“There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?”
~John 6:9
 
What are they indeed? What do the gifts we have to offer matter in this world of need—especially given the width and breadth and height of the challenges we face? Climate change forces that rage even in wealthy countries. Work-life patterns that seem not to work  for or give life to anyone. Political winds that blow with gale force through our communities and our souls. What momentum do we perceive toward real change? What hope do we have for recovering human connections and well-being?
 
It all feels beyond our control. We ask with the disciples, what are our gifts among so many people? And yet we do have good work to do. But it is not our work to control it all. We are the workers; we are the servants; we are the sheep in need of a shepherd, the hungry looking for food. Where is our hope? Whom, this day, will we serve? Leave those last questions to the one says again and again, “Do not be afraid.”
 
Enter into worship.
 
Readings: 2 Samuel 11:1-15 † Psalm 14 or 2 Kings 4:42-44 † Psalm 145:10-18 †  Ephesians 3:14-21 † John 6:1-21
 
About the Art: Swanson, John August. Jesus with Boys, Loaves and Fishes, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=56560 [retrieved July 22, 2024]. Original source: Estate of John August Swanson, https://www.johnaugustswanson.com/.
 
About the Artist: JOHN AUGUST SWANSON makes his home in Los Angeles, California, where he was born in 1938. He paints in oil, watercolor, acrylic and mixed media, and is an independent printmaker of limited edition serigraphs, lithographs and etchings.
​
His art reflects the strong heritage of storytelling he inherited from his Mexican mother and Swedish father. John Swanson’s narrative is direct and easily understood. He addresses himself to human values, cultural roots, and his quest for self-discovery through visual images. These include Bible stories and social celebrations such as attending the circus, the concert, and the opera. He also tells of everyday existence, of city and country walks, of visits to the library, the train station or the schoolroom. All his parables optimistically embrace life and one’s spiritual transformation.
 
John Swanson studied with Corita Kent at Immaculate Heart College. His unique style is influenced by the imagery of Islamic and medieval miniatures, Russian iconography, the color of Latin American folk art, and the tradition of Mexican muralists.
 
His art is in no way “naïve.” It is detailed, complex, and elaborate. Unlike many contemporary artists, John Swanson works directly on all phases in producing his original prints. His serigraphs (limited-edition screen prints) have from 40 to 89 colors printed, using transparent and opaque inks creating rich and detailed imagery. For each color printed the artist must draw a stencil on Mylar film. This stencil is transferred to the silk screen for printing the color ink on the serigraph edition. The resulting serigraph is a matrix of richly overlaid colors visually striking and technically masterful.
 
Mr. Swanson’s art is represented in the permanent collections of many museums, including three museums of the Smithsonian Institution: The National Museum of American History, The National Museum of American Art and The National Air and Space Museum. He is also included in the print collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, Harvard University’s Fogg Museum, the Tate Gallery and Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. His painting THE PROCESSION is one of relatively few works by contemporary artists to be selected for the Vatican Museums’ Collection of Modern Religious Art. In 2008, an extensive collection of John August Swanson’s works were purchased by Emory University’s Candler School of Theology to hang on the walls of their new 76,349 square foot building. He was awarded The Dean’s Medal for his art’s transformative effect on the campus. With over 55 works hung, this is the largest open public display of the artwork of John August Swanson. 

​And wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the marketplaces, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.
~Mark 6:56
 
Even the fringe…
 
It doesn’t take much when such power and promise is present, does it?
 
Case in point: the event that fueled the frenzy preventing even a few hours off for Jesus and his disciples can be traced back to a singular event—the healing of the tormented man who had previously lived among the dead in Gennesaret. He called himself Legion (Mark 5).
 
Healed by Jesus, he is told to return home to the friends who had come to fear him: “Go home to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and what mercy he has shown you.” And he does: “he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him; and everyone was amazed” (Mark 5:19-20).
 
Fast forward…one chapter. Now the region that couldn’t get rid of Jesus fast enough can’t get enough of him, bringing their sick to him, begging for the healing Jesus provides before he even steps off the boat. Oftentimes the Spirit shows up in places that (at first) scare us, breaking norms and taboos, unsettling our tired assumptions and fractured systems. Yet, where God’s Spirit dwells is good news and healing and hope. What stories do you have to tell? Where do you see the Spirit? Let us go there. Rush to it!
 
Enter into worship.
 
Readings: 2 Samuel 7:1-14a † Psalm 89:20-37 or Jeremiah 23:1-6 † Psalm 23 † Ephesians 2:11-22 † Mark 6:30-34, 53-56
 
About the Art: Latimore, Kelly. Christ: the Tekton, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=57124 [retrieved July 9, 2024]. Original source: Kelly Latimore Icons, https://kellylatimoreicons.com/.
 
From the Artist: I started painting icons in 2011 while I was a member of the Common Friars from 2009-2013. Our collective work was about being more connected: to ourselves, each other, our surrounding community and the land. This manifested itself as a place called “The Good Earth Farm” where we held weekly services and meals, and grew produce for our community and local food pantries.

Iconography has since become a practice of more considerations: of color and light, of brush stroke and form, symbol and meaning...However, I do not wish to approach Iconography as an art form that simply follows an inherited tradition, knowledge and practice. I want it to be a creative process, meditation, and practice that brings about new self-knowledge for the viewer and myself. Who are the saints that are among us here and now?

I was not taught by a traditional Iconographer, and so to some, I am breaking many rules. There are icons here that people may find theologically unsound and wrong, or for others, helpful and inspiring. I think both reactions are important. My hope is that these icons do what all art can potentially do, which is, to create more dialogue.

The other may have something to teach us about what we know, about who God is, the world we live in and who are our neighbors. This is the real work of being human and of art. Being more present.

David danced before the Lord with all his might
~2 Samuel 6:14
 
When his daughter Herodias came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his guests
~Mark 6:22
 
This is one of those Sundays when the scriptures are thick with imagery and human drama. Arguably, they are at their best at these times—paralleling the complex reality of our experiences, connecting with the story of our own lives.
 
Dancing and feeding. Performative acts, perhaps, but somehow leading to meaningful social change. For better or for worse. They invite us to ask of ourselves how we use moments and sometimes people to, at best, transform or, at worst, to coerce. To practice religion is to engage with questions of power and purpose trusting that the Spirit of truth and newness will abide with us.
 
David dances before the ark, a symbol of Israel’s God coming home…and the securing of a political dynasty. The gospel text finds us at a dinner party deep in the inner circles of Herodian power. Politicians, military brass, community brokers who have come to this table by virtue of many bartered choices that both empower and now constrain them. Choices have consequences. Some heads are going to roll.
 
As people of faith, we are called beyond the transactional nature so familiar to our culture and climate to ways of truth and love. What might we make of the choices and the opportunities we have?
 
Enter into worship.
 
Readings: 2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19 † Psalm 24 † Ephesians 1:3-14 † Mark 6:14-29
 
About the Art: St. John the Baptist in the Wilderness (Detail). Kehinde Wiley, 2013. Retrieved on July 8, 2024 from: https://www.seattleartmuseum.org/exhibitions/wiley.

No one really knows
     how the game is played
The art of the trade
How the sausage gets made
We just assume
     that it happens
But no one else is in the room
     where it happens
~The Room Where it
Happens, Hamilton
 
Being human is messy. This pilgrim way is just messy. Despite our best attempts to mask it, deny it, dismiss it, we are known more by what we don’t know than what we do, by our limits more than our superpowers, by our doubts more than our certainty.
 
And yet, we have to move forward. We have to do something. And that—perhaps more often than not—can get shut down, dismissed, denied. Jesus knew something about this when he came back to his hometown to speak…and was shut down.
 
“Prophets are not without honor,” Jesus says, perhaps more to those of us who look on two millenia later with new prophets to welcome, or not, than to those already decided, “except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house.”
 
These are not the most hopeful words we could we hope for as we anticipate welcoming new leaders into our midst. Elders and deacons who would lead us, to whom we promise to pray for (easy), to encourage (still easy), to respect (sure, but let’s not get carried away), to follow as they guide us (wait, what?), serving Jesus Christ…
 
And then there’s this other thing. It is not easy to lead in a time when we don’t really know where we are going. When questions are far more abundant than answers. When scarcity and danger seem to rule the day. When communities are devastated by increasingly powerful storms, and cities by well-meaning policies that seem only to create more suffering. In a sense many, if not the vast majority of us want the same thing. We just aren’t in agreement as to how to get there. There’s a thorn in one’s flesh if we’ve ever seen one!
 
David has the far easier gig in today’s readings. A community proud of their new leader. A shepherd to be followed. But this is the beginning of the story, not the end.
 
This is the territory in which we live, the theater in which our songs are sung, our stories given meaning, our future charted. The room where it happens. Only to be sent out. Surprisingly, thankfully, with little. It isn’t, you see, what we carry, what we have, what superpowers we possess, or the “sausage” that is our human process. It is the One who is already out there…and in the room where it happens, going before us, with us, beside us, sometimes against our best intentions for the sake of the kindom for which we hope, for which we long.
 
Enter into worship.
 
Readings: 2 Samuel 5:1-5, 9-10 † Psalm 48 or Ezekiel 2:1-5 † Psalm 123 † 2 Corinthians 12:2-10 † Mark 6:1-13
 
 
About the Art: Pilgrim with staff, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=54923 [retrieved June 24, 2024]. Original source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pilgrim_Path_Waymarker_(Ireland).jpg.