https://youtu.be/Squ8jSFolOQ
This week whilst journeying through the readings I came
across the words, large souled. This caught my attention and I decided to
explore what it might mean. Sometimes large souled seems to mean pretty much
the same as big-hearted – but this did not satisfy me and so I kept up the
search.
This led me to the TED talks. These short talks on
Technology, Entertainment and Design, push the frontiers of the way we often
think. They are not overtly religious, but, as with much of life we can learn
things in all sorts of places. The talk that most got my attention was one by
artist Phil Hansen.
Phil Hansen went to college to study art. He did a lot of
those dot drawings and because of the repetitive movement his hand got tired so
he just held the pencil tighter. One day he developed a tremor, and the dots
turned into dashes. A neurologist told him he had permanent nerve damage and
his dot picture days were over.
That could be the sermon right there – hold on too tight and
you will end up hurting yourself. But it isn’t.
Phil Hansen quit for a while, but he still had the art bug.
One day he discovered that he could make pictures out of squiggles instead of
dots or straight lines and he was off again.
That could be the sermon too – when something is broken in
your life, keep looking for where God is opening unexpected doors. But it
isn’t.
It is what Phil Hansen learned next that fascinates me. Phil
was hard up for a while, whilst he was a student and made do with make-shift
art supplies. When he finally got a paying job he rushed out and bought himself
a load of new stuff. Went home hoping for creativity to strike, but it didn’t.
He had everything he might need, but something about being able to do anything
actually trapped him into doing nothing.
He decided to set boundaries for himself. Art for a dollar,
art that would be destroyed after he made it, art from the stories people told
him on the phone. He turned a prairie of possibilities into a ballpark of
imagination. So that is it – right – we need to set boundaries, that is what
the sermon is about. Well, not really.
Being large souled seems to have something to do with
allowing our creativity, with finding our place but letting our boundaries be
in Christ rather than giving in to an endless and futile sea of possibilities.
Then there was Jack Silver. He decided to combine the
natural world and electronics. So, he can make a computer keyboard out of a
banana, a computer mouse out of a piece of paper and a musical instrument out
of ketchup. His company sells kits so that you can do it too.
My first thought was – well, that is fascinating but what
use is it. I would buy the kit and make a few vegetable keyboards or fruit
musical instruments and be bored. Perhaps it is an artform, I can get that and
many artists are using the technology. But then I sat with the idea and began
to understand a different sort of purpose.
By making electronics fun and a little zany Jack Silver is
opening up a world of possibility. Who knows whether a banana keyboard really
has any practical application but it grabs the interest of people who might,
one day, find one – or more to the point find all sorts of other things which
we have never dreamed of which might change lives.
Jack Silver has a crazy idea – which might not go anywhere
in itself, but might lead to other ideas – might engage those who will change
the world.
That is being large souled – seeing that even the craziest
of ideas might make a difference and being willing to plant a seed and never
see the fruit.
The message of Jesus does make a difference in itself. In
John’s Gospel today many people walk away from Jesus. I wondered whether they
had really sat with the idea, or how many of them might have gone home and
thought it through and come back. Just like my having to sit with the banana
keyboard idea. That is being large souled, being willing to sit with an idea,
to turn it over, to listen to God and reflect upon that listening.
One thing that does not come across in the English
translation of John is his own creativity. The Greek is complex but in this
passage he jumps between two words for word. One is the common or garden word,
the other is logos – which many of you know is how God is described in the
first chapter of this Gospel. John both uses and pushes the meaning of the
words in order to say, in effect, when you reject what I am saying, you reject
the Divine Logos, you reject me as God and Messiah.
This careful use of what he has marks John out amongst the
Gospel writers as the one who provides the most complete and yet most
challenging picture of Jesus.
This Ephesians reading is a challenge for many. The
militaristic images are divisive. But let’s take a step back. The writer is in
prison, a Roman prison and is trying to pour out this letter. He is trying to
explain what this strength of God might look like in a tangible form and he
looks out of his cell and sees a soldier – the shield, the sword, the helmet.
He might even have remembered the image of the Greek messenger God Hermes and
his winged shoes and he weaves these together in examples which people can
understand.
In the Gospel those who leave have small imaginations and
cannot break free of their assumptions about the way things are. John carefully
weaves the Word which is God and the words Jesus speaks into a unity (he uses
different words in the Greek). Abide, he says along with the other three great
abides in the Gospel – abide in the vine, abide in the Spirit and abide in
love. This weaving of words is a creative outpouring of the Good News of Jesus
in a picture of the Godhead which is both complex and beautiful and yet still
draws us in as a work in which we must participate.
God’s call is surrounded time and again by creativity. Again
and again those called say – I can’t do this and again and again God reminds
them that this God who brought light from darkness and day from night can
certainly manage to give the bold hearts and strength for the journey. Those
who look strong and mighty, who look brave and bold but are not a part of God’s
endless creativity in calling are missing the point.
You see, it was not that Phil Hansen did something which
should be a pattern for all our lives, it was not the finding new ways, or not
holding on too tight, or not giving up no, what makes the story great is that
he was brave enough to let go of his assumptions and find his creative soul.
And isn’t that the story of the Bible – that the creative
God seeks to dance with His creation. How often do we respond to that call with
– sorry I don’t dance instead of asking how we might learn?
This week I was having a conversation about sewing with some
folk. One said she could not sew because she had tried to make a jacket once
and had given up. A jacket? Really – you start with a jacket? Some would say
that shows boldness but, personally, I would say that shows she did not know
what she was doing. Start with a pillowcase, or a skirt – start with something
with straight lines and without sleeves, facings and buttons holes. Strength is
sometimes the ability to say, this is where I am, I need to take it from here.
That is what the writer of the Ephesians asks prayers for –
this is where I am, in chains, pray that from these chains I might tell the
story of Jesus as I ought. Pray God will bring His creativity here and make me
bold. Phil Hansen found his boldness in setting tight boundaries, another TED
talker called Jack Silver wired a banana to function as a computer keyboard, he
has found his creativity in a bizarre melding of electronics and the natural
world – and this is not even explicitly religious creativity.
The front of your bulletin says, Be Bold. You get letters
with Be Bold. Before long you will be able to buy mugs and t-shirt and who
knows what else with Be Bold on it. But what does it mean to be Bold. I think
it means that we start with the idea that we are vessels to be filled with
God’s creativity. That we have a story to tell which involves us as part of it.
Even if you do not like the soldier picture, you get what it
means –so be creative, how do you say that all strength comes from God and make
that real to people. God calls people to crazy and impossible actions. They are
not all public, they are not all huge and then some of them are.
Being bold means that every time you are tempted to say “I
can’t do that” you might want to say, “Let me pray about that.” The real
problem with my friend and the jacket was not only that it was just too hard
but that she had no one to help her. Her creativity was stifled both by a lack
of skill and the inability to learn that skill.
Time and again the story of God’s people shows that there
will be a way even when we can see no way, if we are following the call of God.
But boldness is not just about ploughing on through every opposition, boldness
is about first of all setting out feet down upon God’s created earth and
acknowledging God from whom all strength comes. Abide here, remain in me, says
Jesus and with this act of boldness and faith we can trust that God will
continue God’s work of creation, even in you and me.
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