The Gospel According to Art

A black-and-white faith would be so much easier, you know? I would go down a certain path, look down at my feet, and either see a pure, blameless white or a relentless, piercing black. To say that everything is actually shades of gray would be cliche, though.

I like to think of it as a massive mural on a building wall in a back alley somewhere. And God's got this plan for this beautiful, larger-than-life painting. The picture's in His head, with a little room for artistic freedom here and there    but he doesn't pick up the brush. He lays out every color imaginable, every shade of every intensity of every texture of paint. From luscious reds to soaring blues to dignified greens. Then He sets brushes of every size and bristle type before the wall.

He goes out to the street and invites a couple of the neighborhood kids playing hopscotch and tag to come see the mural. He sits them down and He explains to these boys and girls, who've never heard of Van Gogh or Da Vinci why He loved art, in down-to-earth terms, in a way that they'd understand. He explained how you didn't have to have taken classes or be trained, just passionate and sincere to create something beautiful.

Then He stands up, picks out a few choice brushes and paints, starts painting one of the bottom corners of the wall. All the while the neighborhood kids are following the man's every brush stroke, and his every color choice. Amazed, they witnessed art being created before their very eyes. Before He can even set his brushes down, the kids run off to tell everyone the news. But by the time they return with all their friends and families, the man is gone.

Many witnesses of the small painted area of the mural insulted the unintelligible mixture of paints. There were rules and proportions that had been broken. What this man painted wasn't art, they said. But the kids wouldn't listen. They had heard the passion in the man's voice, and the gracefulness and skill of his painting. All they cared about was finishing the painting, and filling others with the same passion they now felt.

                                                                                                             
I remember hearing someone calling the Bible "our instruction manual". I think that is by far the worst label you could ever give it. Sure, there are parts of the Old Testament books that are just laws for the Jewish people to follow, and parts of Paul's letters that also sound like long to-do lists. But how boring and limiting is that analogy?

The last time I read an instruction manual was for installing the new computer monitor I got. It didn't inspire me. It didn't show me beautiful stories of how a broken people tried to live in a dark and menacing world. And it definitely didn't make me want to love God and other people more. The Bible is so much more, yet it has been diluted to the point where it is compared to a book of rules.

Maybe that's why young Christians today leave their Bibles on their bookshelves, to collect dust. Maybe that's why they treat Sunday sermons as a sort of religious "pill", to fulfill a moral obligation and to avoid feeling like they're going to hell. It's because the Bible we are pitching them is a Bible of rules and regulations that only serves to ruin their fun.

This is not the Bible that I've read. The Bible I read is full of beautiful, awe-inspiring stories and difficult, heart-wrenching situations. I think that's why Jesus rarely gives straight laws to people, but chooses to tell parables     stories that show, rather than tell. The greatest parable ever told was the one Jesus showed by living out his own life. Jesus is the epitome of why the Bible is not just a really long self help book. In coming down out of Heaven's neighborhood and becoming flesh, our God also wrapped flesh around the Scriptures, making them living and active. That we might want to be like the man who conquered death, and who loved even wretches like us.

The man, like the one in my story, who inspires by example.
                                                                                                            
Started 3/8/10