesus is even better than Bacon.
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