I Peter 3.18-22: A Baptism Story

 A baptism story. Noah as a baptism story. The author of I Peter uses it as such to highlight the eight members of Noah's family who "were saved through water." (I Peter 3:20) This text is read on the first Sunday of Lent in Year B. In the early church, catechuments would have been preparing for their Easter baptism. So, a baptism story. Eight people were saved. 

We are used to seeing images of Noah's ark in baby nurseries, children's Sunday School classes, children's book illustrations. Cute giraffes stick their heads out of open windows. Elephants' trunks are visible. Birds of many kinds roost on the roofline of the ark. We've turned this story into a children's story because of animals and rainbows. 

Michelangelo had a different vision of the story. In the story as seen on the Sistine Chapel ceiling, the Ark is in the background. The focus of the story is the people in the foreground. 

Michelangelo Buonarotti. The Flood. 1509. Vatican: Sistine Chapel. 

People at the lower left are moving to higher ground, trying to escape the rising waters. They are carrying all manner of things. Some are carrying the things of this world: pots and pans, casks, bundles of clothing. In the middle ground at right another group of people are huddled on an outcropping of rock under a fabric shelter being blown by the rising wind. In the center of the composition a small boat begins to capsize.

The ark moves off into the distance, even as additional people stand on the raft base of the ark, imploring Noah to let them in. Noah, dressed in red, reaches a hand out of the right side of the ark, pointing to heaven. 

Where are the animals? Where is the rainbow? They aren't here. 

Michelangelo has made this story about human suffering. How does that fit with the idea of I Peter 3 as a baptism text? How do we acknowledge the saving nature of baptism and the continuing reality of human suffering? Do we baptize out of fear of divine judgement? The story is easier when we focus on the pandas and moose and zebras. 

I Corinthians 2.1-16: The Mind of God...Maybe

Who has known the mind of the Lord? asks Paul. (I Corinthians 2:16) Paul's question follows comments about wisdom - God's wisdom - and human understanding. Paul's phrasing seems to imply that no one has known the mind of God, though, he says, we have the mind of Christ. How could we human creatures possibly know the mind of God, or imagine that we, with our limited human understanding, could possibly think to instruct God. However, it doesn't stop people from wondering about the mind of God.

Michelangelo Buonorroti. Creation of Adam. Fresco. 1508-1512. Vatican: Sistine Chapel.

Michelangelo Buonorroti might be one of those people who was wondering. We're used to seeing Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling frescoes. The hands of Adam and God reaching out to one another have inspired movie posters (think E.T.), coffee mugs, t-shirts, and more. But recently the question as been asked if we've been missing a message left by Michelangelo all those centuries ago.

Does the Sistine Chapel ceiling show us the mind of God? Or at least the brain of God?

Here's a brain.

Do you think the flowing pink fabric behind God is designed and placed in such a way that it echoes the shape of the brain? We know that Michelangelo studied anatomy by dissecting corpses when he was as young as 18. Corpses of criminals were allowed to be dissected, and the artist reportedly received cadavers from the hospital at the Monastery of Santo Spirito in Florence, Italy. He also received special permission for additional anatomical study of cadavers. He probably knew what the brain looked like. Is this the artist's way of letting us see the mind of God active in the days of creation? 

We do see the mind of God in creation, as we see the mind of any artist in the works they produce. What does the creation - here, the creation of human beings - tell us about the mind of God? 

If you want to read more about this idea, search the internet for Michelangelo and concealed neuroanatomy.

For thoughts on Isaiah 58:1-12, click here.

For thoughts about salt in general (not specifically the Matthew passage), click here.

For thoughts on Matthew 5:15-16, see Art&Faith Matters on Facebook.

Ruth 3 and 4: Grandmother

The story of Ruth and Naomi culminates with Ruth's marriage to Boaz (Ruth 3:1-5; 4:13-17) and the birth of Obed. Obed's son will be Jesse. Jesse's son will be David. And Ruth and Boaz will be forever remembered as the grandparents of Israel's greatest king. But the grandmother who may be happiest is Naomi, whose biological relationship to Obed may be fairly distant.

Remember that Ruth is Naomi's daughter-in-law - no biological relationship - though the two women have chosen to make a family as mother and daughter. Boaz is related to Naomi in some way, though scripture doesn't specify what that is. He is identified by Naomi only as "our kinsman."

And yet the women said, "A son has been born to Naomi." A son. To Naomi. It has to do with lines of descent and family trees, of course, and it's wonderful that Ruth has given the gift of (grand)motherhood to Naomi.

Michelangelo Buonarotti. Salmon, Booz, Obeth. Sistine Chapel ceiling. 1508-1512. Vatican City.

Michelangelo included this part of David's (and Jesus') family tree in the lunettes of the Sistine Chapel. The lunette on the south wall contains the names of Salmon, Boaz, and Obed (though Michelangelo records the versions Booz and Obeth). To the left of the name plaque a woman holds close her swaddled child. A breast protrudes through her garment, indicating that she has recently nursed the child. This could be Ruth or Naomi (Ruth 4:16). Either way, this figure group is a very tender one, strangely juxtaposed with the old man who seems to face a carved image of himself.* 

It's a beautiful thing, this making of families of the heart. It will happen again at the foot of the cross. Jesus says to Mary, "Woman, here is your son." Then he said to the disciple, "Here is your mother." And a(nother) son has been given to Mary.


*The figure on the right has, sometimes, been identified as Boaz, but evidence to support that claim is weak. If not Boaz, though, the figure is difficult to identify.

What about the widow in Mark 8:38-44? Take a look at where she might have dropped her offering on this week's Art&Faith Matters' Facebook page.

Wandering Thoughts on the Face of God

The Exodus text for Proper 24A/Ordinary 29A/Pentecost+19A  (Exodus 33:12-23) is a visually rich text that is hard to capture. There is plenty to be seen in the story. The trick is figuring how to show it well. The artist might choose to show a man (Moses) hiding in a crevice of a rock. Showing a man being hidden by a giant hand seems more B movie than scripture. And the point of God's glory is that no one could see it and live, so trying to depict something of that scope with the limitations of paint or pencil or photography will probably yield results that are...anticlimactic.

Instead of the sweeping epic vista, then, we offer a few thoughts.

Instead of seeing the face (panim..a plural...faces!) of God, which cannot be seen, God tells Moses that he may see God's back after God's glory has passed by Moses (sheltered in the rock and behind God's hand). That is the normal order of things, but it is infrequent that the backside of God is mentioned in scripture or art. The most famous, perhaps, is one of the two images of God painted by Michelangelo on the Sistine Chapel ceiling's panel "The Creation of the Heavenly Bodies".

Michelangelo. Creating the Heavenly Bodies. 1508-1512. Sistine Chapel, Vatican. 

http://mv.vatican.va/3_EN/pages/x-Schede/CSNs/CSNs_V_StCentr_08.html

In that panel, God pictured on the right hurls the sun with his right hand and the moon with his left. Then, at the left, a second depiction of God gestures with the right hand to bring forth vegetation on the earth. Unusually, this second depiction on the left, shows not God's face as it is the other times God is painted. Rather here, what we see is God's backside. 

To be sure, Michelangelo's God, painted as Humanism takes Renaissance Italy by storm, has little to none of the glory that we might imagine from the Exodus account. In the Sistine Chapel, God is often seen floating on a cloud with an entourage of beings and a generous length of flowing garment, but this hardly seems to be so awe-full that no one could live who saw it.

Just as "face" is a plural", so, too, the Hebrew word translated "back" in the NRSV (achowr, plural of achoray) is also plural. In Exodus 33:23 tthe KJV translates the word "my back parts", retaining the plural sense. Jerome's Latin Vulgate uses the phrase "posteriora mea". The English form of this word, like its Italian cognate, posteriore, can mean a body part. Perhaps that is how it traveled to Michelangelo and was then put into the fresh plaster of the Sistine Chapel ceiling.

There is a place in scripture, associated with Moses and the Exodus, where the face of God is not hidden. In the priestly blessing of Numbers 6:24-26, the blessing is offered that the Lord's face will "shine upon you and be gracious to you" and that the Lord's countenance will "give you peace". Note, however, that there is no indication that the people should look at God's face while it is shining upon us or giving us peace.

A rabbi giving this blessing uses a certain gesture to accompany the blessing. Both hands are open, thumbs are touching, with forefingers almost forming a triangle. On each hand, the four fingers are separated into two groups of two fingers. When you see two hands (called Cohanic hands, spellings vary) on a Jewish gravestone you know it is the grave of someone who traces their descent from the priestly (cohen) tribe.

 

For thoughts on the gospel passage for this week (Matthew 22:15-22), click here.