Love in the Flesh

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Our Sunday Reflection is recorded and can be found HERE (posts each Sunday by late morning or early afternoon).

(Reading is from John 1:1-18)

John gives us a new perspective from the other Gospels.  Luke and Matthew land us clearly in space and time.  There are specific people.  Clear places.  There is a lineages that connects to the past history and peoples.  There is a ripple into the future and our time, but John is different.  John almost transcends time and place.  There is Mystery to John.  Word became flesh.  Word dwelt among us.  

What is going on?  Where are we?  What is “the Word”?  How does this all become “flesh” and what does that mean?

John seems to carry us back all the way to the beginning and the beginning before the beginning.  John transcends time by carrying the word into the future.  With and for us.  

John starts the Gospel as poetry, a song, a psalm that takes us beyond just thinking into deep reflection.  To…wisdom.  If you follow the liturgical  readings, the other readings this week come from the Wisdom Stories.  I was recently reading a “planning for a new year” article and the writer was saying that he often prays for Love each new year, but this year he will pray for wisdom.  He says that we seem to have enough love all around us (if we are really paying attention to one another), but what we seem to be lacking is the wisdom to go with love.  The wisdom to open our eyes and hearts.  The wisdom to see.  The wisdom to share. The wisdom to spread love wildly and widely.  

John uses wisdom words.  Word made flesh. Word dwelt among us.  It’s not clear.  It’s outside of right and wrong. It’s not do and don’t do.  It’s not this happened and then this happened.  It’s a song that asks us to listen and to listen deeply.  To go beyond words to understand…Word. Immediately, we almost leave behind law (Moses) for heart (Jesus).  Or, better said, it asks us not to just know the law, but to practice the law into love and wisdom.  

It’s a lot.  I know.  Scripture is like that.  It opens us up, but also tumbles us and confuses us.  We have those moments of: I got it and then…it’s gone.  But there to be recovered and discovered anew another time.  

This is what makes Wisdom texts transcend time and place.  It’s what makes them as relevant today as in the past and for the future.  There is so much to them to try to understand. It’s said that there are three version of us: who we think we are, who others think we are, and who we really are.  Jesus and the Stories are like this…there are so many ways to read, interpret, and live the words.  Even for each of us, how we read, interpret, and live the words changes as we change. Even each of the four Gospels each tell a different variation of the same Story…

We are encouraged to seek.  

We are all seekers.  And what’s beautiful is coming together around our seeking.  Not to find single answers but to share and discover how our (seemingly) different answers are surprisingly often leading to the same place…not matter how very different it all seems at first.  

Maybe this is why art is so universal.  It comes in to help.  It comes in to try and explain the unexplainable.  What did we say last week?  When words fail, paint and canvas.  When paint and canvas fail, words.  When that fails, music.  When answers fail, more questions.  When all else fails, silence.  

Word made flesh.  

We are all seekers.  As you all know by now, I love a good story.  One of the things I look for (seek) in books and movies (other stories) is: where is the Good?  Where is the overarching Love and Kindness?  Where is Courage?  Where is Grace?  One word for this all might be: Where is the divine/God?

What are the lessons and where is the wisdom?  

In art, we’re often looking for the story in it, but also the same: good, love and kindness, courage, grace, wisdom, the divine/God.

In paintings, we often see Grace come in through the light.  Artists work with light and shadow.  God/Goodness often comes in as light.  Love is Light. Perhaps Word made flesh is Love Incarnate.  

I brought a painting today (not the original, unfortunately).  This one was suggested by scholar Susan Hedahl for today’s reading and it really is quite perfect.  It’s a Rembrandt 1645 painting called The Holy Family with Angels. In it, we see a typical Amsterdam family scene to reflect the Holy Family.  

Where do we see the most obvious light coming in?  The first place we might notice light is with the angels.  The angels come in as light.  

We also have Joseph in the background working. He is bathed in light coming in, most likely from a window.  He is also making a “yoke”, which is a word that might sound familiar from the Stories.  

Central to the piece is Mary who is bathed in light coming from warm firelight. Beside her is the baby Jesus.  

Where else do we see light in the painting?  

Perhaps in Mary’s eyes as she looks adoringly at the Baby Jesus.  Perhaps Jesus himself is light in the painting.

Where is the light that is not light?  Where is the Goodness?  The Kindness (tenderness)?  Where is Courage? Where is Grace?  

Notice that the book Mary holds is well worn. This worn book makes it clear that she knows the words well.  She has taken in the words and ponders them and treasures them in her heart.  She continues to read and take in knowledge and wisdom.  She knows.  

In this snapshot, she is looking up from the book to the Baby Jesus. This is where she looks upon the Incarnate Word. No longer words, but Word made flesh.  

She ponders this and treasure this also in her heart.  

Each reading of the book and each glance at the baby informs the other. Mary is not seeking to know, but to treasure and ponder in her heart.  To deeply Love.  Each read and each look, each pondering helps her to understand more.  Each one does not become Wisdom alone, but becomes wisdom in relationship with the other.  We must not just know the words, but we also must live the words.  

When Pastor Bobby was here with us a few years back, he reminded us that we are asked to look at every person with love, as if each person is Jesus in the flesh.  Imagine that world!

We could be living our lives like Mary in this painting.  We might read the words and treasure them in our own hearts.  Then we might look at one another with deepest kindness and deepest love.  Weaving back and forth between word and the created world.

In our own lives, we might look to words to understand and learn, then allow the words to become flesh in our own lives. 

As we treasure and ponder great wisdom it informs our actions to become the hands and feet and eyes and ears of Love in this world.  We become a part of making this world a more wise and loving place one interaction at a time.  Wisdom is not found and practiced in isolation.  Wisdom is found and practiced in relationship with one another the the whole Created World.