Advent 4B: A House in Ruins

Jesus is born in Bethlehem because Joseph was of the house and lineage of David. Bethlehem is where King David was born and grew up, so it became known as the city of David.  The idea of "house" here has to do with family, similar to the "house" reference in Luke 1:33 (He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end). In 2 Samuel 7, though, "house" really does refer to a structure. Famously, David announced that he would build God a house. Then in a conversation reminiscent of "Who's on First?" God and David have a conversation about house (building) and house (dynasty). Ultimately, of course, it is David's son Solomon who builds God a house (building). Through Joseph, Jesus is born into a family and in a structure - both the house of David and a house in Bethlehem. But what kind of house? 

When you picture a nativity scene, how do you imagine the structure? Barn, shed, lean-to, cave? It has been imagined in all those ways. Artists use the structures of their own time and place as the setting for the birth of Jesus. Which means that Martin Schongauer puts the nativity under a Gothic arch and vault (below).

Schongauer, Martin. The Nativity. c. 1470-75. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art.

Despite the variety of architectural styles, however, the artists of many historical images paint the stable, shed, cathedral, etc., as a ruin. The ruins symbolize humanity in need of redemption. The ruin is the state of the world. This child Jesus, a new thing, comes to us in the midst of life that falls apart, that decays. We may even hear an echo of Jesus' misunderstood (at the time) comment about the temple that he would rebuild in three days (John 2:19). The ruined building may also remind us of Jesus' comment that one day not one stone would be left atop another in the temple complex. (Matthew 24:2; Mark 13:2). 

Do contemporary artists include the ruined house? Does such an inclusion make the work stronger in terms of how it shares the meaning of Christ's birth? Does the ruin detract from the action of the story. Do you have a preference as to whether Jesus is born in(to) a ruin or not? It's another detail to look for on the Christmas cards you give and receive and the art that you consider this time of year. 

Haggai 1.5b-2.6: Seals and Signets

How do you know it's real? How do you know that you've gotten the word straight from the mouth of the horse...or king...or God? One way is that the one in authority has a stamp, a seal, a signet. When a document bears the proper stamp, seal, or signet, the hearers/readers know that the contents are real and true.

Darius had a seal:

The Darius Seal. 6th century BCE - 5th century BCE. Chalcedony and prase. London: British Museum. 

The cylinder seal is rolled across (and pressed into) the clay or wax that sealed a document. Darius' official seal shows the ruler in a chariot driven by a charioteer and pulled by two horses (two heads are shown but only one body). A lion stands on its back feet facing the chariot, and a lion cub is face-down on the ground under the horses' hooves. Above the scene is a winged sun-disc form that is part  bearded male but also has wings and a tail. There is a ground line on which grow fruit-laden palm trees and vertical inscription panels. The inscriptions, written in Old Persian, Babylonian, and Elamite say: I (am) Darius, the king. The Babylonian translation says, "I [am]Darius, the king. The Babylonian adds "great" before the word king.

Darius was able to use this cylinder to stamp an impression that everyone understood as a sign that the accompanying message was authentic. Interestingly, later in Haggai 2, this idea of a means of identifying authentic messages comes up again. Haggai 2:20-23 says:
20 The word of the Lord came a second time to Haggai on the twenty-fourth day of the month: 21Speak to Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, saying, I am about to shake the heavens and the earth, 22and to overthrow the throne of kingdoms; I am about to destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the nations, and overthrow the chariots and their riders; and the horses and their riders shall fall, every one by the sword of a comrade. 23On that day, says the Lord of hosts, I will take you, O Zerubbabel my servant, son of Shealtiel, says the Lord, and make you like a signet ring; for I have chosen you, says the Lord of hosts.

Zerubbabel becomes God's signet ring. Not a stone cylinder but a living human.

Is this Zerubbabel's Temple? See this week's Art&Faith Matters on Facebook.
For additional thoughts on Haggai 1:5b-2:6, 2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17, and Luke 20:27-38, click here. 

Luke 2.41-52: The People in Church

English artist William Holman Hunt painted "The Finding of the Saviour in the Temple" as part of his effort to revitalize Biblical subjects in art. He traveled to Jerusalem, used local people as models, and attempted to inject symbolism into every choice he made when painting Biblical subjects. From the story of Jesus at age twelve (Luke 2:41-52), Hunt has chosen to paint the moment when anxious parents Mary and Joseph are standing at Jesus' side. The artist has not focused on Jesus' discussion with the rabbis, but the rabbis' presence at the left of the canvas witnesses to the discussion that happened before parents and child were reunited.

Hunt's painting interprets this story as an exploration of how the old meets the new. On the frame, the left side's brazen serpent (Moses in the wilderness) is balanced with a cross (the new means of "healing"). At the top center the rising sun (Christ) eclipses the light of the moon (the Torah). In the painting itself, outside the room where the conversation is happening, workers are completing the physical building of the temple and a blind man sits on the steps. Meanwhile, on the gold plate behind the head of Jesus is an inscription in Latin and Hebrew: And the LORD, whom you seek, shall suddenly come to his temple (Malachi 3:1).

Seven rabbis sit in the covered porch surrounded by their aides and attendants, including a group of musicians. The group of religious officials wraps around behind the three members of the Holy Family. Though the group visually moves behind Mary, Joseph and Jesus, the family is not really embraced by them. The rabbis in the lower left represent different responses to Jesus. The rabbi closest to us has his right arm wrapped around the Torah. His eyes appear sightless, so he literally cannot see what is before him and instead blindly clings to what he has known. Next to him (to the right of the rabbi for the viewer) sits a second rabbi holding a phylactery box (containing parchment scrolls on which are written verses of the Torah). This rabbi has turned his face, looking toward the blind rabbi and away from Jesus. He has chosen not to see Jesus but instead pats the hand of the (seemingly) older man as if to reassure him. The upper body of the third rabbi leans forward toward Jesus in a more aggressive position. We can imagine that he is the one who has been debating with Jesus and has only stopped the debate because of the arrival of Mary and Joseph. The fourth rabbi leans back, away from Jesus as if stepping back - disengaging - in order to judge. He wears a broad phylactery (remember Jesus' comment on broad phylacteries in Matthew 23:5) on his forehead, so that others may see his piety at all times. A fifth rabbi sits comfortably on his cushion, a bowl of something in his left hand, raised halfway to his mouth. A sixth rabbi leans around as if trying to see what Mary is saying to Jesus. The seventh rabbi sits almost Buddha-like, solid, comfortable and seemingly unmoving.

One of the men cannot see Jesus because he continues to cling to what he knows. Another is busy consoling the blind one. A third aggressively argues with Jesus. One sits back waiting, wanting to be seen as holy, several look satisfied with where and who they are and seem unwilling to take any action or any risk in order to respond to Jesus in a meaningful way.

It's too easy to make this about rabbis, though. If Jesus walked into your church building, what people would he meet? Those who cling to the culture they know rather than who Jesus is? People who are happy to hold on to religious things while reassuring others that nothing will change? Would Jesus find people who would argue with him about his teachings?  Would Jesus find people who are comfortable and satisfied with the status quo because it has benefited them, so they aren't interested in being stirred to actually do anything?

Twelve-year-old Jesus wasn't the kind of Messiah that the rabbis in the temple were expecting. And the artist himself drew parallels between these rabbis and clergy of his own day. But it isn't just about clergy. It's about all the people of God and how we respond when faced with Jesus, whatever his appearance.

Above: William Holman Hunt. The Finding of the Saviour in the Temple. 1854-55. Birmingham (England) Museum and Art Gallery.

For additional thoughts on Luke 2:41-52, click here.
For further details on this painting, see this week's Art&Faith Matters' Facebook page.

2 Samuel 7.1-11, 16: Building or Growing

David wants to build a house for God. After all, God's people are settled in their land. God - who tabernacled with the people in the wilderness - should get to settle down, too. That's where we find ourselves in the reading from Hebrew scripture for Advent 3B (2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16). The "Who's on First" nature of the conversation reveals two different approaches to establishing a house.

David intends to build God a house. A grand temple. A cathedral. Ultimately his son will be the one to do that, but David has the intention. Bricks, mortar, stone, doors, doorposts, a roof. David wants to construct a building appropriate for the God of creation. It's how humans think.

God has a different thought. God will create the house of David through growth - children, grandchildren, and, ultimately, a baby born to Mary and her husband Joseph (who was of the house and lineage of David).

The ultimately-constructed house for God is a visual for another day. The house of David that is grown by God finds familiar form in the Advent season: the Jesse Tree. Jesse, the father of David is usually depicted at the root of the tree (see Isaiah 11:1...A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots). On the Jesse Tree are images or symbols of the descendants of David, who are also the ancestors of Jesus: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Habakkuk. The Jesse Tree also looks back to earlier Biblical characters: Moses, Ruth, Gideon, Noah, Rahab.


Shown here are two different artistic visions of the Tree of Jesse. The top image is a 12th-century stained glass window at Chartres Cathedral in France. Jesse is at the root with a series of humans sit on the trunk of the tree (like Zacchaeus, maybe?), proceeding in an orderly fashion up to Jesus who sits at the top of the tree with a dove descending on his head. The tree shape is reminiscent of a pine or palm or other tree with a straight trunk and less emphasis on branches. No doubt the design was influenced by the space available in the lancet window of the Gothic cathedral.

The bottom image is a Netherlandish one attributed to the circle of artist Geertgen tot Sint Jans dated c. 1500. Jesus' ancestors are perched on tree branches in a variety of poses: kneeling, standing, ankles crossed, with a falcon on one arm. The figures are dressed in striped hose and embroidered tunics that probably have more in common with the kings of Geertgen's day than with those of Jesus' or David's day. The top of Geertgen's tree is crowned with a blond Mary holding a blond baby Jesus on her lap.

"I will make you a house," David says to God.
"No," God says, "I will make you a house."
David would have built.
God chose to grow.

For Chartres Cathedral, click here. For the circle of Geertgen Tree of Jesse (Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum), click here.

For another architectural element that links the ideas of buildings and David and the infant Christ, see this week's Art&Faith Matters Facebook page. 

For thoughts on the Gospel reading for Advent 3B (Luke 1:26-38), click here.

Luke 2.41-52: A Twelve-Year-Old Jewish Boy

The gospel reading for Christmas 1C (Luke 2:41-52) gives us the only story of the young Jesus in the canonical gospels. In the story, Mary and Joseph think that Jesus is traveling home with family members or friends, only to discover that he is nowhere to be seen. After searching "diligently" they find him in the temple, having theological conversation with the teachers there.

It is another of the stories that has probably lost some of its shock value over time. Of course the son of God would be disputing (one of the formal names for images of this subject is "The Disputation") with human teachers of faith. And yet the story - and images of it - have the power to raise conversation...and disputes.

German painter Max Liebermann created a painting of the subject exhibited at Munich's First International Art Exhibition in 1879. In the painting (below left), the young Jesus sits among the rabbis in a temple. The temple here is a combination of elements from synagogues that the artist visited as he was preparing the composition and subject. The curved staircase is a reference to the16th-century Levantine Synagogue in Venice. The paned window on the upper edge of the painting echoes the windows of the Portuguese Synagogue of Amsterdam, which the artist visited in 1876. His models for the rabbis were Christians and for the young Jesus an Italian boy, choosing these models to avoid the "danger of caricature." He did studies of the figures and exhibited the painting for the first time at the International Exhibition.

(Left) Max Liebermann. The Twelve-Year-Old Jesus in the Temple. 1879. Oil on canvas. Hamburger Kunsthalle. For the Hamburger Kunsthalle, see: http://www.hamburger-kunsthalle.de/index.php/home_en.html (Right) Liebermann. Study for The Twelve-Year-Old Jesus in the Temple. 1879. Crayon over Pencil. Kupferstichkabinett. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. For the study, see: http://www.smb-digital.de/eMuseumPlus? service=direct/1/ResultLightboxView/result.t1.collection_lightbox.$TspTitleImageLink.link&sp=10&sp=Scollection&sp=SfieldValue&sp=0&sp=1&sp=3&sp=Slightbox_3x4&sp=0&sp=Sdetail&sp=0&sp=F&sp=T&sp=0

The painting was reviled. Liebermann's painting portrays a Jesus who was not a precocious theological talent outshining the Jewish scholars. Instead, what critics saw was, as art critic Friedrich Pecht wrote, "the ugliest, know-it-all Jewish boy imaginable." Pecht described the scholars as "a rabble of the filthiest haggling Jews." So outraged were German sensibilities that the painting and its creator were discussed in the German parliament, with the resulting opinion that perhaps future exhibition organizers would take an artist's religious sensibilities into consideration before exhibiting their work.

You see, Liebermann was Jewish. And in the third quarter of the 19th century, anti-Semitism was on the rise in Germany. The root of the problem was that Liebermann (a Jew) had painted a Jewish Jesus talking with rabbis who were listening to the child - perhaps not convinced by his argument but considering it. The usual approach to the subject was to contrast Jesus - a beautiful youth - with temple officials caricatured by gross and exaggerated features. As you consider the image here, though, you may be wondering about the uproar. In the years after the painting's premiere, the artist attempted to ameliorate the vicious comments by overpainting the figure of Jesus. The Jesus of the painting we see today is using his hands with restraint and has changed from a dark-haired boy into this blond-haired cherub. The drawing on the right is a preparatory sketch for the original composition.

Liebermann's approach was to include the most "real" persons, places and things in his telling of this story. For his efforts, Liebermann's painting was dismissed by critics like Anna Jameson in her book Legends of the Monastic Orders (1900). Her assessment was that Liebermann (and several of his contemporaries who shared his approach) had "translated into uninteresting prose an incident which belongs essentially to the realm of poetry." For the painting's original audience, it wasn't enough for Jesus to be shown as a 12-year-old boy who was listening, asking questions and amazing adults with his understanding and answers. Even though that is how Luke's gospel describes the event.

Max Liebermann resigned (before he could be dismissed) from his position as president of the Prussian Academy of Arts in 1933 because the Academy could/would not exhibit work by Jewish artists. Liebermann died in 1935. In 1940 his widow was forced to sell (to the German government) the Liebermann summer residence, a villa in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee. The Liebermann villa is only a hundred yards from the villa where the Nazis held their infamous Wannsee Conference - where the subject was Hitler's "final solution". After which there was, jumping to an echo of the Bethlehem of Matthew's gospel, the sound of Rachel weeping for her children.

For the Levantine Synagogue, see: http://jvenice.org/en/levantine-synagogue
For the Portuguese Synagogue, see: http://www.portugesesynagoge.nl/eng

On the Art&Faith Matters Facebook page, see this version of the Nativity. Click here.

For additional thoughts on Luke 2:41-52, click here.

Bringing Children into this World

Fair warning. This week's post is more reflection than exegesis. While browsing images for both the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, the pairing of the texts for Proper 28B/Ordinary 33B/Pentecost 25 (I Samuel 20:4-20 and I Samuel 2:1-10 along with Mark 13:1-8, especially verses 1 and 2) led to the thoughts here.

"For this child I prayed." The phrase is actually between the two passages from I Samuel for this week. But it remembers the first while anticipating the second. Hannah prayed for a child and God finally answered her prayer. This child, I prayed. Hannah's prayer continues to echo in faithful, hopeful, often-disappointed hearts to this very day.

"Not one stone will be left." Jesus reminds the disciples (and us) about the fragility of our world. All we need do is look around to see that Titus as a type still exists in our world. Titus who laid siege to Jerusalem, finally breached its walls, marched into the city and destroyed the Temple. Almost every stone.

As I pondered these scriptures it occurred to me that we continue to pray for children to come into the world even as we know that this world is a fragile place, often especially dangerous to the very children we ask God to give us. But we continue to ask.

Despite the Tituses. Despite the destruction. Despite the danger. Despite those who lead others astray. Despite the wars and the rumors of wars. Despite nation fighting nation and kingdom fighting kingdom. Despite earthquakes. Despite famine. Despite it all. We continue to ask for children and God continues to answer that request. Children continue to be brought into this world. This world. Not the next, not another. This world.

Pictures above: (top) Prayed-for Child. Photo (c) Lynn Miller. (below) Francesco Hayez. The Destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem. 1867. Venice: Gallerie delle'Accademia.  http://www.gallerieaccademia.org/?lang=en

See how this painting (Bosch's Adoration of the Magi) relates to the story of Hannah at the Art&Faith Matters Facebook page.

For additional thoughts on Hannah, click here.

John 2.13-22: Not in Front of the Children!

What do we do with the Jesus in the gospel reading for Lent 3B? John 2:13-22 shows us a side of Jesus that is rarely seen. Perhaps because it's not often seen, it's not always successfully depicted. The action is in the turning over and driving out, so a single stop-action art image doesn't always capture the unexpected ferocity.

Giotto created a panel with this subject in his series of frescoes in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua. That the artist chose this subject is interesting because of the chapel's history. Commissioned by Enrico Scrovegni, the chapel honors the Scrovegni family, a family that made its fortune in banking by, as was a usual if not especially moral banking practice at the time, charging usurious interest rates. So well-known a usurer was Reginaldo Scrovegni (Enrico's father), that he appears in the seventh ring of Hell in Dante's Inferno. If the chapel was built to atone for family sins, the choice of this episode brings pause.

Giotto's version of this story is much like others': animals and cages, people standing, architectural enclosures. Jesus has indeed made a whip, though it is quite light and not easily seen from a distance. Because the whip is barely visible, Jesus appears to be preparing to throw a punch. The whip is also short - looking more like a swinging necklace than something that would make grown men turn and run. To the right side of the composition, temple officials are huddled with their heads together, no doubt censuring and criticizing.

Giotto di Bondone. Expulsion of the Merchants. c. 1305. Padua: Scrovegni Chapel. http://www.cappelladegliscrovegni.it/index.php/en/

Consider, though, what is happening at the left. Jesus' eyes, his arms and his energy are all moving toward the right, but at the left are the disciples. Identifiable across the fresco cycle by their halos and clothing, the disciples offer shelter and comfort to two children who are moving away from Jesus. A child holding a dove stands in front of Peter. The child is not completely painted and fades into ghostliness. The other child's face is completely hidden in the robe of another disciple, a small hand clutching a fistful of tunic, while the disciple puts a comforting hand on the child's shoulder and back.

Wait! Wasn't it the other way around earlier? In the synoptic gospels the disciples try to keep the children away from Jesus, but Jesus calls them to himself. (Matthew 19:13-15; Mark 10:13-16; Luke 18:15-17) Here, though, the disciples are the ones who console the children. What are we to do with Jesus in this text?





Art&Faith Matters Facebook post uses Hieronymous Bosch's painting "The Ship of Fools" as an entree into the Epistle reading for Lent 3B.