During your council's oasis retreat last month, an artist was holding an exhibition. One of her paintings caught our attention. In black and white, it showed a man in a gas mask holding a machine gun. It was a typical image of war at its most dehumanizing. He was standing against a wall with a small window, as if guarding a cell. Gazing out of the window, in full colour, was the face of Jesus, suffering.
The painting was called "The Two Worlds". It was one of a series, and the artist's aim was clearly to show that even in the most dreadful situations, Jesus is present, suffering with us, talking with us, caring for us - even when, as in the picture, we try to lock God away.
We all live in two worlds. Another painting showed Jesus talking with a crisply-dressed businessman. In the monochrome background, slum children were playing with broken toys. It recalled the story of the rich young man, challenged by Jesus to sell his possessions and give them to the poor (Mt 19:16-22). Business, too, is often seen as a field where God is locked out. "This is business, we have our own rules, and we are in charge." Business language is aggressive, the language of control and of competition. How many businesses would help other firms in the same field by sharing their industrial secrets?
We all live in two worlds. A lot of attention has been claimed recently (many would say far too much attention!) for the gay Christian movement. But at the heart of this, too, lies an area of life from which God is locked out.
These three examples are very different from each other. War is wrong, whereas business is a necessary social activity. And we would all do well to come to terms with the way God has made us. People at war lock God out deliberately. Businesses, on the other hand, are able to consider "ethical" questions (one thinks of the prominent Quaker business families in nineteenth-century England, and the shareholder movements of today). And gay Christians struggle to let God into their lives, struggle to be included.
We all live in two worlds. We are not all at war. We are not all managers of businesses. Few of us are gay. And yet all of us have some corner in our lives where God is not present. Either we exclude God deliberately, or through lack of thought, or because we feel God cannot share some particular experience, some joy or some sorrow.
We all make mistakes on our way through life. It is part of our sinful nature. But the greater sin lies in brooding on these mistakes, bottling them away within us, and locking God out of our lives.
We all have times when we concentrate on our own business, our own pleasure, or own needs. But we should remember that God is always at our side. We should not lock God out.
And we all have times when we feel cut off from God. We forget how Jesus went out of his way to meet lepers, tax collectors, adulterers, people who were treated as outcasts by society of his time. There are still today, alas, things which are "socially unacceptable". We need to remember that God accepts us as we are.
Jesus did not speak of two worlds. He spoke of this world and of God's kingdom. In John's gospel (he uses the word "world" ten times as often the other gospels), our own world is lit up by God's presence ("the light of the world" has come "into the world"). Jesus came "not to judge the world, but to save the world" (Jn 12:47).
It is God's world, and we are God's people. We need to share it, and to recall that God is at our side. Even in the most difficult circumstances, we are never separated. We cannot set up a separate world of our own, and if we try, God will take us by the hand and lead us home. Rest assured, nothing can separate us from God's love for us!
HD