THE BEAUTY OF THE LORD
a sermon by wayne mclaughlin
Third Sunday after the Epiphany
January 26, 2014
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HEBREW SCRIPTURE READING
Psalm 27.1, 4-9
1 The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?
4 One thing I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after:
to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,
to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple.
5 For he will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble; he will conceal me under the cover of his tent; he will set me high on a rock.
6 Now my head is lifted up above my enemies all around me, and I will offer in his tent sacrifices with shouts of joy; I will sing and make melody to the Lord.
7 Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud, be gracious to me and answer me! 8 “Come,” my heart says, “seek his face!” Your face, Lord, do I seek. 9 Do not hide your face from me. Do not turn your servant away in anger, you who have been my help. Do not cast me off, do not forsake me. O God of my salvation!
GOSPEL READING Matthew 4.12-23
12 Now when Jesus heard that John was arrested, he went to Galilee. 13 He left Nazareth and settled in Capernaum, which lies alongside the sea in the area of Zebulun and Naphtali. 14 This fulfilled what Isaiah the prophet said:
15 Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali, alongside the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles, 16 the people who lived in the dark have seen a great light and a light has come upon those who lived in the region and in shadow of death.
17 From that time Jesus began to announce, “Change your hearts and lives! Here comes the kingdom of heaven!”
18 As Jesus walked alongside the Galilee Sea, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew, throwing fishing nets into the sea, because they were fishermen. 19 “Come, follow me,” he said, “and I’ll show you how to fish for people.” 20 Right away, they left their nets and followed him. 21 Continuing on, he saw another set of brothers, James the son of Zebedee and his brother John. They were in a boat with Zebedee their father repairing their nets. Jesus called them and 22 immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.
23 Jesus traveled throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues. He announced the good news of the kingdom and healed every disease and sickness among the people.
***
An Ugly Bible?
When I was in college I read a book by the mathematician/philosopher Bertrand Russell entitled, Why I Am Not A Christian. He said one of his reasons for rejecting Christianity was that it doesn't appreciate Beauty. Well, is he right?
If you look at the Book of Proverbs in the Hebrew Scriptures, you'll find this verse: Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain. (31.30) That pretty much sums up much of the Bible's attitude toward beauty. Of course the Bible is paranoid about beautiful women. Another verse in Proverbs says: Do not desire her beauty in your heart, and do not let her capture you with her eyelashes. (6.25) Those seductive women—you have to watch out for them! This verse from Proverbs has always been one of my favorites: Like a gold ring in a pig's snout is a beautiful woman without good sense. (11.22)
When we turn to the New Testament, we find a similar suspicion of outward beauty. 1 Peter 3.3-4, written to wives, says: Do not adorn yourselves outwardly by braiding your hair, and by wearing gold ornaments or fine clothes; rather, let your adornment be the inner self with the lasting beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in God's sight.
Eye v. Ear
The Bible's seeming lack of appreciation for beauty is partly due to the Hebraic mindset. Eugene Peterson points out in his book Working the Angles that the Hebraic culture revolved around the auditory, whereas the Hellenistic culture revolved around the visual. The Greeks had statues all over the place. The stage—the theater—was big for them. And the naked human body was to the Greeks a work of art. That culture was oriented toward the visual. Not so with the Hebrew culture. Hearing the Word was primary with the Jews. The Shema from Deuteronomy six begins, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one Lord."
The Jews were suspicious of visual images. The very first commandment told them not to make graven images. In the story of Adam and Eve the storyteller says, "So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes...she took of its fruit and ate." (Gen. 3.6) It was the visual dimension of the temptation that is recounted. God had spoken to them...They had heard God with their ears...But the tree was seen with the eyes. In the Hebrew mind it is the visual that gets people into trouble. Therefore, beauty is not highly prized.
It should come as no surprise, then, that Isaiah, in the fourth Suffering Servant Song, says that the coming Messiah will not be beautiful:
For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. (53.2, NRSV)
Compare the translation of the New Jerusalem Bible:
Like a sapling he grew up before him, like a root in arid ground. He had no form or charm to attract us, no beauty to win our hearts.
Isaiah is saying that the coming of the Servant of God (the Messiah) will not be with outward beauty, but with the inner power of God's Spirit. Our speculative pictures of Jesus portray him as good looking guy. But according to the Scripture's messianic vision, we should not expect a particularly attractive man.
Bolding the Beauty
Which brings me to our text for the day. From Psalm 27:
One thing have I asked of you, Yahweh, this I seek: to dwell in your house all the days of my life, to behold your beauty and to contemplate on your Temple.
The Psalmist wants to be in the presence of God, and to gaze upon the beauty of God. The beauty of God.
What does that mean? God is not visible. How do we "see" the beauty of God? The great medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas said:
The highest beauty is in the Godhead, since beauty consists in comeliness: but God is beauty itself, beautifying all things.
God is Beauty itself!
Another great theologian of the Christian Tradition is St. Augustine. He pursued God with all his might and all his intellect. In his writing called The Confessions, Augustine speaks to God and says,
Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient yet ever new, late have I loved you! You were inside me all the time but I was running around outside. I was looking for you outside and, ugly as I was, I threw myself at all those beautiful things that you had made. [Confessions of St. Augustine, 10.27]
He addressed God as ‘Beauty.’ Have you ever called God ‘Beauty’? It might be interesting for all of us the rest of this month, as we pray in private, to address God as ‘Beauty.’ For example: "O Beauty, I thank you for the your presence."
Augustine found God within. He found God to be the beauty within himself!
One more quote. The 17th century English mystic, Thomas Traherne, wrote:
To know God is to know goodness. It is to see the beauty of infinite love.
The beauty of infinite love!
The Attractive Cross
The beauty of God may be that quality of God that attracts us toward the Divine. What comes to my mind is something Jesus said in John's gospel:
And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself. (12.32)
Jesus is referring to his death—being lifted up on the cross. That event, he says, will draw all people to him. The cross will have a drawing (or attracting) power.
Nowhere are the graciousness and the goodness and the favor of God shown so clearly and intensely as on the cross of Calvary. There, outside Jerusalem, the Messiah, described by Isaiah as a "non-attractive" person—there on the cross, is an ugly scene, and yet, a beautiful scene. Somehow in the ugliness of that execution we who see with eyes of faith are able to see the beauty of God. Paul writes to the Corinthian believers and says that the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. (1 Cor. 1.18)
In the same way we could say: the ugliness of the cross is the beauty of God to those who have been caught up in the process of redemption.
Burning Beauty
Years ago I heard the story of a woman who recounted a terrible thing that happened when she was just a little girl. She and her younger brother were asleep in their room, and a fire broke out in the house. They didn't wake up, but continued to sleep. But their mother woke up, smelled the smoke, and ran toward their room.
The fire had already progressed to the point that blazes were shooting up in front of her and blocking the way to the children’s room. That didn't stop her. She ran right to their door...When she grabbed the door knob, it was so hot that her hand was badly burned, but she held onto it to get the door open, went in and picked up her children in her arms and took them to safety, just in time.
When she got outside she discovered that her hands had been very badly burned as she had groped through the house trying to get to the children’s room. All through her life, that mother had to cope with those badly burned hands. Other people would look at them and turn away. Her hand were ugly and freakish looking.
But the woman telling the story (the woman who had been that little girl asleep during the fire) said, "My mother's hands are the most beautiful hands in the whole world. Other people don't see them that way, but my brother and I look at them and see beauty."
Jesus calls each one of us to leave behind all lesser goals and follow him. Join him in his vulnerable, self-giving life style, and live a beautiful life.
As we empty ourselves we are fulfilled.
And that's the beauty of it.
