Virtual Methodist

This week's series of guest Lent Art posts continue with a reflection by Rev. Cheryl Meban, Presbyterian Chaplain to Ulster University on the illumination by Jean Bondol de Bruges of Elisha raising the son of the Shunammite woman, which asks questions of the artist, the text and us. One day Elisha went to Shunem. And a well-to-do woman was there, who urged him to stay for a meal. So whenever he came by, he stopped there to eat. She said to her husband, “I know that this man who often comes our way is a holy man of God. Let’s make a small room on the roof and put in it a bed and a table, a chair and a lamp for him. Then he can stay there whenever he comes to us.” One day when Elisha came, he went up to his room and lay down there. He said to his servant Gehazi, “Call the Shunammite.” So he called her, and she stood before him. Elisha said to him, “Tell her, ‘You have gone to all this trouble for us. Now what can be done for you? Can we speak on your behalf to the king or t

This week I'm trying something new... To lighten my load a little, and to bring a bit of variety to these daily posts I've asked a number of my friends and colleagues to share a brief reflection and prayer in response to my daily #LentArt posts. The first out of the starting blocks is my erstwhile ecclesiastical neighbour Rev. Elizabeth Hanna, who shares a few thoughts on this morning's sketch of "St Paul Restoring Eutychus to Life" by Taddeo Zuccaro.  The story illustrated is taken from today's reading in Acts, telling of an episode from Paul's ministry in Troas:  On the first day of the week, when we met to break bread, Paul was holding a discussion with them; since he intended to leave the next day, he continued speaking until midnight. There were many lamps in the room upstairs where we were meeting. A young man named Eutychus, who was sitting in the window, began to sink off into a deep sleep while Paul talked still longer. Overcome by sleep,

Today’s #LentArt is the piece I also used as the thumbnail for today’s online Circuit Service available on South & Central Belfast Methodist’s YouTube Channel, and I shamelessly am using material from that service as the basis of this slightly longer blog post today. So for those of you who have heard/read this before in different forms forgive me. But first a brief comment regarding the piece of art itself which is "The raising of Lazarus" by John Reilly from the Methodist Church Modern Art Collection. It caught my attention, not only because I am very familiar with the collection itself, but also because it both echoes some ancient renderings of this scene, but is also unashamedly contemporary in focus, and the swirl within which all the action takes place is reminiscent of the global and personal whirlwind that covid-19 has created. For today’s service we shortened the prescribed gospel passage that this illustrates and Barry and Claire Forde delivered it as a dialo

Today’s #LentArt is probably a welcome change of tone and subject matter after a number of days of quite sobering posts. Those who know me well and have followed my previous #AdventArt and #ChristmasArt posts will know by now that the painter Frederic Edwin Church is one of my favourites, and this is one of his, but unusually it is not taken from one of his typically massive canvases but rather is a small oil sketch which he made on a two week trip to the Holy Land with his wife in March 1869. It was part of his preparation for his more typically grand seven-feet-wide panoramic painting of the Old City sacred buildings topped by the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa Mosque. But what I like better with this sketch is, the sense of the city being bathed in light, which in the sketch is ironically achieved by leaving the paper untouched. What first attracted me to Church’s canvases was his use of light within them, but in this case whilst the larger canvas offers a similar point of view

In times of crisis many people turn to the Book of Psalms which is essentially a spiritual songbook for almost every aspect of human existence. Over the past couple of weeks I’ve repeatedly used the Psalm in the Daily Lectionary as the prompt for the #LentArt that I have posted because it has resonated with the situation we find ourselves in.  There are others who at such times race straight to the Book of Revelation and other apocalyptic literature within the Bible. Today’s painting, the “Seventh Trumpet” by #LentArt based on the Daily Lectionary Day 31 "Seventh trumpet" by Austino Obi Okafor was prompted by the reading from Revelation 11:15-19  The seventh angel sounded his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, which said:  “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and he will reign for ever and ever.”  And the twenty-four elders, who were seated on their thrones before God, fell on their faces and worshiped Go

Today’s #LentArt post is once again prompted by the Psalm in the Daily Lectionary, and we also hope to use a version of it as a call to worship for our online service this coming Sunday, a particularly appropriate one for the current climate:  Out of the depths I cry to you, Lord; Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy.  If you, Lord, kept a record of sins, Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, so that we can, with reverence, serve you.  I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope. I wait for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning.  Israel, put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love and with him is full redemption. He himself will redeem Israel from all their sins.  Psalm 130 (NIV)  This Psalm has a personal resonance for me, as one that I have returned to on a number of times in periods of depression, when I

Unusually for this series of #LentArt posts todays was originally specifically created to illustrate a Biblical version. Eduourd Léon Edy-Legrand (1892−1970) was a French artist who specialized in creating illustrations for advertising and publishing. In 1950 he was commissioned to illustrate a new translation of the Bible by Robert Tamisier and François Amiot, including this illustration of Jesus Healing the Blind Man. I’m not sure exactly which healing it originally referred to but it could easily be one of those referred to in today’s gospel reading from the lectionary:  As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed him, calling out, ‘Have mercy on us, Son of David!’  When he had gone indoors, the blind men came to him, and he asked them, ‘Do you believe that I am able to do this?’  ‘Yes, Lord,’ they replied.  Then he touched their eyes and said, ‘According to your faith let it be done to you’; and their sight was restored. Jesus warned them sternly, ‘See that no

Today’s #LentArt post is a drawing of “An Old Man Praying” an early, and deceptively simple piece by Van Gogh, a man for whom faith was an important formative influence, as the son and grandson of Dutch Reformed pastors who for a brief period considered ministry as a vocation. Whilst working in London in 1876 he was involved in a number of churches particularly in the East end, and it is thought that he preached his first sermon in what was then Richmond Methodist Church. This drawing was dated to around this period.  I say it that it is a deceptively simple piece because those who know more about such things tell me that it is more than a quick sketch in that he used pencil, brush and ink to achieve the finished image, using a grid system to achieve an enormous amount of detail. Commentators have noted the exaggerated sense of isolation in the drawing, perhaps reflecting Van Gogh’s own personal feelings during this time of deep turmoil, revealed in his letters to his brother

For today’s #LentArt post I’m once again prompted by the recommended psalm. In times like these I inevitably spend more time in the Psalms, with their compendium of responses to human life in all its variety. In this case it’s Psalm 146:  Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord, my soul.  I will praise the Lord all my life; I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.  Do not put your trust in princes, in human beings, who cannot save.  When their spirit departs, they return to the ground; on that very day their plans come to nothing.  Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God.  He is the Maker of heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them - he remains faithful forever.  He upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry.  The Lord sets prisoners free, the Lord gives sight to the blind,  the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down, the Lord loves the righteous.  The Lord watches over the foreigner and

The passage that prompted today’s piece of #LentArt is the Old Testament text for this Sunday:  The LORD said to Samuel, "How long will you grieve over Saul? I have rejected him from being king over Israel. Fill your horn with oil and set out; I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for myself a king among his sons."  Samuel said, "How can I go? If Saul hears of it, he will kill me." And the LORD said, "Take a heifer with you, and say, 'I have come to sacrifice to the LORD.’ Invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what you shall do; and you shall anoint for me the one whom I name to you."  Samuel did what the LORD commanded, and came to Bethlehem. The elders of the city came to meet him trembling, and said, "Do you come peaceably?"  He said, "Peaceably; I have come to sacrifice to the LORD; sanctify yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice." And he sanctified Jesse and his sons and in