Does art have the power to change us?
Art can confront us with bold images, subtle visual puns, shocking or mundane images, new forms and old concepts revisited, often turned on their head.
But can it change us? Can my contemplation of a work of art, because of the nature of that art, bring change in me? Greater still, can a group of people be encountered with the power of art and find new perspectives that endure?
The same could be asked of song lyrics, pieces of music, plays, films, dance, and all forms of creativity.
The best I can come up with is “No.”
But a thing a beauty, a visual pun, a symbol, the creative act expressed or shared as an act of kindness might create a space in time and place where we are open to God’s kindness, love and word which do bring change that endure.
I came across this idea reading Michael Card’s book, Scribbling in the Sand, and it was lost upon me. I was reading the book, mining out the link between art and faith in general, and the powerful lesson in the first chapter didn’t resonate with me until this last week as I pondered anew the question about the role and nature of art bringing change.
Artisans creating place
Artisans called by name, constructed the tent of meeting in the book of Exodus and in their obedience and creativity they created a place where God intended to meet with His people. It was a place consecrated, set apart. A place of refuge, a place of contemplation, a place of renewal.
It was a place, made through the creative activity of artisans, where God was manifest and could be encountered. He commanded the place to be built, to His specifications and He intended to dwell there, to encounter people there.
The same is true of the tent King David set up to worship God with music before the Ark of the Covenant. Also the Temple, built later under Solomon was a beautifully and extravagantly created place where God intended to draw near.
The Artisan creates space.
The religious leaders of the Temple had brought a woman “caught in the very act of adultery” to Jesus to try to trap Him. Moses commanded such to be stoned by the community. Would Jesus set Himself above Moses? Would He defy the occupying Roman law that forbade death by stoning?
Jesus “stooped down” and with His finger wrote in the sand. The religious leaders demanded a response, so Jesus stands and answers “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” And then he stooped back down to write in the sand. One by one, the accusers all left, until it was only the woman there, and Jesus, creating something in the sand.
When He stood up and saw no one there, He asked if no one had condemned her, and when no one did, He said He also did not condemn her and charged her to go and sin no more.
In the eighth chapter of the Gospel of John, Jesus through creative activity, scribbling in the sand, created a space.
A space between the accused woman and her accusers.
A space between the accusers and Jesus.
But most importantly a space where God’s wisdom, God’s holiness and God’s kindness could be encountered.
His creative act also, paradoxically, created tension, an angry religious crowd awaited, demanding an answer, He answered and went back to the sand and in that space God’s wisdom and mercy and truth prevailed.
Our only hope and our challenge.
Then for any who would express themselves creatively, there is the realization that our art can’t bring change, that our art isn’t the source for change. But also there is the challenge to create beautifully, intelligently, with such passion, such deliberation, such obedience that we may create a space, a physical space or a pause in time, in which God can draw us and draw near to us.
