GOD’S WORK OF ART

GOD’S WORK OF ART

“We” are God’s work of art, Paul tells the Ephesians.  A “work of art” means for us a painting, a novel, a piece of music and so forth. It is something that a person conceives as an idea, a seed which grows and develops as they work on it. They are not sure, at the beginning, how it will be at the end.  As they work they constantly adapt and try different ways of developing the work, accepting some and rejecting others. Finally the finished product emerges. Maybe it has changed much from the original concept, but now it is complete; it has achieved its purpose.

I remember a teacher I once had who told us God too doesn’t know exactly how things are going to turn out. He doesn’t have a fixed blue print for us.  He knows how he wants us to be but he adapts his plans according to how we respond at each stage. Sometimes we mess up and he has to change his plan and try something else. How often we recover from a disaster and say, “it turned out well in the end because…” Or we say, “every cloud has a silver lining,” meaning every setback brings a benefit in the end. “We are well aware that God works with those who love him … and turns everything to their good.”  Romans 8:28).

I was thinking these thoughts this week when reflecting on homosexuality.  People of my generation swept this issue under the carpet.  We did not know how to deal with it when it began to be discussed openly. And the Church did not know what to say about it. Maybe it still doesn’t.  But the consensus today, whatever way a person discovers they are, is they are to be respected, honoured and loved as they are: they are God’s work of art. I know too well.  I myself have made a journey from viewing people with disabilities, physical or intellectual, as “useless”, to holding them in great esteem and trying to welcome their contribution to the community in which they live.  Homosexuals would not accept that they are ‘disabled’ but they would acknowledge they are different from the majority of people.

But whatever about descriptions and labels, I am trying to make a general point; that every person, no matter what their condition in life, is God’s work of art.  He loves each one and works with them and through them to bring out the best in them, for their own happiness and for the progress of others.  Our task is to respect this “work in progress” and do all we can to open our mind and heart to welcome people who are different from us as well as those we consider the same as us.

11 March 2018                                    Sunday in Lent 4 B

2 Chronicles 36:14 … 23                   Ephesians 2:4-10                                 John 3:14-21