Stone Cropped

SR Blog - The Artist

The Artist

Posted by Jason Williams, Lead Pastor on

I don’t consider myself a Foodie, but I have been blessed with a versatile palate and large appetite.  It’s not that I don’t like certain foods over others, but all in all, I am happy to eat whatever everyone else is craving and I usually don’t customize my orders. This is due partially to the fact that I am not picky and also because I don’t like to be an inconvenience to those who are serving me.  But recently I found a new motivation for not cutting this or adding that to the food that I eat.

I am learning is to appreciate food as a form of art.  With the rise in popularity of local novelty restaurants, it seems that those who are combining ingredients into creative presentations are really trying to present something of a work of art. I know for some it may seem like I am using the word “art” loosely, but I am serious.  It’s one thing to roll in to a restaurant with generic foods with generic names: cheeseburger, fries, chicken sandwiches, etc. It’s quite another thing to sit down at a restaurant named the Rodeo Goat and preview a menu boasting foods with such names as the Nanny Goat, Caca Oaxaca, and the Red Headed. Just reading the names is entertaining, let alone visualizing the toppings that accompany these fabulous foods like fried eggs, candied bacon and green goddess dressing. If a chef is going to work hard to create something truly unique and present it in a way that seems like the food matters to him or her, then matters to me.  It’s art.  Short lived art, but every dish designed by a chef is a piece of art. And this is where my newfound conviction comes from. 

I don’t listen to a new song on the radio and think of ways to customize the melody so I will like it better. I take it as it is. I take it the way the presenter meant for me to take it and then I decided whether or not I will listen to it again. I don’t look at a Picasso painting and think to myself, “If that were in my house, I would add more color and change the shadows.”  I take it as the artist intended and decide from there whether or not I like the art. Think of it this way: every piece of art is a reflection of the artist.  Something about the art tells us who the artist is. Food is no different as long as someone has taken time to create something in way that displays a sense of themselves with intentional design behind the decisions of ingredients, presentation and name. When we attempt to change the art, we attempt to change the artist. 

This is also the way I am learning to see people.  As objects of creation, every person bears the evidence of the most famous artist in the universe, God himself.  Every set of eyes, every texture of hair, tone of skin and timbre of voice reflects an intentional and creative decision. Even our personalities are brushstrokes from the Creator’s hand.  This is a new thought for me.  In the same way I used to customize my food with no regard for the creator’s intention, I have found myself trying to customize the people around me to fit my appetite. I have intentionally tried to “cut this” and “add that” to the people in my life.  Those who I couldn’t modify to fit my preferences, I cut out all together.  Wow, what a narcissistic perspective! 

And now, though the change is happening slowly, I am finding something beautiful in the way God has created people.  Now, to be clear, I am in no way giving God credit, nor showing appreciation for the sin of man.  Selfish people still get on my nerves and those who are cruel are difficult for me to appreciate. But what I do mean, is that in every person, there is something remarkably beautiful and indicative of the Master Artist. In appreciating God’s art, there are two things that strike me as marvelous. 

The first thing is in the unrelenting creativity of God’s never-ending works of art.  With the world population approaching 7 billion, some anthropologists estimate that there have been over 100 billion total people who have lived on Earth since creation. Whether or not this number is accurate has no bearing on the point.  There has never been an artist who could produce the number works by comparison. And second, I have yet to see a piece of art come to life and breathe air aside from that which God has created. The Gospel of John introduces Jesus as the great artist of all creation.  And in creating everything that has been made, Jesus outdid himself by breathing life into his art.  3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men.” (John 1:3-4) When the Apostle Paul was addressing the Areopagus in the great cultural city of Athens, he referred to God as the great artist whose artwork surpasses anything made by human hands:

24 ‘The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. 26 And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, 27 that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, 28 for ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are indeed his offspring.’” (Acts 17:24-28)

I know this is a far stretch from where we started with burgers and fries. But for me, it’s the same. Every human artist is a pale reflection of the Master Artist.  In every artistic work of God, I see something remarkably unique and beautiful. As I contemplate changing the art of others to fit my taste, I feel a deep sense of conviction to leave it as it is. To eat the food the way the chef designed it to be eaten.  In the end, if I don’t like it, I don’t order it again.  This simple practice reminds me to see the beauty of God’s creation as it is, rather than as I want it to be.  All of this is giving me a heightened sense of appreciation and worship of the Master Artist.  Rather than trying to change the artist by changing His art, I am learning to see the artist in his work. I am learning what it means to see the Creator’s image in the faces of His creation.  Rather than recreating God in my image I am learning what it means that we are created in His.

26 Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’ 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” (Genesis 1:26-27)

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