Masterpiece

The Bible says of us that “We are God’s masterpiece, created anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago”. Now that’s in the second chapter of Ephesians which has all sorts of other wonderful stuff about passing from death to life and being incorporated into this amazing body of people, this community we call the “church” in which we are no longer foreigners and aliens, trying to make it through life it all on our own.

The word “masterpiece” strikes me as very important. It’s “God’s workmanship” in other translations and is actually “poema”, in the original. That’s the Portuguese word for poem. I’m a unique work of art, a poem written by my Father God, the creative expression of His heart! Now, I was going to upload a picture of a Van Gogh or a Rembrandt to illustrate what’s going through my mind, but then above my desk is the “Old man of Stour” in the Isle of Skye looking down at me in glowing colours of the setting sun. So I’ll let you look at that instead. It’s the September page on the Scotsman calendar that my brother sends to me faithfully every Christmas. So, before I turn over to October, here it is. Now there’s a wild work of art, a masterpiece in granite and heather, in light and shade.

All of the wonderful fine art down through the centuries has been just men and women repeating in a lesser way what God has been doing all along - creating form and beauty out of rough raw materials, out of ochres and pastels, and setting it forth for others to wonder at and respond to. It strikes me that, if art and creativity is so much a central part of the Creator’s relationship with what he has made, then why is that so much of what we do as “church” tends to become routine and run of the mill? We repeat a tried and tested format every Sunday, but where is the imagination, the creativity? A good sermon should be a true work of art, a painting in the air made of words, a conception of the God we can’t see, formed out of the pages of the Bible. Singing and praising and praying should be art in motion, emerging from vibrant, imaginative souls caught up in a passionate relationship with their Lord.

That’s why we’re His “masterpiece”. So that we can explore fully all those wonderful things that He has already planned for us to do in our lives, and in so doing create our own personal “masterpiece”. For His Glory.

Pó

Pó is the Portuguese word for dust. Powder. Two little letters that indicate something infinitesimal, insubstantial. Something that you would brush off your coat sleeve, something that you might blow out the window. And the Portuguese Bible says :

“lembra-se de que somos pó”

.... ..“He remembers that we are dust”.

I like it. Two simple letters. Reminding me of my total insignificance in the light of eternity. In the light of anything, really. We think we are something and we’re really not. The title of an early Chemical Brothers track was “In Dust we Trust” and it sometimes seems like that. That everything created adn fored and fashioned by humankind, this tottering edifice, is nothing more than so much dust. And as such, without God in the picture, it is all built on insubstantial crumbling foundations. This month, with elections in the air here in Portugal, and with so much bluster along the corridors of power, it is good to be reminded that theres a lot more to life and reality than our human dust.

Getting back to the psalm, its the juxtaposition of the two phrases “we are dust” and “He remembers” that makes it so amazing. It tells me that the One, the Eternal One, knows me. He knows who I am. He knows how I am formed, and how easily I fall apart sometimes. But, more than that, it communicates to me His, (and here’s that hugely significant Bible word), “COMPASSION”. He has compassion on me, my being, this dust bug. He showers me with His love, and has such a huge personal concern for all that I am and hold dear. Truly amazing stuff, and no matter how often I read it, still can’t fully take it in.

But there it is in prophetic print for all to read.

The LORD is compassionate and gracious,
........slow to anger, abounding in love.

For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
........so great is his love for those who fear him;

As far as the east is from the west,
........so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

As a father has compassion on his children,
........so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him;

For he knows how we are formed,
.........he remembers that we are dust

Psalm 103

Jesus Shows the Way

We have just finished a weekend retreat in Carcavelos, down where the river meet the ocean. The combination of a nice place to stay, good company and fellowship and the fresh September air by the sea has been extremely restful.

Our theme for the weekend was “Jesus and his team” looking at the way in which Jesus developed teamwork among his disciples. The funny thing is that when I went to the internet to look for an appropriate image to introduce the theme, I plugged in the phrase “Jesus e a sua equipa” (Jesus and his team) into Google and came up with something completely different.

“A Bola” is one of the three daily newspapers here exclusively dedicated to football (it gives a measure of how seriously Portugal takes its football) and this headline was the response to my search. Benfica’s manager Jorge Jesus saying, of his team, that we’re on the right path, after a good start to the season! Yes, we have more than one “Jesus” here in Lisbon. And it’s another interesting aspect of Portugal’s ambiguous relationship with its religious heritage, that the press love to make a play on this manager’s surname, in creating their headlines.

But back to the teamwork, and Simão Silva, one of the speakers at the weekend, pointed out how Portugal can produce such world class players in Deco and Ronaldo and yet a team that can barely manage to qualify for the world cup finals (time will tell). Jesus (not the Benfica one) took a bunch of nobodies and created a team that turned the world upside down. Its amazing how being connection to this person, this Jesus, can change a person. Not just individually, but also as he relates to others. I can do all things, says Paul, through Christ who gives me strength. And WE can also do ALL THINGS, as a group of believers, followers, disciples, bound together in love and commitment to Him.