I had the opportunity to visit Dulwich Picture Gallery recently. It’s a fantastic place with a great collection of artwork and a real sense of history. Within the collection was a particular painting that caught my eye.
A painting by Giambattista Tiepolo called ‘Joseph receiving Pharaoh's Ring’. It was painted around 1733-35 and is a beautiful, fine piece of work and well worthy of a place in the gallery. But it wasn’t so much the artist’s skill that caught my attention, or the style or the colours he used.
It was something far subtler.
Something I read in the little description hanging next to the piece.
It informed me that one of the characters in the background, the more distant of the two trumpeters, is actually reckoned to be a self-portrait. Tiepolo painted himself in the story. And it was this idea that sparked my thoughts. This was a fantastic concept
– putting yourself in the story.
It’s a technique that could revolutionise reading the Bible. Stories could come to life by imagining yourself in the story. Where would you be? Would you be front row or somewhere in the background? What are the sights, the sounds, the smells?
Imagine the scenes around Jesus while he toured the countryside teaching, performing miracles, meeting people, having a laugh with everyone around him. Where would you be? Trying to sneak closer to hear him more clearly? Hoping to catch his eye and ask for a miracle? Trying to avoid him because he was teaching things a bit too risky and too close for comfort?
What about our worship songs? How different would they be if we wrote songs with ourselves in the stories? Would they be simple little ditties about how much we love God, or would they be drenched in real emotion rooted in a more intense understand of the story of God? What themes would emerge from inside the narrative rather than a safer location on the sidelines?
Paint yourself in the story. Let me know what you see.
The pop-culture way of doing Christian ethics is to constantly ask ‘What Would Jesus Do?’. And whilst this is quite a handy little catchphrase and reminder, and wristband, and pencil, and t-shirt, and CD holder, and egg cup... it’s harder than it seems because we don’t have a guidebook of what Jesus would do, we’ve only got a few random accounts of thing Jesus DID do.
Three and a half years worth of touring and teaching condensed into 4 gospel with an average of about 20 chapters – that’s not a lot for an Ethical resource or advice guide. But Jesus never came to give as a guidebook. He didn’t come to give us a moral A-to-Z he came to show us How – to – See.
Jesus taught in a way that demonstrated character. And he gave dozens of stories and sketches of how to do it. Take the Good Samaritan for example: That is not a story to store away in your memory just in case the next time you’re travelling on the motorway you find a guy who’s been beaten up and left for dead. It’s giving a glimpse of how to imitate God. It’s not necessarily about rules and regulations and religion.
Pope John Paul said this: It’s not that the gospel has changed; it is just that our understanding of it is slowly growing. We’re all still learning about Jesus. We’re still learning about loving God with our heart and soul and mind and strength. We’re still learning who our neighbours are, let alone about loving them. And our whole lives are set towards getting to know Jesus. We have to pursue Jesus. To keep studying him. To keep figuring him out. He’s the most complex man in History – to think we’ve got him all sussed out is both arrogant and, well, just plain stupid!
I’m getting married in September and I was given this advice a while ago: Don't marry so you can stop pursuing women. Marry so you can perfect the pursuit one woman for a lifetime. We’re called as a church to perfect the pursuit of Jesus for a lifetime.
In order to know what Jesus would do, we have to know Jesus, and in order to know Jesus we have to follow Jesus. Jesus said ‘follow me’, not ‘follow a set of concepts or a code of conduct or an institution’. It’s about being his follower, his apprentice, learning from him, learning what he’s like and copying him.
The reassuring thing about following Jesus is that he knows where he’s going. There is an end to the story. We all like a happy ending. And this story has got a cracker. From the first moments of Jesus’ ministry on earth he had a goal in mind. This was more than a pipe-dream or a good idea. Jesus was working to bring about the Kingdom of God; To challenge the wayward earthly interpretations of religion and politics and social justice; He wanted to bring people’s attention to a way of living beautifully. And as well as having a goal in mind, he had a strategy. Reaching out to the poor and the sick and those on the margins. Speaking up for people who couldn’t speak. Loving the unloved. Giving people a new, fresh start. He wasn’t just waiting for the new heaven and new earth to arrive, he was ushering it in. It was starting to arrive there and then. And as a church we can join in: The Church’s cry is: if the future looks like this, let’s work to bring it here, now! We don’t have to wait to be involved in the Kingdom of God.I used to work with Spring Harvest Holidays. Part of my job was heading up the 11-13’s team which took a lot of energy and effort. I should probably add too that my sleep patterns are fairly erratic at the best of times. I often go through spells of insomnia and one of those spells was at SHH. Sleep deprivation and youth work don’t mix. It was the end of one of the morning sessions, we finished at midday and had about two minutes left before we could let the kids go and to get their attention I said “We’ll see you tomorrow morning, and you know what tomorrow is...?!”
Thursday? Water fight day? Talent show day? Could have been any of those but me and my sleep deprived head said... IT’S CHRISTMAS! (It was August! My team glared at me. The kids got excited and ran out) The following day we did Christmas: Toilet paper snowmen, Christmas decorations, carols, party food. The Works.
Most of the kids that week were staying on the following week so we thought we’d carry the theme over... and what happens the week after Christmas?
NEW YEAR – in the middle of a baking hot day in August we had a New Years Eve party. We had party poppers and food and dancing. We sang Auld Lang Syne and we counted down to Mid-night at 12 noon. it was brilliant!
Unbeknown to me and my team, the pastoral care couple were sitting just outside our venue with a woman in floods of tears. Her marriage was breaking down, she’d been quite ill, because of all this her kids were struggling at school and her prayer was ‘God, I wish this year could just start again’. And at that moment, I sent 150 11-13year olds running past her screaming at the top of their lungs HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
The New is here Now! We can choose to live beautifully now. We can follow Jesus now. We can know Jesus now. One day the kingdom of God will be established in full but we can be adventurous and be part of it NOW!
A painting by Giambattista Tiepolo called ‘Joseph receiving Pharaoh's Ring’. It was painted around 1733-35 and is a beautiful, fine piece of work and well worthy of a place in the gallery. But it wasn’t so much the artist’s skill that caught my attention, or the style or the colours he used.
