Esthetics In The Gospels

He has no stately form or majesty
That we should look upon Him,
Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him.
Isaiah 53:2


But what did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing? Those who wear soft clothing are in kings' palaces!
But what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and one who is more than a prophet.
Matthew 11:8-9

When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.
Matthew 6:5

As He was going out of the temple, one of His disciples said to Him, "Teacher, behold what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!"
And Jesus said to him, "Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left upon another which will not be torn down."
Mark 13:1-2

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness.
So you, too, outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
Matthew 23:27-28

But they do all their deeds to be noticed by men; for they broaden their phylacteries and lengthen the tassels of their garments.
They love the place of honor at banquets and the chief seats in the synagogues,
and respectful greetings in the market places, and being called Rabbi by men.
But do not be called Rabbi; for One is your Teacher, and you are all brothers.
Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven.
Do not be called leaders; for One is your Leader, that is, Christ.
Matthew 23:5-10

You have heard that it was said, `YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY';
but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.
If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to go into hell.
Matthew 5:27-28

And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin,
yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these.
Matthew 6:28-29

The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light.
But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!
Matthew 6:22-23

On Asking

What does it mean to pray?

Many people think of prayer as a time where you close your eyes and recite a checklist of things you are thankful for, and then, at the very end, if there is something someone else needs to have, if after all that time of thanking God and reflecting on abstract theology you still want God to do something for someone, you can probably get away with it -but if your view of the Bible is all about yourself, then go ahead, you selfish man, and ask for something for yourself. It just means you aren't really thankful enough and, by the way, your requests will go unanswered.

When I was in the third grade, some of my Sunday School teachers taught me to pray in this way.

"Prayer is asking for something."
Fred Rogers

The word 'pray' means 'to ask'. How great are the walls we build to avoid asking God for anything!

We refuse to ask God, and then we posture piously about how little we think of ourselves and our desires, and then we wonder why God seems to do little for us!

"If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!"
Matthew 7:7

Why do people hesitate to ask God?

Is it not because we are afraid to expect good things and then get let down?

If we ask God for something, He can always say 'no'. We can be disappointed when God says 'no'. No one wants to severely disappointed.

So we build up walls in hopes of scraping the bottom of the barrel.

And then what do we do?

We turn to complaining, although not because we like to complain.

We whine and complain about our world as a means of indirectly twisting God's arm. If someone defiantly disobeyed God, if he shouted blasphemies at heaven, heaven could punish him. We fear God just enough to avoid obvious disobedience while we stockpile bitterness inside.

One would do well to remember that God knows our needs before we even ask Him.

It is difficult to ask someone for something if we think he has little knowledge or concern for our needs. How wonderful to have a Father who cares and knows about the things we need, even before we ask Him!

"Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be granted you."
Mark 11:24


There is also another obstacle to asking God for our concerns: our fear that others will find us selfish.

I commonly hear people thank God because of what He has done for another person, but to appear truly intelligent and sacrificial some people thank God because of His nature -as if this had nothing to do with the generous way He treats us.

To fully accept God's generousity, one should also accept the fact that He rewards those who pray to Him in the privacy of their closets.

How slow people are to accept that God rewards those who pray! How frightful to gaze into the magnitude of our indebitedness to God!

It is even daunting to consider a small aspect of another's debt to heaven. To gaze at one's own indebitedness seems maddening, and most people will do anything to avoid it.


Part of entering the life God has for us is to make our attitudes like little children. May God send His Spirit to live inside us and teach us everyday to depend on Him for our needs and to ask Him for many things.

If we choose to become like little children, we will also be able to accept the times when God says 'no'. When God tells us 'no' it can be sad, but trusting God never leads to the true disappointment most people carry with them.

And if we praise God for His generousity towards us, people may consider us selfish. Or they may think we are unintelligent. Or unpopular. God knows all the things people think about, and He also takes into account those who appreciate the good things He gives them.

May our lives grow in thankfulness all the more as we learn to trust in God and enjoy His great generosity.

Recommendations

Thought I would give a brief introduction and update on the blogs I've been reading.

First off, I would like to say I highly recommend bjk's blog, InTheQuiet. Her writing is inward, intensely personal and confessional. Her style has really made her into what I would consider to be an original voice (and those voices are hard to find these days!). While I am often given to writing in contempt of the news media or current events, she maintains a form of inner dialog which is irrelevant to the world but interesting to God.

Tim has been writing some excellent posts lately, the kind that keep you on your toes. We were writing a lot about Abraham at one point. He currently has an excellent story about a traveling man asking a deceptively simple question with a twist at the end. Existentialism is a lot more than I want to get into explaining here on this blog -mostly because so many "existential" writers really care so little about actually having an existing self. I'll leave it at that.

SocietyVS also has a blog worth reading. I have spent more time commenting there than I have all of the other blogs combined (a good opportunity to ask oneself: 'what do the Scriptures say?'). The writer there, Jason, makes radical demands of his Church leadership and isn't afraid of losing favor with men. He has a lot of views about building 'belief systems' and 'structures' and he also has a lot of political views which I am always very tempted to respond to. Of course a flawless political view is often infintely inferior to a corresponding view of God's, and I try to remember this. So check him out, and remember that my endorsement doesn't necessarily mean I agree with him completely.

One time where I posted an excerpt from one of Kierkegaard's writings I received a comment from someone named Mister Beastly. At first I thought it was odd that someone who seemed to be claiming to be associated with 'the Beast' was agreeing with what I had to say. 'Either I seriously need to repent of my writings,' I thought, 'Or there is some kind of irony here I do not understand.' Maybe, to some extent at least, I was right! Mister Beastly is not afraid to take the appearance of a lowly sinner. His posts are not boastful about his accomplishments, if anything he seems to boast in his weakness. His latest post on finding a 'work ethic' is sneaky in the sense that it takes a basic life reflection and reveals the spiritual.

Disjectamembra and MereOrthodoxy are definitely two sites worth checking out. They tend to lean more toward the 'big ideas' than devotion, but sometimes I am surprised. Disjectamembra's writer has moved to another blog (the address is available if you go to his old blog). He has an art degree and a theology doctorate, so his writings are lively to say the least. Mere Orthodoxy is run by a group of my old college friends.

Anyway, I hope you like these folks. Their writings are worth a read!

The Tree

A man stands beside a tree. He is eating fruit. The fruit appears to have come off the tree. A man, Todd, and Denise, approach from stage right.

Todd: Look, Denise, a fruit tree.

Denise: Maybe that man will let us try some.

Todd: Excuse me, sir, could we try some of your fruit?

[Man tosses a fruit toward Todd]

Denise: This fruit doesn't look so good.

Todd: [Remarking as if to himself] Doesn't look ... like a pleasant meal. [Pauses ... then tosses it back]

Man: You'll never know how good it is until you bite into it with everything inside you.

Denise: And there isn't a lot of it there.

Man: There's plenty!

Todd: Plenty?

Man: Yes. Enough for everyone who is willing to eat it.

Denise: What sort of a tree is it anyway?

Man: [Seriously] This tree? It's the only one of its kind.

Todd: What kind is that?

Man: This is the tree of Life.

Denise: [Appearing very concerned, disapproving] I've heard about this one!

Todd: Warned is more like it.

Man: Who warned you?

Todd: Everyone does.

Denise: I heard it causes cancer.

Todd: I think maybe the CDC or FDA mentioned something about it.

Denise: I think a snake told me about it. He said we couldn't even touch it.

Todd: We shouldn't eat from an endangered tree.

Denise: Should we?

Todd: What happens if we eat from that tree?

Man: Then you will become like God's Son. You will have life abundantly.

Denise: [pauses] Who will we become like?

Todd: God is a myth invented to teach people right from wrong. We have already become like 'God'.

Man: Have you?

Todd: Sure. We have the knowledge of good and evil. It was such a great thing to learn. Think of all the things we got out of that.

Denise: Like what?

Todd: You've heard the phrase, 'Stolen water is sweeter than wine'?

Denise: Somewhere, I think.

Todd: We now know perfectly well how wrong stealing is, and that's why we can enjoy it so much. As long as we keep our intentions dark, everything we do can taste like stolen water.

Denise: You're right, that is really great.

Todd: And my favorite part about knowing good from evil is pretending like we're good people. Then we can look down on other people who do evil. That is the greatest evil of all, and the greatest pleasure in life.

Denise: You're so profound.

Todd: So why would we want to eat from this tree? What could it offer us that we don't already have?

Man: After all that there is still one thing that escapes you ...

Denise: ... what?

Man: Life.

[Denise and Todd groan.]

Todd: [to Denise] I don't want to spend the rest of my life out here wondering if I should eat this.

Man: This tree won't be here for long.

Denise: We should decide.

Todd: Maybe if my friends told me to eat it. Or an expert.

Denise: Maybe if I could still secretly worship money.

Todd: Maybe if I could continue having secretly suicidal thoughts.

Denise: Maybe if I could complain about it, just a little.

Todd: Maybe if it appeared to taste a little better?

Denise: Maybe if I could choose it, but in a luke-warm 'I didn't really mean it' kind of way.

Todd: Maybe if it would help me to live by routine, so I don't have to understand what it is I really want.

Densie: Maybe if I could say someone forced me to eat it.

Todd: Will you force us to eat this?

Man: No.

Todd: Please?

Man: No.

Denise: Oh I don't know.

Todd: What if ... if ... suppose we took a bag of them and pretended to eat them. When people asked what we were eating we could get all stoic and say, "Life ...". People would say, "He's eating that gross-looking fruit. He must be a rugged, macho guy." Then we could -I don't know- hit them up for a free drink or something.

Man: Or they might think you were very foolish for eating a fruit with this appearance.

Denise: Or what if we took a bag full and sold it on eBay. Sure it looks gross, but we could call it 'Life'. I bet some crazy people would pay a ton of money for it. Maybe even, like, sell their fields, you know, to buy it.

Man: ... or, if they're like most people they'd buy the fruit that looks good to eat. If you sell it to lunatics, well, lunatics usually don't have a lot of money.

Todd: I have another idea. What if we filmed ourselves putting it in a treasure chest, and then sailed out into the middle of the ocean. We would then sink the fruit to the bottom of the ocean. We could sub-title the film, "They gave away everything that mattered to them, even life itself ...". Everyone would feel sorry for us.

Man: I wonder if you would feel sorry for yourself.

Todd: [As if not listening to the man] ... We'd be rich and famous!

Denise: Or what if we made it into a commercial for saving the environment or maybe for curing an untreatable disease. We could say, 'Fighting pollution is more important than living.' That sounds profound to me.

Todd: A lot of very different ideas ...

Man: They sound the same to me.

Denise: In what way?

Man: Well, in every plan you never taste what life is like for yourself. You're mostly putting on a show to get attention and money.

Todd: Sure, [putting his arm around the man] we'd fool some people, but it would all be in good fun.

Man: Have you considered that maybe the person you would be fooling would be ... yourself?

Denise: I considered that once, then somehow I must have tried to forget it very quickly.

Todd: Hmm ... just like I'm already forgetting what you were trying to sell us here.

Man: I wasn't trying to ...

Denise: Let's go, Todd, before anyone else tries to scam us.

Todd: Just look at that fruit. What a scam.

Denise: Why don't you try selling it on Ebay?

Todd: Or making a film about your sad story?

[Todd and Denise laugh as they walk off stage]

The Wise And The Simple

When the child chatters away, his chatter is perhaps simple enough, and when the wise person says exactly the same thing, it has perhaps become the most ingenious of things.

This is how the wise person relates himself to simplicity. When he enthusastically venerates it as the highest, it honors him in turn, because it is as if, in him, the simple became something else, even though it in fact remains the same.

The more the wise person considers simplicity, then, ... the more difficult it becomes for him.

Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript

My wife and I recently watched a film about the life of a London art mueseum curator. He is so loathed by his coworkers for his simple, primitive ways that they will do anything to get rid of him.

A speaking invitation from southern California arrives requesting an art expert to give a speech. The occasion is the reception of a famous portrait from overseas. The museum staff sends the simple curator, because they consider him an annoyance.

The painting depicts whistler's mother. She sits in her colonial American garb looking to the left of the frame while casually rocking.

When the curator -who is a very simple man- stands up to give to give the speech everyone expects to hear him talk about the ideology behind the work or the technique of the artist.

The curator begins:

'My job is to go around ... and look ... at the paintings.'

Everyone is amazed. To just go around and look at the paintings? How primitive and yet how profound.

He continues in a similar way. Toward the end he says,

'This artist decided to paint a picture of his mother. Even though she was an old homely woman he still decided to paint her picture ... and I think that is marvelous.'


If a child had stood up and spoken in such a way, he would probably have been disregarded.

A sympathetic adult might have said to such a child, 'Your words were all very nice, but let us hear what wonderful things you'll have to share after you've studied art history.'

But when the simple man came and spoke simply under the banner of wisdom, everyone was amazed.

Jesus told his disciples that no one would enter life unless they made themselves to be like little children.

Consider a trained theologian who addresses other theologians and says, 'Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so'. His words seem very different from the words any child might say at Sunday school, and yet couldn't they be the same words?

Cannot we all become like little children?