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Here is a sampling of some of the messages that have made a special impact at CCiPH, and that have been transcribed or written in manuscript. Most weeks in our equipping assembly, at least one man has been asked to prepare a message that will build up believers. Often, the message is taken from the liturgical Gospel reading of the day, or it is a life message that God has been working into the fabric of that man. It is included here to build you up. |
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Art, Smeagol & the Gospel Message from Ben Gregory on January 4, 2004
"I'm harboring a fugitive--a defector of a kind, I hope you’ll forgive me, but I don’t plan to be terribly exegetical today. We’ll look briefly at a few passages from the Bible, but I don’t have a primary text that I’ll be working from this morning. Ever since Ken mentioned that he’d like to present the gospel at this meeting I’ve been wondering what that might look and sound like and I’ve struggled. I remember clearly what it looked and sounded like ten years ago when I was a young youth minister and people were projects and goals were measurable. But it’s been a long ten years and lots has changed for me. An idea that our little house church has been considering together very recently is that God is an artist and we are each of us his artwork. Paul told the believers in Ephesus that “we are God’s workmanship” (2:10) and I’ve heard that the Greek word that’s translated “workmanship” there is the same word from which we get our English word “poem.” Our friend Rebecca, who paints, says that the heart of art is expression--that even if no one ever looks at your painting and gets it, if you never sell a single piece it doesn’t matter. That there’s something inherently good in creating. For years God was an outline to me. Or worse, an argument I could win. He was objectively stated propositions and correct thinking and behavior. All of that seems insufficient to me now. What if the Kingdom of God isn’t an assembly line after all? What if it’s an artist’s studio where God takes people whom he’s already made holy and expresses himself through them? I don’t know a lot about art, but I do know that no two pieces are the same. And that my personal taste (or lack thereof) has nothing to do with a given piece of art’s validity. I went to the art museum here in town years ago. Seemed like a good cultural thing to do. We walked from room to room, floor to floor looking at pictures on the walls. Some of them were clearly the product of talented people, and whether I enjoyed looking at them or not I could see that they were art. But then we began to discover some that didn’t so much appeal to me. Big blue triangles with lines through them and splotchy things and I don’t remember what else. That’s when we left. In my mind if I didn’t get it--if it didn’t look like art to me--then it had no value and we were done there. Only in recent years am I realizing that I’ve spent a long time evaluating my brothers and sisters that same way. But we’re not the same. The art that God is making of my life doesn’t look like what he’s doing in Michael Wigle’s life. Or Ken Read’s. Or Holly Berno‘s. Or Chris Green’s. Or Polly Wilson’s. Or even my own wife’s. I think that’s pretty cool. Imagine if Coltrane had been required to sound like Charlie Parker. I would also guess that art is a bit unpredictable. I don’t know, but I doubt that any artist (poet, painter, photographer, songwriter) who sets out to create knows with any certainty what the outcome will be. And while God sees our reality, we only rarely get glimpses. This shift in my approach to God is changing my approach to myself too. And one of the things that I’m realizing is that for me story communicates the gospel better than an explanation. All of this to say that what I’m about to show you isn’t the gospel. But for me communicates it better than I ever could. Maybe you’ll see it too. (show clip. Scene 29. 2 minutes, 30 seconds) Gollum: We wants it. We needs it. Must have the precious. They stole it from us. Sneaky little hobbitses. Wicked. Tricksy. False. Smeagol: No, not Master Gollum: Yes, Precious--false. They’ll cheat you, hurt you, lie. Smeagol: Master’s my friend. Gollum: You don’t have any friends. Nobody likes you. Smeagol: Not listening--I’m not listening. Gollum: You’re a liar and a thief. Smeagol: No. Gollum: Murderer. Smeagol: Go away. Gollum: Go away? Smeagol: I hate you. I hate you. Gollum: Where would you be without me? Gollum! Gollum! I saved us, it was me. We survived because of me. Smeagol: Not anymore. Gollum: What did you say? Smeagol: Master looks after us now. We don’t need you. Gollum: What? Smeagol: Leave now and never come back. Gollum: No. Smeagol: Leave now and never come back. Gollum: (Growls) Smeagol: Leave now and never come back! We told him to go away and away he goes Precious! Gone gone gone! Smeagol is free! There it is. “Smeagol is free.” The essence of the Gospel as best as I can tell is that the Master takes my broken desperate life, makes me into something into new, calls me by another name and refuses to look back. No longer am I Gollum, twisted and enslaved. Jesus frees me to be the Smeagol that I was created to be. Paul told the followers of Jesus in Corinth that “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come.” (2 Cor 5:17) That’s true whether I feel like it or not. Whether in a given moment in time I behave like it or not. No matter how much the old man wants to be alive. No matter how many times he tells me, “You’re a liar, and a thief. Murderer,” and no matter how many times he says, “You don’t have any friends--nobody likes you,“ and no matter how true any of that used to be, that person is dead. Gone, gone, gone. Those of you who have seen the “Lord of the Rings” movies or read the books know that things don’t end well for Gollum. He becomes overwhelmed by his love for the Ring and it destroys him. And I have days when I feel like that. When I’m convinced that my inability or unwillingness to tell that old man to “leave now and never come back” today is going to blow the whole thing. But listen to Paul again, this time writing to believers in Rome. “I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angles nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom 8:38-39) See, he who promised is faithful. No matter what you think of yourself, no matter what kind of week you had, no matter how discouraged you get, no matter how desperate you are for some signs of what we call growth, he refuses to call you by your old name. That’s not who you are anymore. Followers of Christ aren’t sinners who happen to have been let off the hook. You are not “just forgiven.“ You are an entirely new creation. I bang on a guitar occasionally, but I’m not a “guitar player.” (Just ask Ken) It’s not who I am. Mark’s a guitar player. I play basketball from time to time, but I am not a basketball player. And even though I still find myself sinning sometimes, I am not a sinner anymore. It’s not who I am. The gospel, simply, is that Jesus died to make me someone else. The master looks after us now. |
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