Fr. Patrick Funston — The Second Sunday of Advent; Sermon, December 9,...

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John the Baptist - Study for “The Appearance of Christ Among the People" Aleksandr Andreevich Ivanov, 1837 - 1857Some thoughts on this week’s bulletin art. This week we heard the beginning of the Gospel according to Mark. As I’ve said many times,...

John the Baptist - Study for “The Appearance of Christ Among the People" 
Aleksandr Andreevich Ivanov, 1837 - 1857

Some thoughts on this week’s bulletin art.

This week we heard the beginning of the Gospel according to Mark. As I’ve said many times, Mark is my favorite of the Gospels and the beginning shows why: 

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

 As it is written in the prophet Isaiah,
‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
   who will prepare your way; 
the voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
   “Prepare the way of the Lord,
   make his paths straight” ’, 
John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. (Mark 1.1-4)

Mark has no fluff. He’s all business, all the time.  He gets right to it and the story moves apace. If a prophecy is being fulfilled, he tells you directly.

Sunday’s bulletin art stood out to me among all the other possible art of John the Baptist because it felt so alive.  I see the fire it John’s eyes and see the proclamation coming off his lips.

Research showed that this is actually not a "completed” piece in and of itself, but rather a “study,” a piece an artist will do to practice and to get an idea of what they want to to the main piece.  Ivanov’s main work is called “The Appearance of Christ Among the People.”

image

It’s even better for its totality!  All these vulnerable people having just been baptized and John points to Jesus off in the distance.  "Here he comes!“ we can hear him shouting.

Our bulletin art focuses directly on the Prophet, but our Prophet focuses directly on the Lord.  And if the Baptizer is anything, he is the one who points.  Compelled by his words, his dress, his diet, we misunderstand if we do not notice his hand.

Who and what help you see the Lord?  How do you point to Jesus? Or do you allow yourself to be the spectacle?

=Fr. Patrick

bulletinart John the Baptist Episcopal stpaulsmanhattan Advent 2
John the Baptist Preaching, c. 1486-1490 Domenico Ghirlandaio, 1449-1494St. Paul’s Bulletin Art Reflection for the Third Sunday of Advent, December 16, 2018 John the Baptist appears at the beginning of each of the four gospels. Jesus’ cousin in...

John the Baptist Preaching, c. 1486-1490
Domenico Ghirlandaio, 1449-1494

St. Paul’s Bulletin Art Reflection for the Third Sunday of Advent, December 16, 2018

John the Baptist appears at the beginning of each of the four gospels. Jesus’ cousin in addition to being his most present prophet (and baptizer), John’s import to Jesus story can’t be overstated. It’s John’s baptism that sets off Jesus’ public ministry, it’s John’s commandments about repentance and forgiveness that contextualize what will ultimately come out of Jesus’ mouth. The good news isn’t just feel-good spiritualism, it’s rooted in a practice of repentance and re-connection with God.

Even though he is a central character at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, the gospel word-count devoted to him is relatively small. He probably had a significant ministry apart from his baptism of Jesus, but we don’t get much apart from that. When Matthew and Mark describe him, his teaching is one-sided… he really looks like a wild-man prophet yelling at the people who come to see him.

What I love about Domenico Ghirlandaio’s painting is that it invites us to see the Baptist as evangelists Luke and John might have seen him. In their accounts, John’s words are still harsh (snakes and fire and trees cut down, etc.), but he is also open for conversation. In both Luke and John, we see a prophet who acts as a dialogical teacher, answering the questions of those who come to see him.

Ghirlandaio was a popular Florentine Renaissance painter who trained many apprentices including later “master” Michelangelo. One of the things that made him so popular was his ability to imagine depictions of contemporary life and locations into religious narratives. It would have been considered quite something to have a painting in your foyer of you and your family sitting with Jesus as he taught. We see something of that in Sunday’s bulletin art as modern Florentines are seen conversing with the Baptist.

My favorite figure in this painting is the character in the hat and orange garment. His body language, one hand on his hip and the other on the older man to seated to his right (combined with the same man’s dour expression), makes me think that he’s responding to something John has said that displeased the older man… “Hold on, I’ve got this,” he says as he prepares to toss a different interpretation or question at John.

When I think of my priestly ministry, the most obvious part of my teaching is my weekly sermons which aren’t dialogic. More like a Matthean or Markan John the Baptist, I’m giving my own interpretation on the Gospel to you. But that isn’t the full expression of my pedagogic ministry… some of my favorite ministerial moments have come in conversation: one-on-one or in the context of our adult education; times when I’m more like John or Luke’s Baptist: contextually able to have a conversation.

But in neither case am I a prophet like John. At St. Paul’s, we are all a part of the story, reaching and working to understand our place in God’s ongoing narrative. When we engage in hortatory homiletics or in conversation, we are working to better understand ourselves, our God and our place in God’s mission.

=Fr. Patrick

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