Thrift-Store Picasso and the Face of Christ

 
It's one thing to say you're a Christian. It's another to act like one. What this means is not necessarily blessing people continually and saying you'll pray for them, or even radical acts of compassion in the manner of the Good Samaritan. Instead it is those day-to-day choices we make which test whether or not we really are followers of Christ.

Take the local story here in Columbus of the "thrift-store Picasso," which is still making national news. Nobody in the story has said anything about religion, but choices made and words uttered are still instructive because any of us might find ourselves in a similar situation.

In yesterday's update, the purchaser finally sold the piece to an anonymous local buyer and netted a tidy sum of $6,985.85. However, even though the original owner who donated the print to the thrift store has come forward, no mention has been made of the purchaser splitting his profit with that person. How easy this would have been -- the purchaser would still have considerably more than if he had sold the piece to Christie's in New York, which offered him $2,500 -- and what a delightful development which would warm countless hearts and give us all food for the journey.

Love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return.
Your reward will be great....(Luke 6:35). 

It is also interesting to take note of the new owner's lofty idea of his self-worth. We still don't know who that is, but “this is what he told me I can say," the purchaser reported: "He raises thoroughbreds, and he’s sort of a big deal.”

For we do not proclaim ourselves;
we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus' sake.
 For it is the God who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," 
who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge 
of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.  (2 Corinthians 4:5-6)

This story deals with bringing things which have been hidden into the light. How infinitely more enriching it would if this news thread revealed to us the face of Jesus instead of that of "the god of this world" (2 Corinthians 4:4).

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Feed My Sheep

Image
Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Bexley, Ohio, which last year merged with Capital University across the street, has a new dean who is widely admired. In a recent edition of her weekly newsletter, Dean Kathryn Kleinhans talked about the state of seminary education across the ELCA: “The numbers are out. This year the seminaries of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America – together – are graduating a total of 114 students available for call. That’s not even two for each of the ELCA’s 65 synods. Geographical restrictions limit even further the number of candidates available for a call anywhere in the church. Any of our bishops will tell you that the need is much greater than that!" Why are there so few seminary graduates? It's complicated, but the bottom line is that the ELCA itself is struggling. Congregations are closing or merging (and members are always lost in mergers), few are flourishing, and those who are somewhere in between are cut...
Read more

LET CREATION SING

Image
(From Sunday, March 11, 2018) Sometimes I go outside and try to feel how the breezes are blowing not around but through my body. I am a porous thing of the wind, miraculously held in place by skin -- or, as quantum physics might tell us, -- a holistic entanglement of immaterial energy waves, as are all material things. This dissolves the superior view of human-hood over against creation, of which I find myself frequently guilty, and place me in solidarity with all that is around me, animate and inanimate. The experience of being in solidarity with God's creation is a form of prayer. Listen, and you can hear all creation singing. Everywhere there is life, there is song. The Bible tell us that the entire breadth of creation shares equally with human being in actively praising God. "Let the sea roar, and all that fills it” we sing in Psalm 96, "let the field exult, and everything in it" (vv. Ilb-12a; RSV). In Psalm 98, “Let the floods clap th...
Read more

Cradle to Cross

Image
 Luke 1:46b-55 It is finished. Dare we hear, in Mary’s Magnificat, echoes of Jesus’ last words in John? If we consider Holy Scripture as God’s creative word which acts on us at every encounter, our attention to reverberations across the Gospel can bring us closer in tune with the breadth of God’s plan. In Mary’s song of praise in Luke 1 she sings not of the great things that will come to pass because of the birth of the Savior but of that which is already accomplished: God has shown strength with God’s arm; God has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; God has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly; God has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty. Her words signal the fulfillment of God’s salvific work, affirm her obedience to God’s plan, and testify that God is in solidarity with all who suffer, just as do Jesus’ words from the cross.   We read this, we hear it, we may even know it to be true, but ...
Read more