I was talking with my wise-sage wife recently and she told me that we all need to hear a word that is more hopeful and lighter – enough of all of the news of the world. She reminded me of a post that someone had offered about one of our favorite National Parks, Zion. The observer said something like “you need to be willing to see beauty differently to fully appreciate Zion.” I think that the idea was that if you are looking for lush green landscapes, or startling geysers, or soaring glacier clad mountains, you are going to encounter something radically different. The beauty is in layers of rock, and how myriad colors of red stone interact. The beauty is the power of a little water running through a slot canyon or a moment where you feel like you are observing a moonscape. I have always cherished those moments when we are challenged to see with new eyes. As a college student I remember an art teacher who gave us the challenge to carefully study a one-centimeter square on any object that we chose. We were then to take that tiny little bit of our world, and paint or draw it as an image not smaller than a couple of feet square. Suddenly a flake of oatmeal, or a tiny spot on a rock, or a tiny portion of your hand, became the source of seeing the world through new eyes. Any time that we are forced to change our perspective we have the opportunity to see and learn new things.
I cherish a journey of faith that regularly offers just this kind of reframing of what we think that we see and what we think that we know. Whether that is an observation that cuts through thousands of years’ of assumptions about a text, or something as a simple as being awakened to how the translation of a word always carries with it the theology of the translator, it can expand our relationship with God and our faith. This last spring, I encountered an article that challenged something as simple as the name change that we all have learned forever as Saul became Paul. The scholar cited the textual evidence to point out that considering the name change as an expression of a change of religious perspective did not fit with the Biblical canon. This scholar looked at long-held assumptions through new eyes, eyes that perhaps because of some “aha” moment allowed them to ask questions about the Biblical story. In this instance the scholar noted that Paul lived in a bi-cultural world, a world that many people still navigate every day. Within Jewish society he used the Jewish name Saul, within Roman society he used his Roman name Paul… The simple observation invites us to see Saul/Paul through a different lens and to further remember that he was someone who had spent his whole life navigating the intersection of conflicting cultures and religions. It is an interesting observation that will have me pay different attention to something a simple as a name.
We live our faith in world that is always changing and that offers both challenges and blessings. We are called by God to engage both. We are encouraged to learn how to see with eyes of faith. This week anyone who has looked at the setting sun has been stunned by the extraordinary beauty of the brilliant orange-red globe hanging in the sky. Its beauty should take our breath away, but the reminder that this vision has been caused by all of the smoke that is travelling from the massive fires in the west should humble us to remember how our world and our lives are always interconnected with others. Both of those observations are calls to faith. God constantly demands that we cherish life, that we celebrate blessings, and that we be servants of love seeking justice and wholeness for all people.
We are living in unusual times. Much of what we have been accustomed to in our world has been altered in large and small ways in the last months. Certainly, for us not being gathered in our church building has been a bold expression of a changed reality. Each of those changes is also an opportunity to refocus our ways of seeing, to take a deep breath and center our souls, and then to consider what wonder God might be offering in this moment.
May we all take the time to be touched by the blessings before us. May we all be bold in sharing the glimpses of grace with one another and the world. Pastor Eric