Monday, December 31, 2012
The Last Supper at work for mission -Gustave Van De Woestijne’s
Gustave Van De Woestijne is a Flemish Expressionist painter of the early 20th century. His work includes The Last Supper and it is huge.
Huge.
It hangs almost floor to ceiling in the Groeninge Museum, Brugge, Belgium. (Image is on flicker here)
In the Catholic context of Belgium, surrounded by the religiosity of previous centuries, it is a stunningly unreligious piece of work. One simple full loaf of bread sits on the table. There is no cup, grapes or any other food on the table. Around the table are clustered 12 disciples, portrayed as workers, Flemish miners or farm hands.
Which leaves the size. Why paint what is one of the largest paintings in the Museum? Why make something so ordinary so large?
Either a sign of no faith? A critique of the ceremony and wafer thin spirituality of the religion he has experienced? It certainly has the checkerboard floor often used in religious art.
Or full of faith? A reminder of the very large place for God in the ordinary, in simple bread, shared among workers hands? If so, it has echoes of the worker priest movement, such an intriguing mission development in France, among Catholics, in the 1940s. Priests asked to be freed from parish duties in order to work, in factories, in order to try and reconnect with the working class. It is a fascinating, bold, and innovative approach to mission, that was closed down by the Pope within a few decades.
It is the type of fresh expression/emerging church I’d love to see, one that jumps out of middle class subcultures and across class boundaries, out from church and worship and among the 24/7 patterns of working life. A movement that could only be nourished by a Jesus breaking bread with workers around ordinary tables of life.
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I’ve often wondered what it would mean for a congregation to provide a house for their minister but no stipend. What would it look like for their minister to work, as you say, 24/7 within the community that the congregation lives and breaths in.
This would lead to a greater appreciation to Paul’s call to the priesthood of all believers, and new vision for mission (both for the minister and the congregation).
But… Once again I am left wondering if many of our congregations are communities that need someone to come and ‘do’ mission amongst them? How many of our congregations are in fact ‘mission fields’ waiting for someone to come and invite them to recognize that their ‘ordinary’ lives are in fact ‘very large places for God’.
Comment by Matthew Stuart — December 31, 2012 @ 9:41 am
Thanks Matthew. One of our candidates has a sense of call to be ordained but to work. For their fieldwork they are working in a chemist shop. It’s raised some fascinating questions. Should they be ordained? How to support? If we ordain them, why not all Christians who are workers?
Steve
Comment by steve — December 31, 2012 @ 8:14 pm