Renewal through Turning to Christ
Sermon preached by Rev. Patricia Farris
March 12, 2006

The American Presbyterian theologian, Robert MacAfee Brown, once said that “where you stand determines what you see.” Perhaps that’s no more true than how Christians since the beginning have seen or depicted Jesus.

As we continue our Lenten sermon series on Renewal, this one entitled “Renewal through Turning to Christ,” let’s begin by reflecting on what we see when we turn to Christ. Who do we see? What does he look like? And then we’ll ask how we see what he is like.

I don’t know what your earliest and deepest images of Jesus are. Mine comes from my home church in Phoenix, Arizona. It had a parlor. It’s now called something else and is more like our Fireside Room in its use, but in those days a lot of churches had parlors. It was very nicely furnished and we youth were really not supposed to go in there and mess it up. But in the parlor was a large portrait of Jesus, the very popular one, reproduced over 500 million times, Sallman’s head of Christ, and that portrait, along with pictures of him with little children from my Sunday School lessons, set how I see Jesus in my mind, even now. Kind, wise, loving, calm, beautiful shoulder length brown hair, vaguely American. He was a Jesus we could relate to. He looked like us.

The thing is, you see, in every time and place Christians have tended to portray Jesus in their own likeness. The earliest depictions of him are from the late third century carved on coffins. In fourth-century Rome, his portrait begins to appear in frescoes in the catacombs beneath the city. And as Christianity grew from being a small, marginal group into the official religion of the state, the image of Jesus evolved as well. At times, his face took on the bare, round face of Apollo, whose cult he rivaled in fifth century Rome. Elsewhere he began to appear as a tunic-clad philosopher seated among his disciples.

Over time, the portrayal of Jesus kept evolving, to reflect the variety and diversity of newly converted Christians. In the process, he took on ethnic color and regional features. He went from being shown as a Greek philosopher to a French monarch or an Italian friar. You see, he always continues to resemble those who lovingly portrayed him and cherished his image. And, as the missionaries took that image around the world, his portrait came to be a bridge among cultures. Images of Jesus from Asia and Africa and the Caribbean and the Pacific show him with coloring and features from those lands and peoples. (continued...)

"Renewal through Turning to Christ" by Rev. Patricia Farris, March 12, 2006

Perhaps you’ve heard the beautiful Christmas carol that speaks of this: “Some children see him lily white, the baby Jesus born this night, some children see him bronzed and brown, with dark and wavy hair. Some children see him almond-eyed…some children see him dark as they, sweet Mary’s son to whom we pray…the children in each different place will see the baby Jesus’ face like theirs…and filled with holy light.”

Searching through books or on the internet, we can now see Jesus in a Byzantine icon, or on the shroud of Turin, or as a worker in the fields, or as the ephemeral and ascended Lord, or in our day, in the provocative garb of young Evangelical Christians depicting their rebel faith in styles of Goth and hip-hop.

Of course, there was no portrait actually made of Jesus at the time he was alive. We who now have digital cameras and video cameras in our cell phones and can actually record anything and everything need to stop and remember this. The picture of Jesus we carry in our head and in our heart and in our souls comes not from technology or from the long tradition of painted portraiture, but from our faith and from who we are and where we stand.

As one commentator has noted, perhaps we are really looking to see in all these various depictions not just the image of Jesus, but to see what he is like. Who is this man? Who is this savior, this Messiah? And what will it mean to be his disciple, to take up his cross and follow him?

It has been said that religion is easy; discipleship is more difficult. For, as is foreshadowed in today’s reading from Mark, we know that the path of discipleship includes challenge and rejection and suffering. It means taking on the pain of the world, as did Jesus himself, for his sake, carrying his cross, losing our lives, as did he, in order to find them, all for the sake of the gospel.

“How is a disciple to know which is his or her cross?” asked Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastor who gave his life for the sake of the gospel, standing up against Hitler in Nazi Germany. “We receive it upon entering the discipleship of the suffering Lord,” he said, “and come to recognize it in the community of Jesus.”

This was borne out for me in a powerful way on my recent trip to Brazil. I had the privilege of visiting a Methodist mission project funded by the Women’s Division of our General Board of Global Ministries. That really means that it’s supported in part by the mission contributions our amazing United Methodist Women faithfully contribute each year. God bless you. (continued...)

"Renewal through Turning to Christ" by Rev. Patricia Farris, March 12, 2006

 

As in most of Brazil’s large cities, the outskirts are packed with very poor people. I went to one of these very poor neighborhoods called São Luca, one of the poorest communities in Porto Alegre’s outlying area, a collection of cobbled-together shacks and dirt roads. And there I visited the small Susana Wesley Center, an outreach project of the Methodist Church of Brazil, which reaches out to girls from the neighborhood for whom home is not a safe and loving place. Poverty, illiteracy, joblessness and hopelessness are taking a terrible toll. These precious little girls have been abused physically and emotionally. But thanks to the outreach of the Center’s Director and volunteers, the girls’ schoolteachers are trained to spot them by their poor school-work and strained social skills and refer them to the Center’s loving and knowledgeable care.

At the Center, in its clean and bright rooms, a doctor, a dentist, a psychologist and a teacher, all volunteers, diagnose, treat and train the girls, who range in age from 6-18. The pastor of the nearby Methodist Church comes to teach and lead worship. The Center is currently expanding its site to include a proper medical examination room and a classroom for training as hairdressers and manicurists. Familiarity with a stove, microwave and refrigerator, appliances they do not have in their own one-room houses, will help prepare the girls for work as housekeepers. Soon another new room will be complete, providing space for a parent to join the girls at the Center for family counseling and training.

On the door, in this place of beauty where they are safe and loved, each girl’s name is written on a heart under a picture of Jesus welcoming children, the picture of Jesus each of them now carries in her heart. A hand-lettered sign in Portuguese quotes John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.” These girls now see Jesus as friend, as a loving Savior, his face filled with holy light. The Director told me: “This place is heaven to them.”

At the Director’s side since the project opened is an amazing volunteer. Marieeija is a woman in her late 60s. An active Brazilian Methodist laywoman, she has a wonderful family and has retired from a successful career as an attorney in Porto Alegre. But she told me that as soon as she retired, she began to look around to see what she could do with her time and her skills to live out her faith, the call she feels to discipleship from a Jesus she loves. She chose the Susana Wesley Center and the girls of the São Luca neighborhood. She takes care of all the legal documents and permits and so forth, she raises money, she recruits volunteers, she supports the Director, she’s there over forty hours a week, and the girls run up to hug her each time she walks in the door. (continued...)

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