Chosen to Paint Creation

As the story goes, the King wanted his official portrait painted to hang in the Great Hall with his ancestors.  He sent out heralds to announce a great competition:  the winning artist would receive many guilders.  Famous artists submitted samples of their work–but the King’s choice ultimately lay with an obscure artist who got the dimensions and the flesh-tones in the best light…  Lessons for this weekend can go many ways, but almost all will center on God’s invitation to the least of us to paint Creation.  There are several variations on this theme…

The reading from the Book of Job (38:1-7, 34-41) is God’s reminder to complaining Job that Job’s not God, an awful thing for contemporary hearers to admit.  This is NOT the world according to Job!  So, if God is God, then we must be fellow Creatures along with Leviathan & Behemoth, walrus & carpenter…  Our human importance is established as we note that the Voice of the Whirlwind spoke personally to one of us.  It could make worship interesting to have one lector sternly read this passage, followed by a contrasting voice reading the Psalter (Psalm 104:1-9, 24, 35c).  United Methodists are referred to page 826 of the hymnal.

The Epistle is the Letter to the Hebrews 5:1-10, which recalls the ancient tradition of the high priest, chosen to be a go-between ‘twixt God and the People.  The writer maintains that the Christ is our ultimate high priest, who was perfected by his obedience and thus became a source of eternal salvation for US.  We too have been chosen to paint Creation, to remind tourists and historians alike what Goodness looks like!  Works in process, we’re not yet perfect; yet we trust that in our relationship with Christ we’re GOING there…

The Gospel, Mark 10:35-45, is an uncomfortable reminder that we all have Zebedee DNA in our genes (Jana Childers).  Seems that his kids, James & John, looked for special consideration in the Kingdom of God, sitting at Jesus’ right & left hands.  So don’t we all?  Some of it may be insecurity about our future: we live in uncertain times.  But Jesus calls disciples old ‘n’ new to offer an alternative to the nations whose rulers milk them dry:  he sets us free from that system in order to color Creation with bold strokes.

Rich with imagery, these passages remind me to color my preaching and teaching with bold strokes.  There’s nothing drab about our faith or our life in community, and we have opportunity to add drama to the unfolding Creation Story.  To whom will you be a high priest today?

Thanks be to God!                                   Horace Brown King

My thoughts about scripture assigned to the upcoming weekend can be found every Tuesday at this space on Facebook; or at horacebrownking.com