A RICH HARVEST
In 1883 a French painter, Claude Monet, planted lilies in
his water pond at Giverny. He had imported the plants from South America and
risked the wrath of the local authorities who felt he was contaminating the
local water supply. He ignored them and once his lilies blossomed he made about
250 paintings of them over the next 30 years, always in different colours and
lights. In “one instant,” he said, “one aspect of nature contains it all."
As
he progressed with his work, Monet removed all edges from the water and all
external objects like trees or houses, so that, in his words, the viewer is
given “the illusion of an endless whole of water without horizon or bank.” He or she is drawn through the sight of the
flowers on the water into a contemplation of beauty which now loses its
concrete definition and takes the person beyond into the spiritual.
Monet opened up a world
beyond, which beckons human beings to take notice. He drew out of nature a
vision of life in its fullness far beyond the enticements of glossy magazines.
He pointed to the rich harvest for which we were born into the world. He
expressed through his painting the invitation to believe in grace, which is the
transforming power of God to open up our being to receive our “daily bread.”
In the water lilies we are given a glimpse of the eternal
and a sense that all creation speaks to us of God. Jesus too speaks of lilies (Matt
6:28) and of a plentiful harvest and he is not just thinking of people coming
forward for baptism and becoming part of the Church. These are necessary as the
witnesses of the gospel. But the gospel reaches far beyond the visible
membership of the Church. It permeates all creation and anyone touched by
beauty is touched by it.
As with Jesus and the prophets, Monet was rejected and ridiculed
in his day by many of his contemporaries. While the human heart loves beauty
there is also something within it which resists it. As Shug says in The Colour Purple, “It is what we run
from that chases us.” We run from God but he loves us, waits for us, “chases”
us. Monet pointed us beyond what we could see to a world pregnant with life and
hope.
3 July 2016 Sunday
14 C
Isaiah 66:10-14 Galatians
6:14-18 Luke
10:1-1
