Call to worship
We are God’s work of art—
each one of us a precious gem,
a marvellous melody,
a potter’s delight.
We are God’s handiwork–
woven together in love,
shaped with infinite compassion,
painted with incredible beauty.
We are the church of Jesus Christ—
diverse in human qualities,
but united in our call to love God
with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength,
and to love our neighbour as ourselves.
We are the Body of Christ—
living in his truth, sharing his peace,
carrying his hope, embodying his love,
throughout the world he loved so much.
We are here to be reminded once more who we are,
whose we are and what our lives are about.
We are here to be uplifted, renewed and empowered
to live out the miracle of who we are,
by the power of God working in and among us.
We open ourselves to God, who makes all things new.
Amen
The Lord’s Prayer
We’re going to have 2 hymns at the start. The first one to sing – Be Still for the presence of the Lord
Be still for the presence of the Lord,
The Holy One is here
Come bow before Him now,
With reverence and fear
In Him no sin is found
We stand on holy ground
Be still for the presence of the Lord,
The Holy One is here
Be still for the glory of the Lord,
Is shining all around
He burns with holy fire,
With splendor He is crowned
How awesome is the sight
Our radiant King of light
Be still for the glory of the Lord,
Is shining all around
Be still for the power of the Lord,
Is moving in this place
He comes to cleanse and heal,
To minister His grace
No work too hard for Him
In faith receive from Him
Be still for the power of the Lord
Is moving in this place
Be still for the power of the Lord
Is moving in this place
The second one to listen to
You are God’s Work of Art
You are God’s work of art
created in Jesus the Christ.
You are God’s work of art
created in Jesus the Christ.
You have been enlightened by the Lord;
walk as children of the light.
You are God’s work of art
created in Jesus the Christ.
Keep the flame of faith in your heart
and may you greet him when he comes.
You are God’s work of art
created in Jesus the Christ.
Blessed be our God
who chose you in the light of Christ.
You are God’s work of art
created in Jesus the Christ.
You are God’s work of art
created in Jesus the Christ.
Ephesians2:10 says:
For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.
So – I’ve been on my holidays. Again!!
I don’t know what we pay him for he’s never here I hear you cry.
This week I want to tell you a bit about my holiday. We went to Italy.
It was a holiday with some good friends to celebrate our joint 40th wedding anniversary.
But as with many things over the last few years it didn’t go according to plan and we’ve now been married 42 years. If it had been delayed a few more years it would have done for our golden wedding.
It was a real adventure. We went all the way from Newark (UK not NJ) to Italy and back on the train. We stayed in London, Paris, Venice, Bologna, Florence and Zurich. 17 different rail journeys over 12 days. Rail is the best way to travel and the impact on climate change is much less than flying.
Now here’s a bit of trivia for you that I picked up on the way. Bologna is the city where Bolognese sauce was invented – Bolognese means relating to Bologna.
But you can’t eat Spaghetti Bolognese in Bologna. The reason being that they only ever eat Bolognese sauce with tagliatelle – that’s the flat pasta – and never with spaghetti.
So now you know.
But as I am finally here I suppose I’d better not talk to you all morning about Italian cuisine, though you’ll see from the shape of me that I did put in a lot of research while I was out there.
No what I want to talk about for a bit is art – and particularly art in churches.
We went in quite a few churches in these great Italian cities and the art we saw was simply mind-blowing.
Let me show you a few examples of the art from just one church – Santa Croce in Florence.
The beauty of the artwork, in particular the frescoes was astounding. The work that went into it over many centuries was immense. The financial value cannot really be estimated. But there are about 4000 works of art in this one building. When single paintings can sell for 10s of millions of pounds if you could sell all 4000 you could probably raise 10s or 100s of billions of pounds.
Maybe even enough to pay for the tax cuts Liz Truss wanted.
Remember her?
Let’s have a Bible reading now from a little known part of the Old Testament – this is one of the Ten Commandments
Exodus 20:4-6
4 “Do not make for yourselves images of anything in heaven or on earth or in the water under the earth. 5 Do not bow down to any idol or worship it, because I am the Lord your God and I tolerate no rivals. I bring punishment on those who hate me and on their descendants down to the third and fourth generation. 6 But I show my love to thousands of generations[a] of those who love me and obey my laws.
Our third hymn today is called Colourful Creator
Colorful Creator
Colorful Creator, God of mystery,
thank you for the artist teaching us to see
glimpses of the meaning of the commonplace,
vision of the holy in each human face.
Harmony of ages, God of list’ning ear,
thank you for composer tuning us to hear
echoes of the Gospel in the songs we sing,
sounds of love and longing from the deepest spring.
Author of our journey, God of near and far,
praise for tale and drama telling who we are,
stripping to the essence struggles of our day,
times of change and conflict when we choose our way.
God of truth and beauty, Poet of the Word,
may we be creators by the Spirit stirred,
open to your presence in our joy and strife,
vessels of the holy coursing through our life.
A hymn giving thanks for artists, for composers, for authors, for poets.
Another Old Testament reading today – this time from the book of Chronicles – a story all about the plans for the construction of the temple in Jerusalem.
1 Chronicles 28:1-19
David’s Instructions for the Temple
28 King David commanded all the officials of Israel to assemble in Jerusalem. So all the officials of the tribes, the officials who administered the work of the kingdom, the leaders of the clans, the supervisors of the property and livestock that belonged to the king and his sons—indeed all the palace officials, leading soldiers, and important men—gathered in Jerusalem.
2 David stood before them and addressed them: “My friends, listen to me. I wanted to build a permanent home for the Covenant Box, the footstool of the Lord our God. I have made preparations for building a temple to honour him, 3 but he has forbidden me to do it, because I am a soldier and have shed too much blood. 4 The Lord, the God of Israel, chose me and my descendants to rule Israel forever. He chose the tribe of Judah to provide leadership, and out of Judah he chose my father’s family. From all that family it was his pleasure to take me and make me king over all Israel. 5 He gave me many sons, and out of them all he chose Solomon to rule over Israel, the Lord’s kingdom.
6 “The Lord said to me, ‘Your son Solomon is the one who will build my Temple. I have chosen him to be my son, and I will be his father. 7 I will make his kingdom last forever if he continues to obey carefully all my laws and commands as he does now.’
8 “So now, my people, in the presence of our God and of this assembly of all Israel, the Lord’s people, I charge you to obey carefully everything that the Lord our God has commanded us, so that you may continue to possess this good land and so that you may hand it on to succeeding generations forever.”
9 And to Solomon he said, “My son, I charge you to acknowledge your father’s God and to serve him with an undivided heart and a willing mind. He knows all our thoughts and desires. If you go to him, he will accept you; but if you turn away from him, he will abandon you forever. 10 You must realize that the Lord has chosen you to build his holy Temple. Now do it—and do it with determination.”
11 David gave Solomon the plans for all the Temple buildings, for the storerooms and all the other rooms, and for the Most Holy Place, where sins are forgiven. 12 He also gave him the plans for all he had in mind for the courtyards and the rooms around them, and for the storerooms for the Temple equipment and the gifts dedicated to the Lord. 13 David also gave him the plans for organizing the priests and Levites to perform their duties, to do the work of the Temple, and to take care of all the Temple utensils. 14 He gave instructions as to how much silver and gold was to be used for making the utensils, 15 for each lamp and lampstand, 16 for the silver tables, and for each gold table on which were placed the loaves of bread offered to God. 17 He also gave instructions as to how much pure gold was to be used in making forks, bowls, and jars, how much silver and gold in making dishes, 18 and how much pure gold in making the altar on which incense was burned and in making the chariot for the winged creatures that spread their wings over the Lord’s Covenant Box. 19 King David said, “All this is contained in the plan written according to the instructions which the Lord himself gave me to carry out.”
Sermon
I just want to share with you today a few thoughts about churches. As I sat down and started writing this I wasn’t quite sure what conclusions I was going to come to so it came as a bit of a surprise to me when I got to the end.
You see I’m in two minds.
And, looking at the two Bible readings we’ve had today it looks like God is in two minds as well.
In the first one – from the ten commandments God is reported by Moses as saying
Do not make for yourselves images of anything in heaven or on earth or in the water under the earth. Do not bow down to any idol or worship it.
Now you can’t argue that all those fantastic, beautiful works of art we saw pictures of earlier are anything other than images of things. More or less all paintings are. So it looks to me like at Santa Croce in Florence we have a Christian Church chock full of examples of things that break the second commandment.And lots and lots of churches all around the world contain art, contain images. Look around here. We’ve got Dorothy’s wonderful picture of the Last Supper, we’ve got stained glass windows, we’ve got a picture of Jesus in the church hall.
And there’s another thing that makes me wonder. And that’s the value of all these works of art. Not the ones we have in our church but the ones like those in Santa Croce.
Let’s think about another famous church painting.
You’ll all have seen pictures of this one. It’s the ceiling of the Sistine chapel in the Vatican. Painted by Michelangelo for one of the popes centuries ago. Magnificent.
Do you think Michelangelo painted it for nothing?
Well no – why would he. He was one of the foremost painters of his time – of all time. And an architect – and a sculptor. One of those really annoying people that are good at everything. He was paid 3000 ducats for it.
That’s equivalent to about $600,000 (about £500,000) today. Half a million quid to make a church look pretty.
Today if you could sell it (and of course you can’t) but if you could it would be worth many, many times what Michelangelo was paid to paint it.
How much do you think the artists who painted those 4000 works of art we found in Santa Croce were paid. I’ve no idea but you’d have to think millions.
So I wonder – what do you think God makes of us spending all that money on works of art when we have a world that is still full of poverty, let alone what it was like in the Middle Ages?
So then I look at the other reading. Here we read about David’s instructions for the Temple. Here’s a bit of it again
David … gave instructions as to how much silver and gold was to be used for making the utensils, 1for each lamp and lampstand,for the silver tables, and for each gold table on which were placed the loaves of bread offered to God.He also gave instructions as to how much pure gold was to be used in making forks, bowls, and jars, how much silver and gold in making dishes,and how much pure gold in making the altar on which incense was burned and in making the chariot for the winged creatures that spread their wings over the Lord’s Covenant Box. King David said, “All this is contained in the plan written according to the instructions which the Lord himself gave me to carry out.”
If this is to be believed then God doesn’t seem to mind a bit of ostentatious spending on a building to worship him in. All that gold; all that silver.
So here I am – still in two minds. Time to come to a conclusion. Where can we turn for some more guidance?
How about Jesus?
Let me read another bible story. This is from Mark chapter 14
Jesus Is Anointed at Bethany
3 Jesus was in Bethany at the house of Simon, a man who had suffered from a dreaded skin disease. While Jesus was eating, a woman came in with an alabaster jar full of a very expensive perfume made of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on Jesus’ head. 4 Some of the people there became angry and said to one another, “What was the use of wasting the perfume? 5 It could have been sold for more than three hundred silver coins[a] and the money given to the poor!” And they criticized her harshly.
6 But Jesus said, “Leave her alone! Why are you bothering her? She has done a fine and beautiful thing for me. 7 You will always have poor people with you, and any time you want to, you can help them. But you will not always have me. 8 She did what she could; she poured perfume on my body to prepare it ahead of time for burial. 9 Now, I assure you that wherever the gospel is preached all over the world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.”
Now I don’t know about you but despite having a lot of time for Moses and for David I always think that Jesus is the one we should turn to.
I know this story isn’t about works of art but it is about extravagant spending. The perfume was worth 300 silver coins. A silver coin was the wages of a rural worker. What might that mean today? Well the living wage in the UK today is about £90 a day. So 300 silver coins would be worth about £27,000 in today’s money. A lot of money for a nice smell.
And Jesus is absolutely fine with it. She’s done a beautiful thing for him, a beautiful thing for God.
So have those sublime artists. What they have done is added to the beauty of God’s universe. How can you weigh in a balance the cost of those works of art with the joy the inspiration, the experience of the wonder of God they have given to people over the centuries.
You know we talked about the Sistine chapel earlier and said Michelangelo was paid $600,000 dollars for the job. Well every year there are 6 million visitors to the Sistine chapel. That means that even if the job was being paid for over just one year it would only cost each visitor 10 cents, ninepence, to have the experience of seeing this wonderful interpretation of God’s works.
And it’s been there for hundreds of years.
I’m glad the Pope didn’t go for the option of 2 coats of white emulsion.
But let’s remember what Jesus also said:
You will always have poor people with you, and any time you want to, you can help them.
There’s room in God’s wonderful world for the outrageous extravagant beauty of art.
But we must always make sure that we look after those less fortunate than us. We have to show love to others.
Jesus was quite clear about that.
Our final hymn is Come to us creative spirit. I don’t think you’ll know the words but you will know the tune. The words will be on the screen so sing along if you’d like.
Come to us, creative Spirit,
in our Father’s house;
ev’ry natural talent foster
hidden skills arouse,
that within your earthly temple,
wise and simple may rejoice.
Poet, painter, music-maker,
all your treasures bring;
artist, actor, graceful dancer,
make your offering;
join your hands in celebration:
let creation shout and sing!
Word from God eternal springing,
fill our minds, we pray;
and in all artistic vision
give integrity:
may the flame within us burning
kindle yearning day by day.
In all places and forever
glory be expressed
to the Son, with God the Father
and the Spirit blest:
in our worship and our living
keep us striving for the best.
The grace
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,
and the love of God,
and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit
be with us all now
and for evermore.
Amen.
Newark Congregational Church 