Consider the Environment



Robert Smithson, The Spiral Jetty

Matthew 13:1-23

On the same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the sea. And great multitudes were gathered together to Him, so that He got into a boat and sat; and the whole multitude stood on the shore.

One fateful day in 1967 Robert Smithson felt moved to walk out of the confines of the art gallery and consider his environment. He would take natural materials from the environment (many that were varied types of dirt) and move them around to create art. First he started moving them inside the gallery and turned them into art by reconsidering them in their new context. Eventually he would create works that left the behind the restrictions and brought gallery goers to consider this environmental art in the actual environment. Robert Smithson was working in an art movement that would come to be known by several names (land art, earthworks, earth art) and his Spiral Jetty was to be seen as the movement's masterpiece. This 1,500-foot-long, 15-foot-wide, counterclockwise coil that reaches into the Great Salt Lake in Utah. As its name states, it serves as a jetty, "a structure extended into a sea, lake, or river to influence the current or tide or to protect a harbor" and by default acts as a way for pedestrians to walk out into the body of water. But Smithson took this age old concept of water control and saw the potential to make it into something greater: something that would speak to and engage the onlooker. Jesus had his own Robert Smithson moment. As left the confines of the surrounding four walls he sat by the Sea of Galilee (which like the Great Salt Lake is actually a lake) and considered his environment. This consideration was less of the beautiful natural environment that surrounded him but rather the multitudes that encompassed him. He considered the spiritual environment that they existed in and considered its parallel to their relationship to the natural environment. Then he got into a boat in the water and served as the multitude's jetty: influencing how the viewed the current. I do not mean "current" in the sense of a flow of water, but rather the flow of our lives: the here and now of our present reality. That is the prophetic voice that the parable of the Sower still exercises over us today. Like the Spiral Jetty it takes age old concepts and uses their potential to describe something greater: something speaks to and engages the listener to reflect on his spiritual environment.  






 

The Art if Storytelling

Robert Smithson, Chalk and Mirror Displacement



Then He spoke many things to them in parables, saying: “Behold, a sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds came and devoured them. Some fell on stony places, where they did not have much earth; and they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of earth. But when the sun was up they were scorched, and because they had no root they withered away. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them. But others fell on good ground and yielded a crop: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”

Robert Smithson started his foray into earth art by bringing the earth indoors and reflecting on it: literally. He took dirt, dust, chalk, granite, smooth river rocks and various other types stones and placed them in art galleries alongside mirrors. As strange as this may sound, Robert Smithson wasn't the first to use earth and rocks for art. I am not just talking about the others in the land art movement. I am not just speaking of sculptures who use marble and other stones. I am not referring to some exotic far off indigenous culture that uses land formations to express themselves aesthetically. The majority of visual art in the Western/European tradition use earth as in its foundation...especially painting and drawing. Obviously charcoal is used by grinding up the rocky residue left from burning natural materials but even the paints (pigments suspended in binders) of the Renaissance masters were often derived from natural minerals from rocks and earthen clays...hence the primary colors are "natural colors." Likewise Jesus did not invent the usage of the parable. When Jesus used these short illustrative stories that paralleled a spiritual truth he worked within a long cultural tradition of Hebrew prophets. The Old Testament/Hebrew Bible is full of parables that we don't think about. When the prophet Nathan was leading up to confronting King David about his adultery and murderous conspiracy he opened up with using a parable about the theft of a poor man's only lamb. When the men of Shechem came to tell Jotham of Abim'elech slaying his brothers the sons of Jerubba'al, Jotham retorted with a fanciful parable of the trees of the earth deciding to select their king. When Isaiah wanted to teach about God's prudent choice of diverse actions to further His ultimate will he spoke a parable of the plowman who planted black cumin. So when Jesus started a story of a farmer sowing seeds all of the multitude were aware that he was working in this prophetic tradition. I doubt that with this Jewish crowd familiar with the earlier prophets' use of parables (even agricultural parables) their would be any who would think that Jesus had just directed his speaking career in the direction of giving farming advise. Everyone knew what he was doing, making an allusion to a spiritual truth, but they mystery of the parable was what it all meant.

The Medium is the Message 

Robert Smithson, Spiral Hill

And the disciples came and said to Him, “Why do You speak to them in parables?”

He answered and said to them, “Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For whoever has, to him more will be given, and he will have abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him. Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says: ‘Hearing you will hear and shall not understand,
And seeing you will see and not perceive;
For the hearts of this people have grown dull.
Their ears are hard of hearing,
And their eyes they have closed,
Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears,
Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn,
So that I should heal them.’

But blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear; for assuredly, I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.

Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty is by design a spiral. Since it is a fifteen foot wide path into the water it invites viewers to become pedestrians. This winding road has many layers that one must walk past to get to the end... and due to the intention of its creator the end is its center. Parables are the same. They are theological onions that where the truth is encased in several protective layers of allegory. But why use them at all? Why not abandon the mystery of poetics and reveal the truth of God in frank prose? That is what the Disciples wondered when they confronted Jesus about his use of parables. His answer was rather curious in that it deviates from the traditional description of a parable. Like its traditional usage Christ shares that his parables are an illustration to illuminate the truth... but that was only after he told them that his parables were a riddle/mystery to hide the truth from some. He even quoted the prophet Isaiah to justify his use of parables as an encryption tool. But why would God chose to simultaneously reveal the truth to some and conceal it from others? This is where I think that I should introduce the unpopular doctrine of election. This is the idea that God has chosen those who to be saved and those who are to be damned. The most popular face of this in Christianity is that of Calvinism's notion predestination. Now you may think that Calvinism is too cold and predestination conflicts with your beliefs about God, but if you will humor me for a moment I have a secret to share with you: You may think that you don't but you actually do believe in some form of election. Roman Catholicism refers to it as such: "one chosen or taken by preference from among two or more; as a theological term it is equivalent to 'chosen as the object of mercy or Divine favour, as set apart for eternal life'." And all readers of the Old Testament are familiar with the idea that God had chosen the people of ancient Israel to be His people. And I tell you this secret about your own beliefs because that is what the idea of the elect is: the sharing if a secret. And that is also what this parable is generally about: the secret of the secret. Jesus concealed the revelation of this secret for those who would pursue its true meaning: his Disciples. The same elect group of twelve that he had revealed so many other secrets about God and mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven. So in his own words "For whoever has, to him more will be given, and he will have abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him." The Pharisees and scoffers who were among the multitude had been rejected from knowing the secret and the Disciples would grow richer from learning more of God's treasures. The idea of election as illustrated by Jesus is about more than separating the righteous from the unrighteous (even though it does entail that). It is also about separating the elect from the other elect. Christ said that "many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it" but it was for a specific portion of the elect, the Apostles and those they would share it with (us), to hear the fullness of the secret...to enjoy the culmination of Grace. As the offspring of the Disciples/Apostles we too are those who have and will be given much until we have an abundance of God's Truth. This is the theme of the parable of the sower. But Christ did not stop at revealing the gist of his message, he would go on with a point by point exposition of his parable. For the spiritual pilgrims that journeyed this path with him he would take away the outer layer roads of the jetty and reveal the center of this work of art. 

Expository Preaching



Robert Smithson, Image from Field Trips: Bernd and Hilla Becher

"Therefore hear the parable of the sower: When anyone hears the word of the kingdom, and does not understand it, then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is he who received seed by the wayside. But he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles. Now he who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful. But he who received seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.”

 

With the art of Robert Smithson, the focal point is the earth. Dirt is taken to produce beauty. It is said that his earthworks all started when he took trips exploring his native state of New Jersey and observed dump trucks moving and dumping earth. He looked and saw how they excavated tons of earth and rock and somehow he saw more. He saw a creative activity that was timeless and monumental: he saw art in the making that no one else saw. Jesus saw something spiritual about the natural act of a famer's relationship with his agricultural environment. The farmer was not just sowing seeds, he was testifying to Man's relationship with God. Just like Adam in Genesis, the man who had been created from the clay of the earth, this sower of seeds had taken to tilling the soil as his means of support. And I would argue that the central image of this parable is not the sower (though he is the subject) or the plants that come from the seed (though it is the desired end of the sower's activity) but rather the soil itself. This parable is about Jesus' venture into critiquing Land Art. As he reveals to his Disciples the soil/earth, like Adam, is Mankind. The seeds are the "word of the Kingdom", a.k.a. the Gospel. So the parable is an illustration of God's botany experiment, when the seed of His Gospel is spread throughout soil of Mankind through the ends of the Earth. God inspected which men/women would respond to the Gospel. On the one end there were those whom the Gospel was spread to and it fell on deaf ears and hard hearts and the Grace of the Gospel was taken away. On the other extreme were those who the Gospel was preached to and it flourished and they were given greater Grace. But alas there were still two groups that Christ revealed that were not in either camp. They did not fall into the false black and white paradigm but reveal the existence of several shades of gray in the area of faith. Jesus didn't just tell this parable to show that there would be those who believed and those who didn't believe. He told it to show that even amongst those who heard the Gospel and "believed" their were varying degrees of how much of his grace they would chose to experience. Christ was not only exercising his preaching gift but intentionally engaging in expository preaching to enable his listeners to be able to understand and apply the Word of God. He wanted his disciples to understand the meaning and intention of his words: he was revealing God's secret.



Robert Smithson with model of Spiral Jetty.

I am not sure if the image that I have posted above was intentionally taken by Robert Smithson to document his model for the Spiral Jetty or if it is a snapshot taken by a friend or visitor to his studio. I do know, however, that it shows the intention of the artist. It reveals that the Spiral Jetty was not a "happy accident" that occurred when he was haphazardly dumping tons of earth and minerals into the Great Salt Lake. No, it is a testament to Robert Smithson's artwork being the final manifestation of his will. That leads me to ask. what was the intention the sower? Likewise what was the identity of the sower? We know that the sower is the source of the seed of the Gospel that is spread to the soil/ears and hearts of men/women. So you have at least two options: God/Jesus or the Apostles/any Christian preacher through history. I am not exactly sure which one I'd put my money on, however, in the end they both end up eventually having God as the source of the seed. That's the problem with parables. they ultimately break down. They are not intended to be an endless equation where several variables can be thrown in. They are a metaphor with a limited reference. I am sure, however, about the identity of the seed as a symbol of the gospel. Why? Because Jesus, the teller of the parable, reveals it as such. And I can be confident about the intention of the seed of the Gospel. It is revealed by the difference between the last three soils that receive the seeds. Ironically they all believe the Gospel but only one exerts true faith. One believes with joy and then falls away due to persecution and or hard times. Another believes but due to the cares of the world never becomes fruitful. Then last one is shown as the example be cause he believes the Gospel, understands it and produces fruit. The intention of the seed of the Gospel is to produce fruit not just belief. The intention of the seed of the Gospel is to produce joy not just obedient behavior. The intention of the seed of the Gospel is to not just to excite and inspire you but rather to create sustainable faith that endures the hardships of life. This parable is the story of those disciples of Jesus who believed, had joy, remained and bore fruit. It is not the story of the Pharisees. It is not the story of Judas. It can however be the story of you and I. God has placed us in an environment of Grace. He desires that we should consider His word and allow it to take fruit in our lives...long lasting, life-giving, believable fruit.

 

New Testament Word & Image: Romans 8:18-23 & ROA



ROA mural in Atlanta, Georgia for the Living Walls Conference

Romans 8:18-23

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.


ROA mural in Gambia, Wide Open Walls

For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God.


ROA mural in Berlin-Kreuzberg. Painted in 2011 in the Range of his Exhibition: "Transit",

For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.


ROA, mural in Orebro, Sweden

For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now.


ROA, La Tortue, mural in Torino, Italy


Not only that, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body

ROA mural in Gambia, Wide Open Walls

Old Testament Word & Image: Psalm 65 & The Hudson River School



A View of the Two Lakes and Mountain House, Catskill Mountains, Morning, Thomas Cole

Psalm 65

Praise is awaiting You, O God, in Zion;
And to You the vow shall be performed.
O You who hear prayer,
To You all flesh will come.
Iniquities prevail against me;
As for our transgressions,
You will provide atonement for them.

Blessed is the man You choose,
And cause to approach You,
That he may dwell in Your courts.
We shall be satisfied with the goodness of Your house,
Of Your holy temple.

By awesome deeds in righteousness You will answer us,
O God of our salvation,
You who are the confidence of all the ends of the earth,
And of the far-off seas;

Thomas Cole, The Oxbow, View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm,

Who established the mountains by His strength,
Being clothed with power;
You who still the noise of the seas,
The noise of their waves,
And the tumult of the peoples.
They also who dwell in the farthest parts are afraid of Your signs;
You make the outgoings of the morning and evening rejoice.

You visit the earth and water it,
You greatly enrich it;



Niagara Falls, 1857, Frederic Edwin Church

The river of God is full of water;
You provide their grain,
For so You have prepared it.
You water its ridges abundantly,
You settle its furrows;
You make it soft with showers,
You bless its growth.

You crown the year with Your goodness,
And Your paths drip with abundance.
They drop on the pastures of the wilderness,
And the little hills rejoice on every side.
The pastures are clothed with flocks;
The valleys also are covered with grain;
They shout for joy, they also sing.

Mount Washington, by John Frederick Kensett

 

 

Old Testament Word & Image: Isaiah 55:10-11 & Andrew Wyeth

Pennsylvania Landscape, Andrew Wyeth

Isaiah 55:10-11

Baleen, Andrew Wyeth

“For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven,
And do not return there,
But water the earth,

Andrew Wyeth, The Granary

And make it bring forth and bud,
That it may give seed to the sower
And bread to the eater,

Andrew Wyeth, Christina's World

So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth;
It shall not return to Me void,
But it shall accomplish what I please,
And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.

Turkey Pond, Andrew Wyeth

 

Images of the Meek

The Gleaners, Jean-François Millet

Matthew 11:25-30

Backs bent in labor, heads bowed in social humility, brows filled with sweat of a hard life and arms outstretched to the mercy of others. These are the meek foreground figures "The Gleaners" by Jean-François Millet. These fieldworkers stand in a field of plenty, within sight of the bountiful harvest in the background of the painting, yet are relegated to literally "grasping at straws" by the cold hand of misfortune. Gleaning was the "act of collecting leftover crops from farmers' fields after they have been commercially harvested or on fields where it is not economically profitable to harvest." This social welfare practice was a carry over from the ancient Biblical days and was still practiced in nineteenth century France. Just like Ruth in the Old Testament, gleaners in the time of Millet occupied the porous border between laborers and beggars. Jean-François Millet was a member of the Realist school of painting and depictions of the meek and lowly abounded in their reaction to the idealistic and unrealistic paintings of their contemporaries. "The Realist movement began in the mid-19th century as a reaction to Romanticism and History painting. In favor of depictions of 'real' life, the Realist painters used common laborers, and ordinary people in ordinary surroundings engaged in real activities as subjects for their works... Realists used unprettified detail depicting the existence of ordinary contemporary life, coinciding in the contemporaneous naturalist literature of Émile Zola, Honoré de Balzac, and Gustave Flaubert." The realist were not just interested in the photograph-like imitation of life through illusionistic painting, they were also committed to correcting the narrative of the present world that painters were celebrating. The poor widow who was reduced to gleaning was now just as worthy to depict in paint as a queen born into aristocratic wealth or Bourgeoisie merchant who had worked to achieve their rank. Just as the Realists attempted to depict the beauty and ugliness in the everyday struggle of the lowly, Christ glorifies God in Matthew 11:25-30 for bringing beauty to the humble lives of the meek... bringing true rest to the weary laborer.    

The Stone Breakers (Les Casseurs de pierres), Gustave Courbet 

At that time Jesus answered and said, “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight.

Gustave Courbet  was the most prominent of the Realist painters. He was not known to be a religious man and his paintings are void of traditional narrative religious imagery. In discussing this he once quoted "I have never seen either angels or goddesses, so I am not interested in painting them." His art was centered around the reality on the ground and those who scraped at the dust to make their living. However he did know beauty, saying “Beauty, like truth, is relative to the time when one lives and to the individual who can grasp it.” Courbet, like Jesus, saw the beauty of the meek. In " The Stone Breakers" Courbet depicts two generations of laborers toiling away at their labor. They are not panning for gold...no great fortune will come from their endeavor. They will just receive a pittance that is enough to feed them for the night and allow them to return to another day's labor of breaking rocks. This is the inheritance that the older worker leaves to the younger: that one day he will tire from his youthful strength of carrying the rocks and be brought low to kneeling and breaking them. Yet the beauty that Jesus saw was not just in these laborers but in all of the metaphorical laborers: the meek who struggle through life. To them he reveals a parallel truth in his relationship to his Father. Christ says that God has not revealed His truth to the great ("wise and prudent") but rather the lowly (babes). It is the lowly that Christ identifies with. Jesus shows us the image of the little ones/babes whom The Father chooses. In this image of children he combines the idea of the lowly and the offspring. A child is the most humble stage of human existence, yet it is the one most filled with promise. The promise, the inheritance, that God the Father has to give is only to His child. In referring to himself as the Son, Christ relates to the lowly estate of the meek. In doing so he becomes the conduit of the inheritance that God provides for them. This inheritance is the revelation of His Truth.

 

The Thankful Poor, Henry Ossawa Tanner

 

All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him. 

Unlike many of the other artists categorized as Realist, Henry Ossawa Tanner was not a Frenchman. He was an American. Specifically, he was an African American... and being as one several of his paintings depict a positive and familiar depiction of Blacks. Besides his religious imagery, he is probably most famous for The Banjo Lesson, where a Black, grandfatherly figure passes down to his grandson his inheritance of music. Like the other Realist, Tanner is celebrating the beauty of regular people of meek means living their lives. In "The Thankful Poor" Tanner again depicts a scene in the lives of this pair. In this painting they bow their heads in prayer and give thanks for the humble meal that God has provided them. In this simple act of gratitude we are reminded of the prayer of praise that Jesus offered to his Father. A word of gratitude for the provisions that God had given the humble of this world. Like Tanner's painting, Jesus' prayer and subsequent speech also exposes the familial relationship between a Father and a Son. Like "The Banjo Lesson" Christ's speech depicts an inheritance that the Father has bestowed on the Son. The inheritance that God has for his offspring is the knowledge/revelation of the Father. That's why Jesus can confidently say "no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him." The knowledge of God is hidden in an intimate, familial relationship with Him. God's inheritance, like Tanner's banjo playing grandfather, is a sweet song that he has only shared with his offspring. The song may start out the repetitive rifts of the Blues but it ends with the modulating crescendos of Gospel. The life of the meek may be filled with the sorrows of life but Jesus has promised to reveal to them the treasure of Heaven. Christ came as the lowly babe, The Son, the meek offspring, and has chosen to make the meek of this world to be the offspring of God. With these he has chosen to reveal God the Father. This is the inheritance of the righteous.

 

Hard Times, Hubert von Herkomer

 

Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

Like Henry Ossawa Tanner, Hubert von Herkomer was a foreigner who paited in the Realist tradition. It was not just that he wasn't a Frenchman, Herkomer had spent his whole life being "the other." Born into a poverty striken German family, his father would eventually spend periods of time finding work overseas. He once even found suitable labor in the United States and moved the family to Cleveland but they would later settle permanently in England. Herkomer had grown up knowing hunger and periods of being a pilgrim. He would later grow up to receive honor from the royalty of both Britain and Germany for his artwork...yet he would still know what it was to be "the other." The rising tension between Germany and Great Britain that would eventually culminate in World War I was the backdrop of Herkomer adult life. He was either not English enough and not German enough or too German and too English. He stood as a constant immigrant and emigrant. The pursuit of his livelihood made him conversant with two cultures that were increasingly at a stalemate. So when he painted "Hard Times" he did so with an understanding of the plight of the day laborers that he depicted. He had been raised by immigrant hired hands who stood alongside the road of life not knowing where the road might lead... only knowing the desperate hunger pains that lay within their bellies. Christ too knew of the pains of laborers who hungered. This was a hunger and thirst for righteousness that the Messiah proclaimed that he could fulfill. These laborers were those who had been burdened by the heavy requirements of the Law (as they understood it from the teaching of the Pharisees). They wore this brand of religion as a heavy yoke that kept them in bondage like beasts of burden. Now it was right for them to pursue the teachings of the Law but teachings that they received from the Pharisees was draining them of life while Jesus' teaching of the Law would give them life. Jesus' take on Scripture highlighted how God had intended to exalt the humble from their burdens. He desired to give them a rest from their work. He wanted to give them a Sabbath. Jesus not only promised the Sabbath as one day respite from respite from labor, he offered the Sabbath as a life. The Sabbath that he offered was himself. The yoke of religion that he offered in exchange from the burdensome Pharisaic one was one that was "easy." This word did not denote that the yoke was simple, but rather that it was smooth, ergonomic and fashioned by the Carpenter for the specific laborer. It was fashioned to make the  burdens of labor lighter. Christ's religion is one of love. A love that gives us a rest from our troubles of life and from the worries of the afterlife. A love that calls us in mission. This mission is our labor and it is especially crafted by Jesus the master carpenter for our individual lives. The mission is to tear down the walls that we construct making some "the other" and in its place erect the Kingdom of God where all humble pilgrims and lowly laborers are welcome.

The End of the Working Day (Fin du travail), Jules Breton

I conclude this blog entry with a Realist image about the conclusion from work. In Jules Breton's "End of the Working Day" we see tired field hands retire from their toils. You might have noticed that on this image (like a few others) I have included it's original name in French. This one is called "Fin du travail", which literally translates "End of Work." The English translator has given it a more jolly "working day" for the French "travail" that alludes to a Disney -like "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah" gloss over. But isn't it interesting that we need no translation of "travail" in English. We know what it means perfectly without explanation. Google states that it's synonyms are ordeal, trial, tribulation, trial and tribulation, trouble, hardship, privation and stress. This was the true description of the humble French field hands of Nineteenth century France. It was also the accurate description of the meek multitudes whom Christ sought to free with the Liberty of faith in God. It may also be a description of you today. As believers in the God of Scripture we live in the same place as the Gleaners of Jean-François Millet; occupying the muddled territory of relying on God's Grace while making efforts to express our Faith through good deeds. We are the meek that pursue relief from the kind words of the Messiah. Jesus commands us today to arise from our labor and come into the rest that His Father has prepared for us. This Sabbath rest that has been bought with Christ's blood is our inheritance. God is ready to raise up those with a bowed down head. He is turning our travail into triumph and it all will glorify Him.

 

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Churches of the American Revolutionary War



When Paul Revere set out on his midnight ride to warn his fellow American revolutionaries of the advancing British troops he had two of his comrades wait in the tower of the Old North Church. Upon his word they were to give a warning via lantern where everyone could see them: in this Anglican Church steeple. The conflict between Great Britain and it's former the American Colonies lead to a conflict within the Anglican Communion (which is subject to the British Crown). The American churches split and formed the Episcopal Church. Like several other wars, the Church lay in the middle of the American Revolutionary War. I say this not as a mark of pride but rather as a warning. Though I take pride as an American in our non-monarchical democracy approach to civil government and as a Baptist I see many benefits in the congregationally run, non-diocesan approach to church government, I also understand that much blood was spilled and years lost in enmity and nationalistic strife between Christian brothers. Sadly, political divisions that lead to religious divisions are far too common. Several American Christian denominations (such as the Southern Baptists) resulted from schisms in national denominations over Slavery and the American Civil War. I did not say this to be polemical or revisionist but rather to be honest about our history. Our forefathers and grandparents were not saints or superheroes but rather sinful men who needed God's grace...just like us. The history of the Anglican/Episcopalian Church (and others) in America displays episodes of when we as Christians divided our brotherhood and instances when we united with others that were different to further the cause of brotherhood. We currently have no internal war raging within the United States, however we do have theological culture wars that cause division. Once again the Anglican/Episcopalian Communion finds itself at the center of this fight... but it won't be long before your denomination/ local church and mine are challenged on the hard questions facing Christians today. These issues run the gamut from Gay Marriage/Acceptance, Immigration, Women in Leadership, Racial/Cultural Divides and Abortion/Contraception. But those are just the hot button issues aren't they? The ones that we send big money to Super Pacs to support our view. But what about the additional issues of the Poor, the Widows, the Sick, the Lost and War/Pacifism that Christ seemed to be obsessed with but we all to often forget? There are a number of answers that have been given for these issues from a myriad of Christian voices. I (like others) have an opinion on many of these, however, I am not actually going to present an answer to any of these today. I am just going to present a few images of the oldest Anglican/Episcopal churches in the United States...the churches that saw the change from Anglican to Episcopalian. I am also going to ask you to think about all of the physical wars and culture wars that they have seen and the ones that the Church is presently presented with. Lastly I ask you, how will you treat your Christian brother/sister that is different from you? Even if he/she is your enemy in the midst of a war, how has Christ taught you to treat your enemy?     

May God bless America. May God bless the World. As we celebrate our Independence as Americans, may we also practice an Interdependence as Christians.

 Old North Church O\is the oldest active church building in Boston and a National Historic Landmark, the Old North Church (formal name: Christ Church in the City of Boston) is the location from which the famous signal lanterns are said to have been displayed for Paul Revere's midnight ride during the American Revolution.^[7]

Statue of Paul Revere outside of the Old North Church

Jamestown Church, partially built in 1639 in Jamestown, Virginia, is one of the oldest surviving buildings built by Europeans in the original thirteen colonies that became the United States.





Old Trinity Church, Maryland (built in 1675) is the oldest church building in continuous use; as such, it is the oldest in the U.S.

St. Luke's Church (Smithfield, Virginia) is the oldest surviving brick church in one of the original thirteen colonies that became the United States if one discounts the 1639 church tower of the Jamestown Church, and is the earliest extant church building of English foundation in the United States. The church had been dated by some local sources to 1632 but published sources, recently confirmed by dendrochronology have confirmed the 1682 date.

St. Michael's Episcopal Church (Charleston, South Carolina) is the oldest surviving religious structure in Charleston, South Carolina. It is located at Broad and Meeting streets on one of the Four Corners of Law, and represents ecclesiastical law. It was built in the 1750s by order of the South Carolina Assembly

St. Paul's Chapel (Manhattan, NY) ,built in 1764. is the oldest surviving church building in Manhattan. A chapel of the Parish of Trinity Church, St. Paul's was built on land granted by Anne, Queen of Great Britain, designed by architect Thomas McBean and built by master craftsman Andrew Gautier. Upon completion in 1766, it stood in a field some distance from the growing port city to the south. It was built as a "chapel-of-ease" for parishioners who thought the Mother Church inconvenient to access.

Old Testament Word & Image: Zechariah 9:9-10 & Giotto

The Entry into Jerusalem, Giotto

Zechariah 9:9-10

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!
Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem!
Behold, your King is coming to you;
He is just and having salvation,
Lowly and riding on a donkey,
A colt, the foal of a donkey.
I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim
And the horse from Jerusalem;
The battle bow shall be cut off.
He shall speak peace to the nations;
His dominion shall be ‘from sea to sea,
And from the River to the ends of the earth.