August Wilson, Pulitzer Prize winning playwright from Pittsburgh’s Hill District, talks about his life as a teenager. He says growing up in the 60s in that riot-prone, gang-infested, angry, oppressed ghetto his soul was saved by the arts. He remembers being in a pottery studio one Saturday when a gang war erupted. Had it not been for that experience making something beautiful, something transcendent out of something so ordinary, had it not been for the possibility that beauty and truth lay hidden in the rude stuff of ordinary life he would not have survived those teenage years of despair and violence.  August Wilson, an artist, uses religious language to talk about his life. We are talking these Sundays in Lent about the outward journey of faith. About where our inner convictions lead us. What we say and do for Jesus. I want to talk this morning about the arts as an outward journey of faith. As an essential means of expressing truth and joy. Essential not only for our survival but our salvation, our living into God’s dream for us.

A few years ago, shortly after I got here, Jerry Brown said something I’ll never forget. He said, “there is a large community of artists in Buffalo. They understand the life of the Spirit. What they do and what we do have much in common.” From Thomas Swan and Ellie Seib, the Amherst Saxophone Quartet, Annie DeFranco, and the BPO to Shea’s Buffalo, the Studio Arena, the Irish Classical and the 36 other theaters here, to painters and artists like our own Margaret Martin and John Montague to the hundreds who call Western New York their home – Buffalo is blessed with more artists and art per capita than most cities. Jerry’s point was we have a lot in common: the church and the art world.  Common values. Common vision. Nearly a common language. What would happen, Jerry was asking, if we did more to bring the two together. Finally, two years later Jerry I am responding to your question. Which is, I believe, of great importance to our church and city.

Some of you may be thinking there’s no connection between the arts and faith. St. Peter’s Lutheran Church in Manhattan has several highly prized works of art – a chapel with walls sculpted by Louise Nevelson and a famous triptych at the communion table by William DeKooning. Together worth millions of dollars. The insurance to protect these works is not cheap. After the DeKooning painting was acquired an ongoing congregational battle ensued. Should the church own that art or sell it and give the money to the poor?

Sound familiar? When Mary used ointment worth a year’s wages to anoint Jesus’ feet Judas protested. The money he said could be used for the poor. Which elicited Jesus’ famous response, “the poor you will always have with you, but not the Son of Man.” It’s an old debate. But even in the city art and faith is not either/or but both/and.

Ten years ago we invested a million dollars in this sanctuary. Our music program and this architectural gem of a building are hallmarks. But there’s more we could do with the arts.  In Mary’s act anointing Jesus’ feet today we have a window through which we can see the relationship of the arts to the life of faith, the life of the church.

Turn with me to the story of Mary’s unfettered adoration of Jesus. I have a friend who tells me whenever I do anything right. Friday he called. We had a meeting with black clergy in the city. He was present. “Way to go,” he said. “Nice job at the meeting. We need more of that!” Words like those can be a healing ointment, a soothing balm. Everybody should have such friends. Telling, showing one another that we care.  That your friend or spouse or child has done a good job. We could do better. But we get into the grind. Remain blind to life’s little achievements and victories. When a loved one is dying I always encourage family members and friends to take time to have that difficult but wonderful conversation. Tell your loved one, I say, what they have meant to you over the years. How important they are. How much you will miss them. Don’t worry.

That’s what Mary did when she anointed Jesus’ feet. She lavished affection upon him. It was an outrageously wasteful thing to do were it not for Jesus’ identity. But given who Mary knew Jesus to be every drop of that ointment was well used. There is a story, a true story I am afraid, of a minister who took the offering plates one Sunday, held them high and prayed, “Lord this is what we think of you.”  I hope it was a good offering that week. But you get the point. Nothing is too much to give to God. It’s what Mary did. What would happen if you took your life, if I took my life this week past, held it up, and said, “here, Lord, is what I think of you.” Would it be a prayer of thanksgiving, a sacrificial offering or a slap in God’s face?

Jesus had just raised Lazarus from the grave. The Sanhedran, we learn in the very lines preceding today’s story, determine they will kill Jesus because of his increasing popularity. They decide to kill Lazarus too because others now believe because of him. So in Bethany – six days before Passover, a few days before Jesus’ entry to Jerusalem – Mary honors Jesus before his death.
Considering the cost of the ointment, the intimidating presence of the male disciples who did not hold back criticizing others even Jesus on occasion,  given all this, Mary’s act is a work of art itself because with fruit of the earth – balsam nard – she reveals beauty and truth in the face of death.

Later, Jesus washes his disciples’ feet. But what he does for his disciples and asks them to do for one another, Mary has already done for him. She reveals the essence of discipleship – loving God with your whole heart, mind, soul, strength. Mary shows she knows how to respond to Jesus without being told, fulfills the love commandment before he teaches it, embraces his departure before Jesus tells his followers its meaning.What I am saying today is art at its best, like Mary’s faithful anointing, reveals in some act or symbol or gesture truth about life.

Maybe you remember that powerful scene from Saving Private Ryan. Tom Hanks has just landed on the Normandy beach after many of those around him were gunned down in the surf. The camera shows his hands shaking uncontrollably then slowly moves to his distraught face. Alive but paralyzed in fear. That’s what war is about, says director Oliver Stone. Like pulling back a curtain or opening a door, art reveals truth about life.

Art also reminds us, like Mary’s anointing Jesus, that life is a gift. Coming away from that movie Saving Private Ryan, though it was hard to watch, I felt deeply thankful. Thankful for human valor and courage in the face of evil and darkness. Thankful that in little ordinary old me there might be some of that valor and courage for the battles I face. I am not saying Saving Private Ryan was the greatest work of art in the last century. It was a good movie. I am saying that art brings us in touch with what it means to be human. Every time I hear Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto I come away deeply renewed. Perhaps you feel that way when you read a great novel or go to the Albright-Knox or Burchfield-Penney for one of their fine exhibits. I’ll never forget running into my predecessor Tom Stewart and Dick Nygren, then pastor of Central Presbyterian Church, in the lobby of Kleinhans Music Hall. I was just out of Divinity School. I was preaching the next day. I told them the first half of the concert was great but I had to get home to finish my sermon. They were amused with my youthful discipline but then said something very wise. They said they had to finish their sermons too but they were going to stay to hear the Beethoven and let it remind them of the gift of life. Then we’ll finish our sermons they said.

A world without art becomes an austere and mercenary place, says Jerry Brown. A legalistic, pharisaical existence concerned only with transactions. Theologian George Steiner talks about this in the context of Jewish history. He notes that on the one hand when the Temple was destroyed and replaced with the text of the Torah and the concentric spheres of texts about these texts – the Talmud, the Midrash, the Mishna the Gemara – the task of interpretation became, in Israel’s dispersion, the homeland of the people. But at the same time, this genius of Jewish identity and survival generated a certain sterility. The dance of interpretation turned inward. It required more scholar-commentators than shapers of aesthetic form. Artists like the writers of Song of Songs, the Psalms, the books of Job and Ecclesiastes.

There is an old saying, “proofs weary the truth.” But art and faith make no attempt to prove anything. Rather out of the ordinary stuff of life – words, colors, sounds – they reveal and point to and celebrate truth. The biblical writers. Mary today. Michaelangelo. Bach. Emily Dickinson. Not commentators on truth. Revealers of truth. It’s why I am far less interested in hearing what the commentaries say than what the participants think in a Bible study. Commentary has its place but there is no substitute for letting a great symphony or novel or painting speak to your life and change your life if need be in some healing way.

Practicing faith and making art are profoundly the same at one level. All believers are not great artists and all artists are not believers. But at the heart of every artist and at the heart of every believer, like Mary or Flannery O’Connor, is the vigilance to recognize truth and beauty in the midst of everyday.

If there is anything prophetic that needs to be said this morning it is this: at a time when the world is increasingly mercenary and transactional, a world where bureaucracy and institutions reign the church is called, each one of us is called to be a revealer of truth. We are called individually and together to step away like Mary from the customs and expectations of the day and honor Jesus with our time and talent and treasure. Honor him in the places where we work and play and live. Honor him in ways that startle and surprise and lavishly demonstrate our devotion. For when we honor Jesus in the face of poverty or despair or even death itself, like Mary, we affirm the ultimate truth that life is stronger than death. It seems to me that this church which is so committed to the arts both here and in this community could do even more to proclaim that good news. The downward spiral of calculating politics and mercenary transactions demean human life. But art and faith reveal truth and beauty and breathe life back into a community.

What would happen if in addition to our chamber ensemble in residence we had a poet or painter in residence to work with our children’s programs and adult ministries? What would happen if we held a regional arts festival each year and displayed and performed great art for this community? As a way of underscoring the common ground of art and the life of the Spirit. As a way of using some costly nard to honor in a festival of color and sound and movement the Creator of life. What would happen if we commissioned artists to create paintings and sculptures and plays and music to reveal their Spirit-inspired hope for our city’s future?

Every believer is not an artist and every artist is not a believer. But a church that carries out its ministry through the arts has a special role to play. Particularly in a metropolitan region faced with and struggling against the forces of darkness.  The question today isn’t: do we have to decide between either the arts or ministry to the poor? The issue for us is bringing the two together in the life of the Spirit.

So come to the Table. Behold the priceless treasure of God’s love. Allow the Spirit to shape from your life a work of art that honors Jesus. Some costly pouring out of your time or talent or treasure. Some revealing of a hope now hidden.

Some loving act, like Mary’s, that points to God’s presence in our midst.

Amen.