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Ladies love Cool Jesus. For real. Women absolutely loved Jesus, and the woman with the alabaster jar is a great example of that. Who else shows up to an event unannounced with expensive oils to not only anoint someone’s feet but to then offer their tears and use their hair to wipe the feet clean? I don’t think people comprehend the drama within that part of the story. This was an act of love, admiration, and prophecy. To me, this interpretation of the story gives the woman the attention she deserves.
When I thought about the theme, Tell Me Something Good, I realized I had spent much of my year guest preaching at classic church buildings with stained glass windows which told the parishioners the good news of Jesus. It felt most appropriate to bring the concept of stained glass into my art. Instead of the maximalist collage approach that I often use, I chose to let the paint tell the story. The color choice is both bright and vibrant yet softer than other pieces. I selected the yellow purposely to contrast the purple hair. In an attempt to clearly separate the blue sky glass from the rest of the piece, I layered patterns with a red/pink color scale to make the art pop, emphasizing the distinct glass shapes one could find on a church window.
Several aspects of the piece are deconstructed, such as the woman’s head and the foot of Jesus, both detached from bodies. I intentionally emphasize these elements to not distract us from the core of the story. The woman was intimately entwined with the feet of Jesus, her hair entangled with his leg. She released tears that would nourish his toes as the rich oil replenished his skin. To be cared for, to be seen, to be loved, that is something good.
– Rev. Nicolette Faison
Throughout Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus uses diminutive language to refer to people of importance and describes small, humble things (like sheep, lilies, and sparrows) as precious. He uses a mustard seed in a parable about faith, and tells his disciples to be like children. For Matthew’s Jesus, little is a big deal!
For that reason, we should pay attention to Jesus’ use of the word “least” in this text. In a book where Jesus talks about little things being loved, the word “least” here takes on new meaning: most loved. Indeed, God loves everyone, but there are certainly those for whom God has a special affinity. As the Confession of Belhar states, “God is in a special way the God of the destitute, the poor, and the wronged.”
As I meditated on this scripture, the image of a doorway kept emerging, perhaps because the text wrestles with the notion of who is in and who is out. This piece shows an excerpt of the text and the word “least” is, ironically, the largest. Next to it is a door that is partially open, and there is some ambiguity intended in that. Is the door being opened or closed? For whom is the door opening or closing? From the viewer’s perspective, on what “side” of the door do they find themselves? Are they being invited in or kept out? Are they doing the inviting or the excluding? In the same way Jesus asks the nations to consider where they will be in his eschatological vision, I invite the viewer to consider where they are relative to where God is. Where does the Savior see you? Where does your neighbor see you?
– Rev. T. Denise Anderson
The Wedding at Cana is my favorite text because there is a lot of humor in it. There’s humor in a mother approaching her son and telling him to do something without ever actually telling him to do it. There’s his pouty resistance to his mother’s non-demand while she completely ignores him and paints him in a corner. There is humor in a raucous wedding reception where the people are so “lit” that the wine has run out. And, for me, it’s particularly humorous that there’s this huge, beautiful secret of which only a few people are aware.
Those people include Jesus’ mother and the select servants who help him pull off the miracle that inaugurates his ministry. Servants are normally meant to be inconspicuous, so I wanted to focus on the servant who goes to the chief steward with a cup full of what, as far as he’s concerned, is water.
If Jesus—whose ministry has not started, so there haven’t been any wonders associated with him yet—tells you to fill jars with water and draw from the jar to give to the chief steward, what is going through your mind at that moment? I invite the viewer to focus on this servant and all his curiosity and expectation, and think of a time when you were surprised by something God did. What actions preceded the miracle? Did it make sense? What did you know, and what was hidden from you? What “secrets” might God be keeping from you now as God works clandestinely on your behalf?
—Rev. T. Denise Anderson