God’s
Work of Art!
Discipleship Questions for
Sunday March 22, 2009
Scripture
First
Psalm
Second
Gospel: John 3:14-21
First Reading
2 Chr 36:14-16, 19-23
A reading
from the second Book of Chronicles
The wrath and the mercy of the Lord are
revealed in the exile and liberation of his people.
In those days,
all the princes of Judah, the priests, and the people
added infidelity to
infidelity,
practicing all the abominations
of the nations
and polluting the LORD’s temple
which he had
consecrated in
Early and often
did the LORD, the God of their fathers,
send his messengers
to them,
for he had
compassion on his people and his dwelling place.
But they mocked
the messengers of God,
despised his warnings,
and scoffed at his prophets,
until the anger of
the LORD against his people was so inflamed
that there was no
remedy.
Their enemies
burnt the house of God,
tore down the walls
of
set all its palaces
afire,
and destroyed all
its precious objects.
Those who
escaped the sword were carried captive to
where they became
servants of the king of the Chaldeans and his sons
until the kingdom of
the Persians came to power.
All this was to
fulfill the word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah:
“Until the land
has retrieved its lost sabbaths,
during all the time it
lies waste it shall have rest
while seventy years
are fulfilled.”
In the first
year of Cyrus, king of
in order to
fulfill the word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah,
the LORD inspired
King Cyrus of
to issue this
proclamation throughout his kingdom,
both by word of
mouth and in writing:
“Thus says
Cyrus, king of
All the kingdoms
of the earth
the LORD, the God
of heaven, has given to me,
and he has also
charged me to build him a house
in
Whoever,
therefore, among you belongs to any part of his people,
let him go up, and
may his God be with him!”
Responsorial Psalm Ps 137:1-2,
3, 4-5, 6
(R.) Let my tongue be
silenced, if I ever forget you!
By the streams
of
we sat and wept
when we remembered
On the aspens of
that land
we hung up our
harps.
(R.) Let my tongue be
silenced, if I ever forget you!
For there our
captors asked of us
the lyrics of our
songs,
and our despoilers
urged us to be joyous:
“Sing for us the songs of
(R.) Let my tongue be
silenced, if I ever forget you!
How could we
sing a song of the LORD
in a foreign land?
If I forget you,
may my right hand
be forgotten!
(R.) Let my tongue be
silenced, if I ever forget you!
May my tongue
cleave to my palate
if I remember you
not,
if I place not
ahead of my joy.
(R.) Let my tongue be
silenced, if I ever forget you!
Second Reading Eph 2:4-10
A reading from
the Letter of
Though dead in your transgressions, by
grace you have been saved.
Brothers and
sisters:
God, who is rich
in mercy,
because of the great
love he had for us,
even when we were
dead in our transgressions,
brought us to life with
Christ—by grace you have been saved—,
raised us up with him,
and seated us with
him in the heavens in Christ Jesus,
that in the ages to
come
He might show
the immeasurable riches of his grace
in his kindness to
us in Christ Jesus.
For by grace you
have been saved through faith,
and this is not
from you; it is the gift of God;
it is not from
works, so no one may boast.
For we are his
handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for the good works
that God has
prepared in advance,
that we should live
in them.
Gospel Jn 3:14-21
A reading
from the holy Gospel according to John
God sent his Son so that the world might be
saved through him.
Jesus said to
Nicodemus:
“Just as Moses
lifted up the serpent in the desert,
so must the Son
of Man be lifted up,
so that everyone
who believes in him may have eternal life.”
For God so loved
the world that he gave his only Son,
so that everyone
who believes in him might not perish
but might have
eternal life.
For God did not
send his Son into the world to condemn the world,
but that the world
might be saved through him.
Whoever believes
in him will not be condemned,
but whoever does
not believe has already been condemned,
because he has not
believed in the name of the only Son of God.
And this is the
verdict,
that the light
came into the world,
but people
preferred darkness to light,
because their works
were evil.
For everyone who
does wicked things hates the light
and does not
come toward the light,
so that his works
might not be exposed.
But whoever
lives the truth comes to the light,
so that his works
may be clearly seen as done in God.
Discipleship Questions:
Wow! Now that’s one
of the most powerful sections in all of Scripture. You could spend a life time meditating just
upon these 10 verses and not plum their full depth.
By the way did you hear verse 6: 6 Then he picked us up and set us down in
highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah. Have you figured out what this little verse
tells us? Yes, heaven begins now – here
and now on earth – not just when we die and go to heaven.
Heaven on earth begins the day you begin to love, trust and
obey our Lord Jesus Christ!
But it’s the last verse that I’m convinced our Lord wants
us to really delve into. Please listen
to it again:
10 For we are God’s
workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in
advance for us to do.
Did you hear that – we are God’s workmanship! Now this is where a little knowledge of the
original language is really helpful. The
Greek word for “workmanship” is Poiayma – and it
literally means – THAT WHICH IS MADE SPECIFICALLY BE GOD’S CREATIVE ACTIVITY!
We are literally God’s Work of Art! God’s Poem in progress” as Biblical
commentator Fr. Brendan Byrne so beautifully put it.
You’re a poem being written
by God! That’s what God had in mind when He dreamt of
you and of me and of you and you and you and you and all of us!
We’re not cookie cutter human templates! We’re not afterthoughts. We’re not soap operas or melodramas but
rather magnificent works of art being created by God Almighty Himself!
Now first let’s remember who used this word –
4 . . .
immense in mercy and with an incredible love, 5
God embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did
all this on his own, with no help from us!
6 Then he picked us up and set us
down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Savior. 7 Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in
this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ
Jesus. 8
Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is
trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! 9 We
don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that
we’d done the whole thing! 10 No, we
neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving.
Truly then we ARE God’s works of art! This is God’s plan
from beginning to end for you and for me!
Brilliant, magnificent, awe inspiring works of art! Not one like the other – each and every one
of us unique creations of the Creator of all things!
Mark Flanigan in an article
entitled “What is Poetry?” wrote this:
“Poetry is the chiseled marble of language; it's a paint-spattered
canvas - but the poet uses words instead of paint, and the canvas is you.”
Ah! “. . . and the
canvas is you!” Truly you and I are the
canvas and if we will trust God He will write us a magnificent script!”
Flanigan goes on:
“Poetry is imagination at work – It’s a riddle wrapped in
an enigma! . . . It doesn't like your
definitions and will shirk them at every turn.”
This is why God gave us our imaginations – to explore His
poetry in us and in those about us. We
defy definition – God is a poet not an engineer or at least a poet engineer –
ha!
The key is to believe that God is “THE” AUTHOR – the
greatest of all possible authors and to allow Him to write our story and not to
usurp His role in our lives or the lives of those about us. This is to play God and goes against the
fundamental fact that God is God and you and I are not!
We are HIS workmanship – His poems – His creative gifts to
this His world to so captivate the watching and listening audience so as to
draw it away from it’s own self-absorptions into the greater and much more
magnificent and majestic drama of God’s own creation!
You and I are God’s own workmanship – His poems to a lost
and lonely world! A
world which has lost the sound of the voice of its Author and is trying to write
its own story.
So sad – so futile – such a waste of wonder!
Listen once again to Steve’s poetry:
We are living works of art
A masterpiece as bright as a star
Made in the image of our God
We are living works of art
We are alive
We are free
To be who the Master
Has formed us to be
Expressions of God
On display in His gallery!
We adore You-our Creator
We praise you-our Savior
So with one voice
As living works of art
We praise You O Lord!
This is the song of praise that should be on our lips as we
enter the great feast of Holy Week after the excruciating fast of Lent!
In the remaining days of Lent let God erase your own
graffiti and humbly sit still long enough for Him to work His creative genius
into your lives.
Yes, this is a time for stillness before Him.
In
the waning days of Lent God would encourage us to stop – be still – rest – wait
upon Him. Listen to Him – listen for His
leading.