Joseph and the Spirit

Christmas sermons, stories and songs don’t generally focus on Joseph. But then there is the nativity narrative found in Matthew. Because Joseph’s story demonstrates reliance on the provision of God, I must confess my own inability to worship God out of his abundance.

Here is a man who must take home a wife who is with child, a child not his own. But God’s command to Joseph goes further than the adoption that includes his Davidic heritage, he says to Joseph: when you fulfill your fatherly duty of naming this alien, give him the name I choose for him. Furthermore, this child will lead you to stables and through deserts. He will drink from your limited water supply and eat from your small table so that you and the world may know my abundance and grace.

Presently, we have two young adults living at home. There is my grown son and another who is not my own. To the son, all that is mine is his, I don’t expect him to restock the cereal, but I ask him to on occasion. To the other, I’m annoyed if she doesn’t replace a bar of soap. With the stranger I live in scarcity holding on to what belongs to kin. So, I ask myself, how did Joseph do it? The text gives us the key: “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.”

The Holy Spirit takes what is un-familiar, and seemingly un-related, in order to lead us to an abundant life with God, a life with Christ. Therefore, do not set to divorce, but rather take in what is not yours. With the Holy Spirit this axiom becomes fundamental to both art making and the Christian faith. Live life and make art out of God’s abundance.

Merry Christmas,
Maria

The Annunciation's Drama

A sort of advent ensues prior to a dramatic play. We make our way to the theater, purchase tickets, take our seats and wait for the curtain to rise. Yet something else transpires pre-show. We willingly put ourselves at risk for we know art has the ability to alter our belief systems— including the ways we view the world and ourselves. And thus it is so with Christianity, the world being altered by a true story. George Steiner goes as far to define the narrative of the annunciation as the scene of “gravity breaking into the small house of our cautionary being.” Indeed, beware of the angel’s announcement that the Holy Spirit is birthing something new in you, for as Simeon uttered to Mary, “A sword will pierce your own soul too.”

The Christian narrative asks us to give up our wants, or rather, re-align them with God’s. This push and pull is the formula for good drama. And what drama, as Lionel Trilling observes, “does not consist of the opposition of ideas?” Art unsettles. This is how it aids the arrival of Jesus. Art interrogates our ways of being, and hopefully, acknowledges our need for Him.

In literary terms, Edward Said would describe the “opposition of ideas” as “antithetical positions.” Here logic and reason dally with pure contingency. According to Said, this volatile combination generates meaning. And so in the logic of art making we become faithful through the contingencies. Faithful art provides meaning, produces new life, and breaks up the walls of our cautionary being.

Let advent and the annunciation enlarge you.

--Maria

Creativity and Incarnation; The message of Advent

In The Theater Essays of Arthur Miller the playwright describes a singular moment of artistic creation – the very first time in rehearsal that actor Lee J. Cobb actually became the character of Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman.

…Lee rose from his chair and looked at Milly Dunnock and there was a silence. And then he said, “I was driving along, you understand, and then all of a sudden I’m going off the road…”

And the theater vanished. The stage vanished. The chill of an age-old recognition shuddered my spine; a voice was sounding in the dimly lit air up front, a created spirit, an incarnation, a Godlike creation was taking place; a new human being was being formed before all our eyes, born for the first time on this earth, made real by an act of will, by an artist’s summoning up of all his memories and his intelligence; a birth was taking place above the meaningless traffic below… I knew then that something astounding was being made here. It would have been almost enough for me without even opening the play.

Miller’s fascination and wonder at witnessing a live artistic birth reveals a wonderful truth – that creativity and incarnation are intertwined. Many artists have experienced similar moments when time stands still and something new suddenly springs to life. It is what makes art so thrilling. The only fitting descriptive language that seems to suffice is the supernatural.

The beauty of Christ’s incarnation, which we celebrate at Advent, is that God chose to become like us, to identify with us, in order to save us. He did not come as a raging storm, smiting everything in His path. He came as Emmanuel, God with us. He felt what we feel and experienced what we experience. This is not the action of a remote and uncaring deity but of a lover doing whatever is necessary to rescue the beloved. Take away the incarnation and you drain the power of Augustine’s conclusion: “God is more intimate to me than I am to myself.”

--Steve Shaffer

Steve is a fellowship group director at Redeemer. This entry is excerpted from his presentation from the Living Room study series.

Galaxy Quest For the Artful Theologian

In my mind, I always envisioned a theologian as a real book-wormy pious person with no connection to anyone of the artistic bend. I am now of the opinion that all artists are secret theological agents.

I have a strange fascination with certain movies. Galaxy Quest (1999) starring Tim Allen and Sigourney Weaver is one of them. From a superficial standpoint, the movie is pretty silly. It starts out as a mocumentary of the Star Trek phenomenon. It sports stereotypical characters that were once a part of a popular TV series who now make a living signing autographs at space conventions. Through a crazy turn of events, these now washed up and embittered TV characters end up meeting real aliens who have been following their show for years reverently terming the wisdom from the program series "The Historical Documents". These perky extraterrestrials reveal that they have based their entire existence on whatever truths they had gleaned from the series' contents. In order to rescue the aliens from impending doom these faux-futuristic astronauts, with the help of some dedicated fans, end up using the wisdom from their experiences as actors on what they thought was a trite scripted series to save the day.

On some level, artists are the crazy TV characters embodying truths that are being observed by the outside world. Another generation will look at the products of the artists' efforts--for we are guardians of the ancient record. It is a record of galactic proportions. The artwork tells a story which is our theology in motion.

--Molly Franzone

Molly is a Filmmaker Vocation Group leader and has worked in children's television programing.

Holy Grounds: The Role of Place In Your Spiritual Life

What is holy ground for creative and spiritual people living in New York City? In Redeemer’s most recent writing workshop, we discussed having a special place carved out for God and for our writing.

Our apartments are cramped. Our lives are full of distractions. If we don’t carve out time and space for the things that really matter to us, it’s likely we’ll continually push them aside and never get around to them.

In the story of Moses and the burning bush (Exodus 3:1-12), God commands Moses: "Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground." God invites us to take off our shoes and encounter the Holy. In New York City, we can encounter God on the subway, in Central Park, and on our rooftops—but we have to pay attention; we have to open our eyes. Intentionally seeking out and creating sacred spaces, where we can read the Word of God and cry out to the Lord, helps us focus and tune in to God’s presence.

Setting up a room of one’s own, as Virginia Woolf might say, may also give us the impetus to write. New York City doesn’t always lend itself to quiet, private spaces but we can seek out a corner of our bed, a quiet nook in the library, or a cozy spot by the window of a coffee shop—our own sacred spaces for writing. Always writing in the same place and only writing in that place is a bit Pavlovian: over time, it triggers an automatic reflex to go into writing mode.

Where do you encounter the Holy? Do you have a sacred space carved out for quiet time with God? For your writing?

Writing prompt:
Write about your favorite sacred space in New York City.

—Stephanie Nikolopoulos

Stephanie is a leader for the Writers Vocation group and helped edit our literary magazine, RedeemerWrites.

A Pound of Nard

It’s funny how often I hear an artist say something like, “I wish I could stop being an artist, but it’s not possible…” Less funny is how often I feel this way myself. No matter how difficult it gets to simply keep making art in the midst of my busy, city life, there’s always a sense that I must continue to tell stories in song, film or on stage. I can’t throw aside the activity of developing characters or interpreting the dance of lyrics and melody anymore than I can stop eating, sleeping or breathing. Giving in to the fact of my particularity as an artist is both freeing and costly. Freeing, because I can immediately begin to joyfully explore and share my gifts; but costly because a life spent as an artist will ultimately require self-sacrifice in one way or another. Joy and sacrifice, freedom and great cost: these experiences are common to artists, but also to those who would follow Jesus with all their heart.

I love the story in John 12 of the radical and artful gift given to Jesus by Lazarus' sister, Mary. About a week before Jesus would be crucified He attends a dinner party with His friends (one of whom, Lazarus, Jesus had raised from the dead). At some point during the evening, Mary honors Jesus with a radically sacrificial and intimate gift by pouring out a year’s earnings worth of spiked nard (a costly perfume oil) on the feet of Jesus and completing her presentation by wiping His feet with her hair. No doubt, a hush fell over the room as the smell of the fragrance filled the house and Mary stood silent, her hair still wet with perfume. Mary’s gift was radical, sensual and even scandalous in her cultural setting.

In all accounts of this story, the first to speak were the disciples, scolding Mary for wasting the nard which could have been put to some practical use like feeding the poor. But Jesus receives the gift with heartfelt and solemn gratitude. For Him, Mary's gift came just in time. It was just the encouragement and solidarity He needed as He faced the reality of His own impending act of sacrifice. Mary's gift resonated both emotionally, spiritually and prophetically for Jesus, a comfort He would not receive from His sleeping disciples in Gethsemane. Despite the cost to herself or her reputation, despite her fear, Mary offered the gift she'd prepared, in all it's particularity, and it did not disappoint.

The gifts of the artist and their expression, worked out through obedience and faithfulness, are meant to bring healing and wisdom to the community of faith, to the neighborhood and to culture at large. The process of making art requires something of us. We must give ourselves over to the process in which we allow the art to be expressed. As Madeline L’Engle reminds us, art is incarnational, it impregnates us. Therefore, creation can become like a kind of sacrament, a sign of present grace and future glory. It is an act of worship on the part of the individual artist. Yet, in community, this sacramental act can be prophetic, making Divine truth newly apparent. This is the mysterious and essential work of the Holy Spirit, filling the house with the fragrance of our offerings. May it also fill our lives, our communities, and our cities.


Kenyon

An Intern's Musings

Within my first week in New York City as an Arts Ministry intern, I found myself sandwiched in the corner table of a Thai restaurant, deeply engaged in theological conversation with Kenyon and Maria while practically bursting with excitement about what the next four months of my life would entail. Little did I know that this conversation would contain one of the most influential pieces of wisdom I would take away from my entire season at Redeemer. After a brief ‘get to know you’ session, Maria went on to elaborate upon the amazing particularity of God’s delight in us as artists. She described a friend’s passion for needlework as an integral piece of her existence, explaining that God places these meticulous details into our image to rejuvenate and renew our hearts. I tried to mask my inner excitement with serious nods of agreement, but the newly introduced truth behind this statement rang in my ears for the coming months.

In David Taylor’s For the Beauty of the Church, Barbara Nicolosi also focuses on the specificity of artistic giftedness, saying “every one of us has to become an artist because the practice of art makes us focus on the details. Whether it’s gardening, or cooking, or needlepoint, or whatever it is that you do, everyone has to master the details of a craft in order to keep their life vibrant and their perception of God in the ‘tiny whispering sound’ keen.” The encouragement we receive from this reality is that even our smallest forms of self-expression shed light on the glory of our Father. In the Arts Ministry’s most recent gathering of The Living Room, we discussed the artist as theologian, reveling in the fact that God is even more committed to our artistic flourishing than we are. This means that every seemingly inconsequential piano recital, bouquet arrangement, incomplete song, dance class, embroidered handkerchief, or passion for painting ultimately brings joy to our Creator. We can now relax in our enjoyment of these gifts, no longer regarding them as superfluous or selfish, but as important and full of purpose.

Rachel Rogers