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fairytales and parables: more mystery than meets the eye

7/26/2014

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Picture
by Jon Inkpin, for Pentecost 7A, Sunday 27 July 2014 (St.Luke, Toowoomba)

There is a great little art exhibition at the moment: in the Crows Nest Art Gallery.  If you haven’t seen it, I encourage you to do so before it ends (on 3 August).  The exhibition is by two talented local young artists, one of whom is our own Katherine Appleby.  Katherine’s subject for this exhibition centres on fairytales and she has created some wonderful works, not least a powerful piece called ‘Fear’.  In this, we see what appears to be a young girl walking into the midst of a dark forest, where wolves and wolf-like heads, eyes and mouths glisten in the darkness.  Even the trees are dark and bare, devoid of foliage, symbolising the darkness and threat of fear itself.  Isn’t that a powerful picture of how fear can feel to us?  Look again though, and perhaps you may see other things.  What, for instance, is the really fearful thing in the painting?  Is it the dark woods?  Is it the closure of the path and of the light?  Is it the wolves?  Or is it the girl herself?  Is she, so central to the picture, actually the true source and figure of fear?  Why, for instance, is she walking into the forest, into the darkness away from the light?  She stands very self-possessed.  So is she afraid of the woods and the wolves?  Or are they afraid of her?  The painting you see, like any fine work of art, reveals more as we look at it.  It asks us not one but many questions, some of them surprising.  It is an invitation to mystery, rather than a mere description or proclamation of the straightforward.  Indeed, if you look very closely at Katherine’s painting of ‘Fear’ you will see that the girl’s face is also partly an old and partly a young face.  As such, it expresses the awesome ambiguity of life, truth and our human condition.  Which way of looking, being and living will we choose?

Religion at its best is in many ways akin to art at its best, especially in its capacity to invite us into the awesome ambiguities of life.  It is an invitation to mystery, not a mere description or safeguard of the straightforward.  It is a means, like great art, by which we can hold our fear and our suffering and not be overwhelmed.  It is a path on which we can walk with courage, through the darkness around and within us, through the grace of God, into the light and love of God...


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parable of 'the sower'? - what's in a name?

7/13/2014

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Picture
sermon by Jonathan Inkpin for Pentecost 5, Sunday 13 July 2014

Sometimes the names we are used to calling things keep us from seeing their full value.  This is certainly the case with Jesus’ teaching.  A few years ago for instance, in some Christian quarters, we stopped referring to one of the Jesus’ great stories as simply ‘the Parable of the Prodigal Son’.  It had become too predictable and limiting.  Instead we also started referring to it as ‘the Parable of the Father’s Love’ and the Parable of the Two Sons’ as we started noticing other features in the story which are very life-giving.  I suspect it is the same with the story Jesus tells in today’s Gospel reading.  Maybe we should look at the so-called ‘Parable of the Sower’ in other ways, if we want to hear more of what God is saying to us through it.

Here are three suggestions…


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will we dance?

7/5/2014

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Picture
for Pentecost 4, Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Sunday, 13 July 2014 by Jon Inkpin

Are you a dancer?  Do you ever go to a dance group, or watch dance?  Have you ever been a dancer?  – I don’t mean professionally, or even as a hobby, just: have you ever danced?  You know, I reckon all of us have danced, at least once, and more than once, even if we have forgotten, or chosen to forget, about it.  Think about it: all little children dance.  Put on a piece of music, or just watch a little child moving about: he or she is full of natural dance and movement.  For dancing is a very natural part of what it is to be human.  Indeed, it is a natural, and even integral, part of what it is to be alive.  For the whole creation is really, actually, a dance: a dance of all the elements of creation; in, and with, the glory of our dancing God.  I hope that doesn’t seem like a shocking affirmation.  If it does, then blame Jesus in our Gospel reading today.  What is he saying? – why: let go of your burdens and dance with me.  So, will we dance?...


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    sermons and reflections from Penny Jones & Josephine Inkpin, an Anglican married clergy couple in Brisbane

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