Doing something beautiful for God
St Mathias, Richmond
Patronal Festival.
Our Bishop, Christopher Chesssun, The Bishop of Southwark, has announced his retirement and no doubt the Crown Nominations committee is already sifting over possible successors for the job. We would I think judge it odd of they decided on two possibilities and then drew lots as to which should go forward to Downing Street and the King. Yet that, as we heard in todays reading from the Acts of the Apostles is how Mattias became one of the twelve. They selected two suitable candidates, and by that they meant people who had been with Jesus in his earthly ministry, prayed, and then left it to God to choose by casting lots. They thought that by this they could ensure that the choice was not just theirs but Gods. Was it just luck that he was chosen? Fate? Or providence?
Consider your own life for a moment. You had no choice over your parents, your genetic makeup, your early upbringing. Fate? Or Providence? As you consider how your life has developed, think how many alternate lives you could have led if you had made different decisions at crucial points. Those many roads not taken. There is a great mystery is there not about your life and my life. But whatever language you use, luck, fate or providence you are who you are now, the unique you who has never existed before and will never exist again.
St Paul says we are God’s poiema, in the Greek or in a modern translation, ‘God’s work of art’ (Ephesians 2.10). Think of a work of art for a moment perhaps one of those round this church at the moment. The artist has a particular material to work with, stone, wood, paint, wool or whatever. They bring all their creativity into play to produce something which is fresh, arresting and often beautiful. So God works with us; with our genetic inheritance, our early formation, our life experiences, to create the unique you and me.
But we are not just passive pieces of stone or canvas to be worked on. We are called to be co-creators. We too have a spark of creativity in us. I love Kipling’s view of heaven where everyone is depicted as an artist
And only The Master shall praise us, and only The Master shall blame;
And no one shall work for money, and no one shall work for fame,
But each for the joy of the working, and each, in his separate star,
Shall draw the Thing as he sees It for the God of Things as They are!
There is a spark of creativity in all of us which we can express in different ways. It is not just in painting or sculpture or tapestry. For some it is expressed in gardening, even if it is just a window box, or flower arranging, carpentry or cooking. Above all, and in and through all, we are called to be co-creators with God in shaping our own lives and the lives of others into that work of art which God has in mind for us.
People often say that ‘Life is a lottery’, and when you look at your life you may judge you have had good luck or bad luck or a mixture of the two. But what St Paul says is ‘ We know that all things work together[r] for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose’ ( Romans 8.28). Where you are now, in the circumstances you are in now, there is a creative response to be made as we seek to discern and respond to the creative purpose of God.
What does it mean in practical terms to live creatively? First, simply being more aware of the present moment, being fully in it, all that the modern world means by mindfulness. In fact of course Christian teachers have long taught mindfulness. Pierre de Caussade called it ‘The sacrament of the present moment’. In this moment, in every moment God is present and his will is to be discerned. Some lines of T. S. Eliot at the end of Little Gidding put it wonderfully well:
Here now, here, now, always
A condition of complete simplicity
(costing not less than everything)
Living creatively is quite compatible with routine. I love routine, I could not live without it, indeed my motto is ‘Find a good rut and get stuck in it’. But a routine can be a dreary trudge you struggle to get through - or an alert creative response to life at that moment, whether it is doing the washing up or sweeping a room. Routine can be the vehicle for a heightened awareness of what one is doing and for a more creative, loving response to life at that moment.
Yet perhaps sometimes we are called to do something new, something differently and Lent, which begins on Wednesday, is a good time for asking that question. God does not let sleeping Christians lie. This life is for a process of growth. Made in the image of God we are called to grow into his likeness. Born to pursue our own interests we are called to grow into an awareness of others and their concerns, and into the knowledge of the Supreme Other. There may something new we want to do, not as a burden but as a creative response to life in accord with God’s good purpose.
The late Malcolm Muggeridge once made a film with Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Before they began she said to him ‘Now let us do something beautiful for God.’ It is a good motto for the start of Lent as, through grace. we are shaped into God’s work of art.