The aesthetics of the Great Commission

I am attracted to the Great Commission recorded, not at the end of Matthew (which is the passage usually cited) but at the end of Mark:

Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation.

The word for "creation" here really does include all of creation -- of which we human beings are just a part. Yes we are a big part. In fact, in the Biblical economy of things, among all created things and beings, we humans are the bearers of the image of God. That's being a big part of creation.

But even this elevated position doesn't make us the whole creation.

And we are to proclaim the good news to the whole creation.

That means we are to proclaim the good news to the birds and the bees, to sunrises and to sunsets, and to everything in between.

This changes everything. It imbues all our relationships with sanctity and honor. It beautifies everything we do because we bring God's glory into it all.

Who says Christians are unconcerned about the environment; about "sustainability?"

Christians ought to be, of all people, most concerned about the wellness of the earth.

It is just that we Christians do not think that we are the sole guardians of this creation. We are simply gardeners for the Gardener.

(When Jesus rose from the grave, he was mistaken for a gardener ...).

If we do not proclaim the good news to the sunrise -- which needs to hear it; the sun's been rising for the longest time and is starting wonder what this is all about -- if we do not proclaim the good news to all of creation ...

... toting around a gospel tract in our back pockets may not be the most effective thing to do.

The whole creation is groaning to be liberated.

Logos2Go

Mark 16.15 And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.

Romans 8.21-22 ... the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now ...

John 21.15 Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?" She, supposing Him to be the gardener, said to Him, "Sir, if You have carried Him away, tell me where You have laid Him, and I will take Him away."

Note: There is controversy over whether the last verses of Mark are original, or added on later by an unknown writer. For example, the part about immunity from snakes and poisons just doesn't sound like anything Jesus would say (Mark 16.18). But the record of the Great Commission is corroborated by Matthew 28.19-20. Matthew says go into all the nations with the good news. The writer in Mark broadens it by saying all creation needs the good news. The Holy Spirit allowed this to become Scripture; and I think He did so because the recovery of creation really is at the core of the purposes of God. God does not only want to save; he wants to make all things beautiful.

Imitation reconsidered (3: Presence)

Ion, the storyteller, had an interesting problem. Whenever he recited Homer, it electrified his audience. It was like Homer, who wrote centuries before, was right there with them again.

But when Ion recited other writers, the audience was bored stiff. What to do, Socrates?

"Ah," said Socrates, "that is because you are under inspiration when reciting Homer." When an artist is under inspiration, they “… are not in their right minds when composing their beautiful strains.” Rather, Socrates said to Ion, it is "divinity moving you."

So, inspiration facilitated the imitation of the original in such a manner that the original is somehow here with us again.

The third thread of how imitation (mimesis) related to beauty in the Greco-Roman worldview is this: when mimesis is accomplished beautifully, the work of art which results has, as it were, the presence of the original.

The Greeks struggled mightily to understand how a single person can even create beautiful art. Something must come upon him, enabling him, empowering him, to imitate the Ideal, to imitate the Mean, to make the beautiful work.

So, from the Greeks we get the notion of the Muses, goddesses of the arts: an artist cannot create beautifully unless one of the Muses came upon him.

Socrates even called this empowering his daimonion (translated demon; take that for what it's worth).

Now, what of this Paul, this preacher of a new way of life patterned after some failed carpenter who was crucified as a criminal in faraway Jerusalem?

What of this Paul, a very educated man, who left everything to follow and serve this Jesus, who claimed to be God?

What of this Paul, who said: And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God (?)

It was this Paul who said: imitate (mimesis) me.

All explanations and ways of doing are shadows of what the Word of God reveals in substance.

To live beautifully requires the empowering of the Spirit of God.

Logos2Go

1 Corinthians 2.4-5 And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

1 Corinthians 4.16 Therefore I urge you to imitate me.

Plato, Ion 532b-536b

Imitation reconsidered (2: the Mean)

Mimesis meant imitating a heavenly ideal so excellently that the ideal is expressed as a work of art visible for all to see. This was the first thread in the Greco-Roman view of how imitation produced beauty.

Keep this in mind when reading what Paul said to his readers: "Imitate (mimesis) me."

The second thread in mimesis producing beauty in that worldview is "the Mean."

It bothered the Greeks that nothing in nature stayed the same. You are young; then you are old. An abundant harvest is followed by drought. What stays the same? What can be depended upon to anchor the uncertainties of life to?

The Greeks hit upon number. Beyond the flux of nature, there is an unchanging realm of number and proportion. This is the basis of their idea of the Mean. Here is Plato:

All things require to be compared, not only with one another, but with the Mean, without which there would be no beauty and no art ...

So an artist was not only to imitate a master for the ideal; he must also strive to imitate the Mean.

When the Mean was beautifully expressed, the Greeks called it symmetria. This did not mean the right and left sides of something being the same (bi-lateral symmetry).

No. Symmetria meant when everything was in balance in accord with the Mean. When Paul was discoursing on Mars Hill, he could look up to the Acropolis and see the Parthenon, which expressed symmetria. He could see the Caryatids of the Erechtheion; for the Greeks, a Caryatid also expressed symmetria (see above).

Now, the miracles of Jesus all possess the symmetria sought after by the Greeks. The miracles are glimpses of nature in true balance, under the dominion of Adam as it was meant to be.

When Jesus stilled the wind and the rain on the Sea of Galilee, the excesses of nature were brought into symmetria. When He fed the 5000, it was distribution without lack, but with symmetria.

And in Jesus' case, the miracles, as beautiful works of art, were not dead statues or buildings, but actual life in its unfallen beauty, perfectly balanced because Christ is the measure (Mean) of all things.

So when Paul asked his readers to imitate him as he imitated Christ, it was not only so that their lives can express the beauty of Christ as ideal, now tabernacling with us, it was also so that their lives can be beautifully balanced in all things.

Logos2Go

1 Corinthians 4.16 Therefore I urge you to imitate me.

1 Thessalonians 2.14 You became imitators of us and of the Lord; in spite of severe suffering, you welcomed the message with the joy given by the Holy Spirit.

Colossians 1.15-17 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities--all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

Ephesians 4.7 But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift.

The citation from Plato can be found in Statesman 283-285

For more on symmetria, see J.J. Pollit, Art and Experience in Ancient Greece (Cambridge University Press, 1972), Chapter 3: "The World Under Control."

Imitation reconsidered (1: the Ideal)

These days, to be a true artist, you must not imitate. You've got to be original.

In fact, you've got to be an original.

But this is not the way it used to be. Indeed, one way to understand all of history is to take note of when people stopped imitating.

(In art history, imitation stopped around the end of the 19th century. This was the same time for the loss of God across the board in many disciplines. In biology, for example, it was the advent of Darwinian thinking: life comes not from above, it comes from random processes; and selection by power and exertion).

But when Paul exhorted his readers to "be imitators of me," he was living in a culture that highly valued imitation.

Hands down the most educated of the New Testament writers, Paul was no doubt well aware of the Platonic-Aristotelian teachings on mimesis, or imitation. Many threads of meaning were woven into this word mimesis, threads that permeated the Greco-Roman worldview, a worldview that, say what you will about it, influenced the stability of the Western world for nearly two thousand years.

Here is an example: artists used to be trained by apprenticeship. In order to be an artist, you basically set aside any life you had, and you moved into the life-world of the master artist you apprenticed for. You ate, lived, and worked under him.

You imitated him.

This is because you did not imitate him; you imitated the living ideal his work stood for. Somehow in the hands of the master, this material world is transcended, and an ideal world can be ushered in through the work of his hands.

This was the basis for BEAUTY in art.

So, the first thread of meaning for mimesis from that old world is this: Imitation was not to copy what is in front of you. Imitation was the only way to bring into this world truth from a heavenly world.

That was the business of art.

It was the business of being beautiful.

Now, Paul recognized there was a problem with the Greco-Roman view of imitation. Simply put: the Platonic ideal suitable for imitation existed in a vague immaterial world called "the Good." You never knew for sure how to get to this Good.

But the advent of Christ not only defined "the Good," it brought the Good down to earth, to tabernacle with men.

And those who gave their lives over to Christ the master, as Paul did, were worthy of imitation.

It was the key to a beautiful life.

Logos2Go

I Corinthians 4.16 I urge you, then, be imitators (μιμηταί) of me.

Hebrews 13.7 Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith.

John 1.14 And the Word became flesh, and did tabernacle among us, and we beheld his glory, glory as of an only begotten of a father, full of grace and truth. (Young's translation).

For this thread of mimesis in Plato, see Republic X. The Jowett translation of Republic X is readily available at http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.11.x.html

For one study of how early Christian writers used concepts from the Hellenistic worldview see Niketas Siniossoglou, Plato and Theodoret: The Christian Appropriation of Platonic Philosophy and the Hellenic Intellectual Resistance (Cambridge University Press, 2008). The author of this book does not take a Christian-friendly view, but for that reason is all the more worth reading.

When you truck, truck BOLDLY (?)

It is well known that Martin Luther had little use for the book of James.

This is understandable: in the grand scheme of things, God's call on Luther was to re-discover the truth that salvation is not by conduct, but by grace alone.

But God's call on James regarded conduct. James' point was simply that, if you're really born into a family, there ought to be a family resemblance.

So if you're really born into God's family by grace, it should show by your grace-full conduct. And so he says things like this:

Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom.

Gentleness ... born of wisdom.

I've been thinking about this for 36 hours -- which is a lot for the American attention span (even an American with Chinese characteristics; or a Chinese with American characteristics; WHATEVER).

I want to be gentle, and I want to be wise -- and I'm struggling with how I can be either.

For example: how can a guy be gentle or wise when he's bombing around in a Toyota Tundra?

This is what I think about.

Wouldn't it have been gentler and wiser to have kept my '96 Sonoma? The one with the stick going? The one that couldn't be driven in snow? The one my neighbor Cori calls "Dave's pretend truck."

(Cori is such a sweetheart).

I struggle because the Tundra feels more like a pretend truck.

... gentle and wise ... in a honking Tundra?

I can hear Luther now: when you truck, truck BOLDLY... ; okay Marty...whatever you say.

Maybe I should just stop sweating this truck thing ... good grief.

Logos2Go

James 3.13 Who is wise and understanding among you? Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom.

Grandfatherhood

Is that a word?

It is certainly a life.

We've known for a while, but were instructed to zip it until told otherwise. And in these matters, you do what you're told.

We were told otherwise today, after the mom-to-be visited with her doctor.

It really was one of the reasons for the big truck being a crew-cab.

Because our crew is going to get bigger.

When my son Jeremy was in the womb 27 years ago, at his first ultra sound, the doctor said, "You've got a live wire in there."

Boy was he ever right.

Here we go again.

Logos2Go

Psalm 100.5 For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.

So I buy a truck

It's a big truck.

It's as big as my love for Valerie.

It's as big as trucks go, just as my cat YoYo was as big as cats go. (And alas, he did go).

It's as big as the view out my backyard, with its stretches of field and sky, and Cori's llamas.

Come to think of it, it's as big as Cori's truck.

It's so big, the front of the truck turns the corner 30 seconds before the back of the truck turns.

It's as big as a Toyota Tundra, because it is one.

When we first moved to these parts 12 years ago, truck ownership was a foreign language. Who me? An east-coast Philadelphia snoot? Maybe a Volvo someday.

But a truck? What do you take me for?

When we first moved to these parts, my then-young kids and I would drive around in our minivan, and we'd count the number of funny people driving trucks with nothing in the beds. Why do all these people drive around in trucks with nothing in the beds?

"Look! there goes another one!" I would huff-and-puff with feigned outrage.

"That's 32!" little Andrew would marvel, his nose twitching as only his nose can twitch, his voice scratchy as only his voice can scratch, "Thirty-two trucks with empty beds!!!"

And we'd get all worked up inside our minivan.

That was some years ago.

So the day I bought the truck I texted (not-so-little) Andrew: "Bought a big truck."

His reply text was immediate: WHAT? Whyyyyy???

Why?

Well, at some point while counting those trucks with empty beds ... a seed must have been planted into the soil of my soul ...

And now I have an ENORMOUS truck.

And there's nothing in the bed.

By the way: This blog is about aesthetics and theology -- and the whole complicated world that lies in between.

Logos2Go

Hmmmm: Mark 4.32 ... Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds of the air can perch in its shade."