All Saints
C-2013
It is quite
a dream that Daniel has; one we might even call a nightmare.
Gusting
winds from all directions, churning seas, great beasts – monsters; kings are
rising, bringing with them war, turbulence, and chaos. People are troubled in spirit and terrified. The book of Daniel is written in such a time,
the 2nd Century BCE when Syrian king Antiochus Epiphanes is severely
persecuting the Jews because they are a minority ethnically and
religiously. It is almost the eve of the
Maccabean revolt where the brothers Macabee band brethren together to zealously
fight against the assimilation policies of foreign rulers and the priestly
class. War is brewing. Persecution is
around every corner. Chaos is imminent.
Fear is consuming.
Daniel is
what we call apocalyptic literature. It
draws on the past experiences of the people when in exile, using images and
characters from those times to capture a picture of the present, facing the
present time by using symbols and metaphors known to the hearers, with the
purpose of the book being to create hope and encouragement in the hearts and
minds of a people facing chaos. The
promise in the end is salvation under God’s sovereignty.
When I was
preparing the list of names for this morning’s service, I was struck by the
fact that I knew most of these people. I
knew their stories, their faith, their fears, their joys, their sorrows, their
acceptance of death, their hopes and dreams.
These faithful represent two generations of people, all affected by
living in troubled times, in a chaotic world.
These loved ones faced an array of chaos: some born in the aftermath of
WWI, large families living through the Great Depression, poor and hungry, going
to work early in life, experiencing loss of siblings and parents before their
time. There was WWII with experiences of living in war, fleeing for one’s life,
being a displaced person. There was rationing, starting over, sickness,
depression, looking after dying spouses, living in institutions; things not
turning out the way life had been planned.
As I thought about our loved ones, I
connected their lives to the picture painted in Daniel.
Living life is messy. There are powers outside of our control that
have a great affect on our lives; affects that change our ability to address
our needs, and can abruptly change our hopes and dreams.
Two Fridays in a row I have found
myself at Neptune Theatre experiencing the play “Red.” The play has two characters: the artist Mark
Rothko and his art student employee.
Rothko was an abstract expressionist.
His canvasses were floating squares overlaid one upon another, in shades
of the same colour; in this case, red. One enters the mind of the artist: his
philosophy of art and life, his wrestling with inner demons and being relevant,
and his relationship to the living work he created. I was struck by his
monologues and how they fit with my thesis work around the theology of art.
Abstract expressionism - canvasses
of solid colour, experiments in minimalism, fuzzy edged blocks moving from one
into another- the point was to feel painting, and think painting until there
was tragedy in every stroke. That was
when the painting was done. When there
was tragedy pulsating in every stroke the painting captured the chaos and
ugliness of the world.
The book of Daniel did the same
thing for his time, written in an age where the ear had priority, the words
written painted the chaos and ugliness of the world at that time.
We don’t have to like abstract
expressionism. We are not being asked to
like the words from the Book of Daniel, in fact it is better if we don’t. The paintings, the images, the words, are
meant to cause discernment. They are to throw us into feeling and thinking
beyond our current moment of understanding and being.
They are meant to shake us, such
that we face the chaos –the art names the chaos – drawing on images from the
past and propelling us, agitating us, into moving away towards hope and dreams;
possibilities of growing beauty, from the beauty seen in the ugliness of red
floating squares on a canvass.
It is the Lutheran understanding of
the theology of the cross, where Jesus’ death, the crucifix, the suffering,
dying, the vulnerable Jesus, dares to enter into the pain of humanity. ...and
die ...drawing on the stories of the past and propelling movement forward, with
promises for tomorrow. The chaos of the
cross is ugliness at its most beautiful; ugliness is redeemed -in the state
that it is in it is beautiful.
In Rothko’s Reds, or in Daniel’s
beasts, the chaotic is presented...blah there it is. Now what are you going to do with it?
You can walk away, glimpse but not
really look, keep on living seeing red and put off to the side the sense of
black, of chaos eating up the red, a sense of living life holding on for dear
life, almost at the end of your rope, being chased to the end. Or you can stop and look, really look, the
more you look the more the pictures move, the more the words penetrate,
eventually faith is born as the ugly is made beautiful; and grace showers
through.
The people that we are remembering
today, those who have gone on before, faced ugliness and found beauty
therein. When the church talks of the
communion of saints and the great cloud of witnesses we recall this facing
ugliness and finding beauty... as it was exemplified in people’s lives as
faithfulness, righteousness, salvation, redemption, forgiveness, and grace; and
in the end having a spirit of love, even loving people and things that seemed unlovable.
Near the end of the play, in the
furry of talking about the world outside his studio, in a powerful movement,
Rothko reaches out his hands almost in desperation, or perhaps exasperation,
with a hand on the chest and one on the forehead of his student employee, says,
commenting to being out there: make something beautiful.
Is that not the message of the Book
of Daniel? Face the chaos, live the
persecution; make something beautiful? Is that not the message of the
cross? Face the suffering, the dying, pain,
vulnerability; make something beautiful?
Is that not the hope and blessing of All the Saints gone before? Live
through the chaos; faithful; make something beautiful?
We have come here today and paused
to hear, to see, to observe...to feel and think...the greatest fear many of us
face death, not being in control, chaos on a global stage. Facing it here we have the chance to take the
ugliness, the moment of the Jesus’ death, and experience the beautiful
–redemption. In the twinkling of these
candles, the swishing of the grain, the eating of bread and wine, in the language
of prayer- ugly is deemed beautiful, such that we can go into the world to make
something beautiful.
Go in the hopes and dreams of those
from the past, for they are the hopes and dreams we are to live, as we create
hope and dreams beyond the present chaos for those who follow us.
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