John 15.1-8: You are the Branches

I am the vine, Jesus said. (John 15:5) And immediately our minds are off and running with images of vines and grapes, Communion and Jesus. But Jesus continues "...and you are the branches." The point of the conversation is the connection. 

Mosaic. Church of San Clemente, Rome. 12th or 13th century.

The apse mosaic in the Church of San Clemente in Rome is a crucifixion-turned-tree-of-life. From an acanthus plant at the foot of the cross grows a vine that curls around the crucifixion scene and throughout the entire half-dome of the apse. At the base of the plant four deer drink from the four rivers of paradise. And inscription at the bottom of the half-dome says [in part], Ecclesiam Cristi viti similabimus isti quam lex arentem, set crus facit esse virentem... (“We have compared the Church of Christ to this vine; the Law made it wither but the Cross made it bloom.”). Christ is the vine. 

And "You (we...the church) are the branches," Christ continues. The designers of the church seem to have gotten that second part, too. The circular vine pattern on the mosaic is echoed in the circular pattern of the floor mosaic running down the middle of the choir. The pattern visually connects the Christ-vine in the apse with the congregation-branches standing in the church. Connected. And if they aren't connected, then the branches, the congregation, can't do anything.

It's nice when the whole story gets told in the fabric of the building. 

 

Exodus 17 and John 4: Looking for a Big Nose

Everyone needs drinking water. Whether you are wandering through the wilderness (Exodus 17:1-7) or through the Samaritan countryside (John 4:5-42), you are going to need water. So you are always looking for a well or a river or some other way to stay hydrated. Clean, drinkable water means survival. No water...no survival.

In Rome, Italy, you won't need to look hard for clean, drinkable water. Around Rome are more than 2,500 public drinking fountains called nasoni (literally "big noses"). The fountains were first placed in the early 1870s. The nasoni are made of cast iron and deliver fresh, cold water that travels through 70 miles of channels from the Peschiera reservoir to and through the city of Rome. The water is free for everyone - fill your water bottle or drink from the fountain (you can plug the spout and the water will come out a small hole in the top like a drinking fountain). The column-shaped fountain like you see here is a mass-produced design from the 1930s. There were originally a number of sculptural spouts, including the she-wolf who represents Rome's beginnings, though many of those are no longer extant.

In the two texts for Lent 3A, one story tells of finding no water, the other tells of finding not only drinking water but eternal water. The nasoni would have solved part of the water issues facing the people of Exodus and John. There would have been no need to strike a rock. No need to pull up a bucket from a well. There's still only one source for that living water, though.

If you are headed to Rome, try the apps I Nasoni di Roma (Apple Store) or Fountains in Italy (Google Play) for a guide to nasoni locations.

For additional thoughts on Exodus 17, click here.
For additional thoughts on John 4, click here.

Micah 5.2-5a: O Little Town of Antwerp

The prophet Micah points to Bethlehem as the place of origin of the one who will rule Israel (Micah 5:2-5a). When Micah is quoted in Matthew's gospel the description includes the clarification that though Bethlehem is small, it is "by no means least" among the tribes. By no means least, because from Bethlehem - the city of David - would come greatness. In fact, the path of God's saving plan will go right through Bethlehem. Which for Pieter Bruegel looks an awful lot like a 16th-century village in Flanders. The architecture, clothing, activities, and landscape transport us immediately to the artist's time.

The Census at Bethlehem shows a small town filled with people and activity in the middle of winter. People have returned to Bethlehem to be counted, and people who live in Bethlehem are going on about their daily lives. Firewood is being unloaded from a cart. A pig is being slaughtered. Children are skating on the frozen pond. Snowball fights are going on. People gather around an outdoor fire and stand in line outside a pub. In all the activity, you might miss the man with his carpenter's saw leading a donkey on which a woman in blue is riding.

Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The Numbering at Bethlehem. Brussels: Musee Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique. 1566.

But that man and woman are the most important part of the picture. They are the means by which the salvation of the world will come from Bethlehem. And for Bruegel, the world that needs saving isn't just first-century Palestine. Bruegel includes details that echo the biblical story but are his contemporary experience. Though the painting refers to Luke's idea of a census or "numbering" bringing people to Bethlehem, there is in fact a tax collection going on at the window of the building on the left.

The collection of taxes by an occupying government was a familiar sight to Bruegel. At the time this picture was painted, Spain controlled the Netherlands. The Hapsburg kings who reigned in Spain levied heavy taxes not just on individuals but on the textile industry and on cities in the Netherlands in order to pay for Spain's ongoing wars. In Bruegel's painting the tax collector has hung out a sign with the double-headed eagle that was the emblem of the Hapsburg empire (detail above).

In addition to the contentious economic relationship between the Netherlands and Spain, there were also religious clashes between Roman Catholic Spain and an increasingly Protestant Netherlands. Philip II sent the Duke of Alva to the Netherlands to put down the religious rebellion. The Duke is said to have boasted that more than 18,000 Dutchmen died on the scaffold at his direction. Later estimates put the number of executions at 6,000. In a letter to his sister, Margaret of Parma, Philip II said that he would give up 100,000 lives (if he had them) to prevent the Protestant heresy from taking hold in the Netherlands (15 July 1562). In 1566 Bruegel painted a companion piece to the Numbering - Massacre of the Innocents - set in the same Flemish Bethlehem.

The Bethlehem of scripture was the same as Bruegel's village: no grand cosmopolitan place but a small town of ordinary people trying to live their ordinary lives while at the mercy of a government that controlled their lives. Nevertheless, the prophet assured Bethlehem that greatness was to come from her. And so it did. Do you live in Bethlehem?

For a poem that relates to this Bruegel painting, see this week's Art&Faith Matters post here.
For thoughts on Luke 1:39-45, click here.

Acts 17.22-31: An Altar Like That

Note: This is where we started. The first lectionary-related post on this blog was Paul at the Areopagus. It's been three years - one full lectionary cycle.  We'll start work on the second cycle, certainly with different art and often with a different scripture than was explored the first time around. I hope the posts are useful for you. Thank you for checking in on Art&Faith Matters.

Easter 6A's Acts reading has Paul at the Areopagus, making a case that Yahweh-Jesus is the God whom the Greeks previously didn't know (Acts 17:22-31). He calls attention to an altar he had seen on his exploration of the city's worship sites. The altar is inscribed "to an unknown god" according to Paul. Then Paul relates that he has come to make this formerly unknown god a Known God.

In the Palatine Museum in Rome is an altar bearing an inscription to that cited by Paul in Athens. The inscription begins "whether god or goddess" (si deus si dea), a phrase indicating that the deity is unknown. Often there would be a request that followed ("Whether you are a god or goddess that rules over Rome, grant us..."). 

For the Palatine Museum, see: https://parcocolosseo.it/en/area/museums/the-museo-palatino/

The wording on the altar, discovered in 1820, may have been an attempt to keep the identity of the local god a secret from enemies. If the god was unknown, the enemies could not call for divine intervention on their own behalf or call on their own gods to defeat the local gods. The inscription may have just been covering all the bases - no need to anger a god who has been forgotten. Whatever its origin, this altar (and there are others with similar inscriptions) helps us know a little more about what Paul might have been seeing.

Marking Time Until Easter

Finding a painting that captures the resurrection of Jesus in a convincing way is a daunting task. Jesus climbing out of a tomb or standing before a weeping Mary abound. But while they may accurately describe a scene, they don't (for me) capture the momentousness of the event. So for this week, we will consider art and faith beyond an illustrative image. See the Art&Faith Matters Facebook this week for some narrative images covering the events of Holy Week.

Diagonally across the floor of the nave of S. Maria degli Angeli in Rome is a brass line. The metal is inlaid and marked at intervals by words and images. Similar lines are found in the Basilica of San Petronio in Bologna, St. Sulpice in Paris and Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence. The reason they are there has to do with Easter. Specifically, calculating when Easter would be.

Unlike Christmas, Easter is not on a fixed day. Instead it is celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring equinox. The equinox is the day when the hours of the day are divided equally: 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of night. We consider March 21 as the equinox, but the true equinox is not always on March 21. Figuring exactly when the equinox would occur required a meridian line. Such lines were installed in many cathedrals, turning them into solar observatories.

The meridian line is half of the apparatus required to track the path of the sun (and the dependent celebration of Easter). The other required element is an oculus - a hole in the ceiling that serves as an aperture. The sun's rays shone through the oculus onto the meridian line, crossing the line at solar noon and over the course of the year, indicating both winter and summer solstices (the extreme ends of the sun's journey at the extreme ends of the meridian line) as well as the equinox at the midpoint of the meridian line.

The meridian lines really served more to confirm the accuracy of Gregorian calendar reform than to predict an unknown Easter date. Pope Gregory XIII instituted calendar reform in 1582 in an effort to stop the drift of events like the solstices and equinoxes. In that year, ten days were removed from the calendar so that Eastern and Western Christians would celebrate Easter on the same day. This intersection of sun and Easter was also an intersection of science and faith. The meridian lines were supported by the church authorities who were happy to be able to tell at a glance when Easter would be.

The meridian lines have not remained completely accurate. This is due not to any astronomical discrepancies but rather to the fact that some of these cathedrals are sinking. The measurements are no longer as accurate, meaning the sun shining through the oculus illuminates the floor near but perhaps not on the line. In some cases, the lines are now used as instruments to measure how the structure of the cathedral has shifted. The lines are still there, though, visible reminders of the movement of the universe that God created and then redeemed through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

All images are of S. Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri in Rome, Italy. (Top) The meridian line crossing the nave of the church. (Middle) Close-up of the meridian line with Easter - Paschae - identified. (Bottom) Exterior of S. Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri.

For thoughts on the followers who came to the tomb, click here.
For thoughts on Jesus' words to Mary, click here.

For thoughts on how we picture what Jesus did in his life, death and resurrection, click here.