December 6: Reversals of Fortune
♫ Music:
Day 4 - Wednesday, December 6
Title: The Final Judgment
Scripture: Matthew 25:31-46
“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’ “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
Poetry:
Judgement Day
By Odia Ofeimun
They will tumble down from rooftops
treetops and hilltops
where they once glowed with the bravura of gods
Their bloated robes smudged by public sins
will billow in the winds as they squirm and gutter
rocking to unbelief the sheep, the touts and clowns
who bleated ‘Amen’ to their every whip and lash.
They will tumble down
From their towers of illusions,
they will tumble down as they awaken
to the speed of thunderbolts, nemetic music
Their ears, deal to hometruths
will flap in their bullfrog run
amidst the leer and contempt
aimed by the menials
yesterday’s carriers of gongs and talking drums
Who spread hossana-green palmfronds
halleluyah palmfronds
for their motorcades
They will fall from the dais
dazed by hammerblows
shunned by the neon-lights that once called them,
the feverish handclaps which saw them through,
from whoredoms to whirldoms of insentiate grogginess
They will fall from the dais
bald lives, vultures with clipped wings
They will fall to the received by the sizzling spittle
the aimed rejection, our collective spite
And if they still outwit
the contrition that is theirs
through overdrafts from their long-filliped sin
And if they still outwit the shame that is theirs
in the pride-tall sins that have swamped us all
they cannot escape the healing floods
the legations of looming storms that will break
storms that will stick their hearts to the roofs of their mouths
making of them cheap rodents in the blitz
that must weed and sweep the streets
sweeping away the banana skins
that have slimed and could slime
the paths of those who would rather throw
than be thrown by the ghomids of public sins.
REVERSALS OF FORTUNE
I must confess I have fallen out of the habit of thinking about the Final Judgment. When I was a child, it came up more frequently in church, at least it lived more intensely in my mind, and I held the dread of standing exposed before all creation, all of my secret thoughts and shameful deeds nakedly evident, as a present and immediate part of my reality.
Now in middle age I have built a life of responsibility, structured piety, and comfort. My absorption in the urgent and the necessary is almost total. Considering the Final Judgement is not on today’s list of tasks, I suppose I will get to it when it is urgent. In my present condition I probably have enough in common with Jesus’s audience in Matthew 25 to give me pause, lest I appear before the Lord in His glory after having walked past Him numerous times in His ignominy.
It haunts me that neither group in Jesus’s vision of the Last Judgement, the righteous nor the condemned, had been able to recognize the Son of Man in their own desperate brothers and sisters. Neither had the theological imagination to perceive the Holy Vision in which the least is the greatest, and in which the lost causes of the world are actually the place where the Lord resides.
Thus, the pious men in the Parable of the Good Samaritan, are walking by a stranger, a victim, a man naked, beaten, and robbed, in whom they could not perceive the Son of Man. They imagined themselves to be serving God, living lives of busy piety, remaining holy through careful abstinence and ritual. I actually have compassion for these folk, living focused, seemingly productive lives, rooting out small evils wherever they find them, but doing little good. In the end it is their sins of omission that are weighed in the balance. What dismay and horror would attend their finding themselves among the damned, realizing their lives were all unintentional vanity, the thought is unbearable.
But it also follows that our hero, the Good Samaritan, could not really imagine that he was binding the wounds of the Son of Man on that treacherous road either. Perhaps his imagination was of a lower, if no less holy, sort. He was able to imagine the world of this helpless victim as it actually was, not how his need for comfort or control might desire it to be, and to not turn away from that reality. Beyond this, the Good Samaritan was also able to see that he and the victim were, in fact, the same–only contingent, uncontrollable circumstances led to role each had to play at the moment of their meeting. The roles in the story might easily be reversed, based on something as simple as the timing of their travel.
Today’s artworks, a composition by Delacroix and an interpretation of it by Van Gogh, offer a striking reminder of the intertwined, interdependent nature of sufferer and savior. Seeing the mirrored compositions side by side furthers our theme, and I encourage you to spend some time imagining yourself in the role of each of these parabolic characters.
Prayer:
Lord, give me eyes to see the real suffering of my neighbors.
Forgive me for the quiet judgements made in my heart,
Through which I separate myself from the poor, the naked, the broken.
Let my thousand petty judgements dissolve before your final judgement.
Grant me a redeemed imagination, the joy of seeing the greatest in the least.
Amen
Jonathan Puls
Interim Dean, School of Fine Arts and Communication
About the Artwork #1:
The Good Samaritan, 1849
Eugène Delacroix
Oil on canvas
37 x 30 cm
Private Collection
The story of the Good Samaritan is a parable told by Jesus in Luke 10:25–37. It is about a traveler who is stripped of his clothing, beaten, and left half dead alongside the road. First a priest and then a Levite come by, but both avoid the injured man. Finally, a Samaritan happens upon and assists the traveler. The kindness of the Samaritan was particularly admirable because Jews and Samaritans were generally considered enemies. Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan to answer a man who had asked him, “Who is my neighbor?” In response, Jesus tells the parable, the conclusion of which is that the “neighbor” in the parable is the man who shows mercy and compassion towards the hurt man -- the Samaritan.
About the Artist #1:
Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863) was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic School. As a painter and muralist, Delacroix's use of expressive brushstrokes and his study of the optical effects of color profoundly shaped and influenced the work of the Impressionists, while his passion for the exotic inspired the artists of the Symbolist movement. A fine lithographer, Delacroix illustrated various works of William Shakespeare, the Scottish author Walter Scott and the German author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Dramatic and romantic content characterized the central themes of his mature work, and led him not to the classical models of Greek and Roman art, but to travel to North Africa, in search of the exotic. He was inspired by the art of Rubens and painters of the Venetian Renaissance. Delacroix was also strongly inspired by Lord Byron, with whom he shared a strong identification and passion with the "forces of the sublime" in nature.
About the Artwork #2
The Good Samaritan (after Eugène Delacroix), 1890
Vincent Willem Van Gogh
Oil on canvas
73 x 60 cm
Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller
Otterlo, Netherlands
Van Gogh was staying in an institution for the mentally ill when he painted The Good Samaritan in May of 1890. It is a mirror copy of Eugène Delacroix’s painting Good Samaritan, but painted in Van Gogh’s vivid palette and unique painterly style. Delacroix’s Good Samaritan was painted in a darker tone, while Van Gogh created a softer palette of colors that defy the darker side of the story, giving the viewer a greater sense of the relationship between the two men created by the unexpected compassion of one.
About the Artist #2:
Vincent Willem Van Gogh (1853–1890) was a Post-Impressionist painter of Dutch origin whose work, notable for its rough beauty, emotional honesty, and bold color, had a far-reaching influence on 20th-century art. After years of painful anxiety and frequent bouts of mental illness, he died aged 37 from a gunshot wound generally accepted to be self-inflicted. Van Gogh did not begin painting until his late twenties, completing many of his best-known works during the last two years of his life. In just over a decade, he produced more than 2,100 artworks, consisting of 860 oil paintings and more than 1,300 watercolors, drawings, sketches and prints. His work included self-portraits, landscapes, still-lifes, portraits and paintings of cypresses, wheat fields and sunflowers. In March 1886, he moved to Paris and discovered the French Impressionists. When he moved to the south of France, his work grew brighter in color, and he developed the unique and highly recognizable style he is known for today. The extent to which his mental health affected his painting has been a subject of much speculation since his death. According to art critic Robert Hughes, “Van Gogh’s late works show an artist at the height of his ability, completely in control and “longing for concision and grace.”
About the Music:
“Lamento” from the album Neeme Järvi Conducts Chabrier
About the Composer:
French Romantic composer Alexis Emmanuel Chabrier (1841-1894) studied both law and music in Paris. A contemporary of artists like Edgar Degas, Édouard Manet, and Vincent Van Gogh, Chabrier was a friend of Impressionist painting before the movement became popular. In his own compositions, Chabrier was an innovator of vivid harmonic color in both piano and orchestral writing.
About the Performer:
Orchestre de la Suisse Romande (OSR), based in Geneva, Switzerland, was founded in 1918. From 2012-2015, acclaimed Estonian conductor Neeme Järvi (b. 1937) was its artistic director, and during that time made several commercial recordings with the orchestra.
About the Poet:
Odia Ofeimun (b. 1950) is a Nigerian poet, editor, and author of many volumes of poetry and political essays. His work has been widely anthologized and translated, and he has read and performed his poetry internationally. His poems for dance drama have been commissioned and performed across the UK and Western Europe by the Adzido Pan-African Dance Ensemble, and his most recent poem for dance drama, Nigeria The Beautiful, has been staged throughout major Nigerian cities to wide acclaim. In 2010, Ofeimun received the Fonlon-Nichols Award for literary excellence and support of human rights conferred on him by the African Literature Association.
About the Devotional Writer:
Jonathan Puls received his BS in Fine Art from Biola University in 1998, and holds both an MFA in painting and an MA in Art History from California State University, Long Beach. Professor Puls has taught drawing, painting, and art history courses in the Biola Department of Art since 2005. His areas of expertise are in figurative and observational drawing, and painting processes, as well as the history of 19th and 20th century painting. Currently, he serves as the Interim Dean of the School of Fine Arts and Communication.