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December 14, 2008 The Inconvenient TruthA week after Thanksgiving, the AP wires ran this “special interest” story. A class ring lost for decades in an East Texas lake is back with its owner after turning up in a fish caught the day after Thanksgiving. Joe Richardson of Buna told The Associated Press on Wednesday that he wishes he knew "how many fish it's been in."Richardson was fishing at Lake Sam Rayburn about two weeks after his 1987 graduation from Universal Technical Institute in Houston when he lost the ring. The 41-year-old mechanic says on Nov. 28 he received a call from a fisherman who had reeled in a more than 8-pound bass. The ring that had been in the fish had "Joe Richardson" etched in the band. Richardson says the fisherman did an Internet search and made several calls before reaching him and returning the ring. Over the centuries there have been thousands of artistic renderings of this moment. The one that Pastor Brad and I have chosen is one of my personal favorites… one that the Passion Play 2010 group will have the opportunity to see because it’s painted on the wall of a monastery in Florence. 
The artist, Fra Angelico, was himself a monk. (As a complete aside… if you’ve ever seen the Italian liqueur in a bottle shaped like a monk’s habit with a belt around the waist… it’s because its name and the bottle honor this artist. Go tell your friends where you heard that piece of trivia!) At any rate, Fra Angelico lived and worked at a time when the style of painting was in a state of change. If you look at the front of your worship booklet, you’ll notice that this particular painting incorporates the realism and the use of perspective that the renaissance was bringing about. At the same time, today’s painting has a few remnants of Gothic or medieval art. For example, Mary still has a halo (signifying her holiness), she is wearing a blue robe (blue was the most expensive color of paint), and the perspective is skewed such that she is the prominent figure. If you look closely, you’ll notice that the figure of Mary is so large in comparison to the architectural background, Fra Angelico had to paint her sitting down because the ceiling isn’t high enough for her to stand up. As I said, I am a big fan of this painting. Yet, when I hear Luke’s Gospel, it’s not the image I have of Mary. Maybe because I was raised Protestant (and am not a Dominican monk like Fra Angelico), I imagine Mary as more human than she appears in this work and the work of other 15th Century artists. I picture Mary as a young girl, startled by a frightening albeit “angelic” creature, struggling to take in the message that certainly put her in a precarious position. Neither this image nor Luke’s Gospel give us any indication that she hesitated at all; yet, I imagine her being taken aback by this astonishing turn of events. In fact, I imagine that Mary was only able to respond as she did because, as our first reading says, she was “strengthened by God.” In my mind, that’s what it takes for a human being to focus on the blessing rather than the sure and certain inconvenience of it all. In that way, you and I aren’t so far removed from Mary. Not that we’ll ever be quite as blessed or as inconvenienced as she, but it is part of who we are as Christian people to embrace certain things as a blessing rather than as an inconvenience. In this small corner of the world… in the last several days… people have given money, bought coats, made food, set up tables, baked cookies, rehearsed the Sunday School children, cut ceiling tile, hung dry wall, ordered carpet, signed a contract for an elevator, and juggled schedules. Maybe none of us have responded quite as positively to all that as we’re told Mary did, but we’ve managed. I’m convinced that we’ve managed… just as Christ’s church has for centuries now… not because of who we are, but because the Spirit of the Lord is with us, too. In our image today, Fra Angelico paints Mary with a halo. Maybe she did have a holy glow about her in that moment… but not because of who she was, but because the presence of God made her holy. If Mary is human like you and me, then it’s certain that the presence of God makes us holy, too. In spite of all our hesitations… even with all our quirks and idiosyncrasies… God comes to us, says,“Greetings, favored one” and strengthens us to do what comes our way. Perhaps, then, remembering Mary’s annunciation, our prayer during this third week of Advent will be to find the blessing in life’s inconvenient moments...and to look for the holy glow about each one of us… a holy glow not because of who we are, but because the Spirit of the Lord is with us, too. |
St. Paul's Lutheran Church § 824 N. Lewis § Waukegan IL |
