*Do you know the first time that the Bible says someone was filled with God’s Spirit? It wasn’t Abraham, Moses, or David. It was Bezalel. He wasn’t filled to preach or prophecy or perform miracles. He was filled with God’s Spirit to create. The book of Exodus says he was filled with the Spirit of God, with wisdom…to make artistic designs, cut stones, and engrave wood for the tabernacle. God cares about creativity and beauty. From the very beginning of the story, God invites us to join him in the work creating and cultivating, dreaming and implementing, constructing and ordering. Every person is made in the image of God, full of dignity, with unique gifts and talents meant to point people back to him. We are, as N.T. Wright says, “angled mirrors” reflecting God’s love for the world through us and giving the world a glimpse of God and his goodness. You were created by a Creator to create.
Honey has always been in tune with this rhythm. For as long as I’ve known her she’s had an instinctive passion toward bringing order and beauty to her environment. She always decorated elaborately and exquisitely when we had someone over for dinner. On a shoestring budget, she found ways to slowly remake every home we’ve ever lived in until it was a work of art. In the earliest days of Instagram and Pinterest, I literally heard person after person tell her our house/table/closet/meal/etc looked like an Instagram or Pinterest post come to life. Once she had our home looking like a showroom display, she started helping others do the same for their spaces by selling Southern Living at Home and showing them how to transform a table into a tableau. I’ve lost track of the times I’ve listened to someone “ooh and ahh” at her almost supernatural ability to organize. Long before Marie Kondo and minimalism were on the radar, people were asking Honey to “come organize my house/closet/garage/desk.” Somewhere along the line she started designing her own jewelry, that she couldn’t make fast enough to keep up with orders. I’ve lost count of how many hydrangea bushes I’ve planted from Tennessee to Florida and back as part of her landscaping transformations. The girl was gifted with the ability to bring order and beauty to any environment you put her in.
Here’s the thing, Honey is form, but I am function, or at least I used to be. I’ve slowly come around to her side of things. Honey has always been in tune with the creative aspects of God’s character, I -- on the other hand -- am a bit of a late bloomer, yet she’s always had a knack for bringing me along with her gradually. It usually begins with her saying something like, “I need you to build me….” or “I really want us to…” It took me far too long to recognize, and appreciate, that her natural inclinations toward organization and decoration were expressions of God in her, and they were as holy as any sermon, psalm, or prayer.
To our Western eyes the creation account is merely the play by play explanation of how everything got here, but I’ve learned that our Eastern brothers and sisters see something different in the story. They see a loving and creative Father bringing order and structure to what is barren and chaotic. For me, God has always been very cerebral (ration, reason, intelligence, philosophy, understanding), but for Honey God is always practical (create, organize, produce, restore, grow, feed, heal). By His wisdom and grace, over the course of thirty years, the two have slowly grown to be one. To borrow a line from my favorite Peter Mayer song, “Everything is holy now.” And to borrow a line from one of my favorite disciples, "But someone will say, 'You have faith; I have deeds.' Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds."
When I was still doing local preaching, I came across a couple of stories that I found so inspiring I shared them with the entire congregation in a sermon. One story was of the “Forest Man”. After discovering snakes, dying from the heat on a barren island in India’s Brahmaputra River, Jadav Payeng vowed to spend his life transforming the wasteland into a paradise. So every day since finding the snakes in 1979 aged 16, he has planted a sapling on the island. Today, after 45 years, what once was a desert has transformed into a haven for elephants, rhinos, Bengal tigers and many other species spanning India’s animal kingdom. Payeng told the national newspaper, “People want to know my story. I tell them I just plant trees, and I’d like all of you to do so. Trees are the lifeline of the forest. They don’t just give us shade and oxygen. They feed birds and animals and balance our ecosystem. If there is no life left, what is the use of all the advancements we have made?”
In Brazil, Lélia Wanick and Sebastião Salgado planted 2 million trees in 18 years, returning 172 bird species, 33 mammals, 15 amphibians, 15 reptiles and 293 plant species. The couple decided to start the Terra Institute, a small organization that planted 2 million plants and revived the forest. "There is only one creature that can convert carbon dioxide into oxygen, and that is a tree." Using only local plants, the couple rebuilt the entire ecosystem from scratch and the area flourished significantly, allowing the fauna to return. "The earth was sad as I was, everything was destroyed. Then my wife got a fantastic idea to replant this forest: all the insects, fish and birds returned, and thanks to the new growth of the trees I was born again."
My hope was that these stories could serve as a bridge to remind us of God’s original mandate for humanity: God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” For most of my life I assumed, and was taught, that this passage essentially meant that humans were the top of the food chain, we ruled the earth and we could do with it as we pleased, but that’s not really the idea behind the word translated “rule”. Turn the page to Genesis 2:15 and you get a clearer picture of what this entails: The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. God’s intended relationship between man and the environment was less master and servant and more caretaker. “The dominion given to Adam (humankind) over the earth is like the dominion given to a ranger in a National Park. The task of the ranger is not to exploit the park but to preserve it. Humans are tasked with tending the earth, not monetizing it. We’re gardeners, not profiteers.” — Brian Zahnd
I also hoped these stories would inspire our members to use their own creativity and passions to transform the community around them in a positive, beautiful and fruitful way. I wanted them to understand that their canvas for doing good for God was only limited by the boundaries of their imagination. Churches often focus on creating big ministries where everyone pulls together for a common good, which can be a great thing, but another equally transformative approach can be several small ministries that are expressions of things that multiple members are moved by. Are you a good cook, who loves to cook? Make that your ministry. Are you a social butterfly who loves to be with people? Make that your ministry. Do you have more money than you know what to do with? Make giving your ministry. Do you find it easier to express yourself through cards and letters? Make correspondence with the lonely or overlooked people your ministry? Do you love your smart phone? Use it to make calls, text people, and communicate through social media as your ministry. Are you an artist? Make and share your art with those who value art.
One of my favorite bible verses is Acts 10:38, “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.” Have you forgotten the same is true of you? Bezalel was filled with God’s Spirit to create, but every person is made in the image of God, full of dignity, with unique gifts and talents meant to point people back to him.
Honey and I don't have grand ambitions to imitate the people I mentioned in the stories from earlier. What this becomes is in God's hands. We are simply trying to be like the woman who anointed Jesus for His burial. Jesus said of her, "She has done what she could." My hope in writing this and retelling these stories, is to inspire you to do the same. To use your gifts, interests and passions to bring help, hope and healing to those who are beaten down or enslaved. My hope is that we would all follow in the footsteps of Jesus and go about doing good. God be with you.
*(I didn’t write this paragraph, I had written it down from somewhere, but I don’t recall who wrote it to give them credit)
Here's a little lagniappe, the closing lyrics to a song that's helped to inspire me through the years. "Manifesto" by Nahko and Medicine for the People:
Well, I was listening
To the outgoing seasons
About climate change and some of the reasons
When the sky opened
Like I been hopin'
And there came horses by the thousands
And there was thunder on their tongues
And lightning on their minds
And they were singing this old melody from some other time
They sang don't waste your hate
Rather gather and create
Be of service
Be a sensible person
Use your words and don't be nervous
You can do this, you've got purpose
Find your medicine and use it
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