“Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:” Exodus 20:4.
The second commandment, seems on the surface to be bad news for artists, it sounds like "Don't paint any pictures", "No sculpture allowed."
Many years ago when I was on a painting expedition in the Himalayan Foothills of Pakistan, I asked the daughter of the family I was staying with if she would mind asking the Wizened old gardener who worked for them to sit for his portrait. He refused at first, saying that God would be angry with him if someone were to depict his likeness. She responded by offering to accept any negative consequences from above on his behalf in the event that all heaven should break loose in anger against him for having his picture painted.
This offer was accepted and the gardener duly sat for his portrait. Happy in the knowledge that if there was any trouble, someone else was going to be getting it, not him. His caution against being painted was due to his understanding and response to the second commandment which is not just in the Bible it’s in the top ten of the Bible’s most important statements - right? Yes, it is, and it's not just in the top ten, it's in the top two! it comes in very near the top of the charts. It’s huge! But why?
Well, let’s go back to the story in Exodus 20, Moses has led the people out of Egypt and is laying the foundation for a new nation. Its like they have had their war of independence, but now have to put together their constitution and start nation building. The first order of the day was to disassociate themselves from Egypt. Egypt was a particularly artistic place, there were pictures everywhere. The problem was that images had a tendency of telling the stories of life and eternity too literally. In other words the pictures were telling the stories too well and little was being left to the imagination. People were being led astray from the meaning of the symbols to the symbols themselves, they were no longer “getting it”. It wasn’t working anymore.
So the Ten commandments outlawed pictures, enshrining the heroes and patriarchs in stories and words alone. It was an innovation. This dramatically more abstract system, encouraged imagination and greater intellectual creativity, because the stories were no longer illustrated. You had to supply your own mental images. It was brilliant and it worked - for a time.
By the time Jesus came on the scene, the cycle was repeating itself, only this time, the beautiful words were being hacked and re hacked into rigid formulas that were imposed and enforced without imagination. Meaning had once again been sacrificed in favor of literal dogma.
Christ moved things even further ahead. Pictures had failed, words had failed, now there was a new story, a living one. This was a revelation, it was refreshing, it made sense and it worked - for a time.
Despite the new clarity that Christ brought, the struggle for meaning continued over centuries. By the Middle Ages, with a mostly illiterate population, the church was again using images to tell it's story, keeping the words away from the common people and in a language they could neither read or understand. The official Church ruled supreme and was able to dictate to the populace at will with little to no resistance.
But as new translations of the Bible began to become available, people started forming their own interpretations again, their own mental pictures. These new images seemed freer, bigger, more hopeful than those trapped in statues and stained glass. Thus the Protestant movement was birthed and with it once again, a turning away from, proscribed, literal tenets towards more abstract, creative thinking.
Despite the advances of the Reformers, and several theological and cultural cycles since, a new kind of graven image has again become enshrined in our culture: The story itself.
The debate today for a historical or scientifically verifiable narrative has at times clouded the purpose and meaning of the sacred text. Our tendency to resort to the comfort of dogma at the expense of imagination and meaning, perhaps reveals the motive behind the second commandment. Showing us that Moses understood the danger of our desire to live on spiritual auto pilot instead of in relationship, with all it's attendant wild, unpredictable beauty. Auto Pilot? Yes, that's the idol we choose, predictable, known, safe, limiting, dumb, fixed, dead.
Perhaps if Moses was writing today he could have re-worded things a little, something a bit like this: "If I'd wanted you to know everything I would have shown it all to you up front, so don't limit me to what you know. I'm bigger, and so are you. Instead, let me set the pace, let's live together in the tension of unknowing, where trust surprises and delights. Let's run together in the adventure of living and there find life's true image, a portrait that cannot be rendered either in stone or in art or words, but only in life itself."
Not everyone gets it of course, but I know someone who did, and because of her, an old Pakistani gardener sat on the back porch of a house in the foothills one sunny afternoon in the spring and had his portrait painted. Blissfully unaware of the irony playing out around him, in that she who broke the law sinned not, while he who kept it sinned. Thankfully she covered his sin with her grace, so all ended well. As it can for us too if we, like her, lean towards life and the beauty that cannot be rendered, even by art.
The second commandment, seems on the surface to be bad news for artists, it sounds like "Don't paint any pictures", "No sculpture allowed."
Many years ago when I was on a painting expedition in the Himalayan Foothills of Pakistan, I asked the daughter of the family I was staying with if she would mind asking the Wizened old gardener who worked for them to sit for his portrait. He refused at first, saying that God would be angry with him if someone were to depict his likeness. She responded by offering to accept any negative consequences from above on his behalf in the event that all heaven should break loose in anger against him for having his picture painted.
This offer was accepted and the gardener duly sat for his portrait. Happy in the knowledge that if there was any trouble, someone else was going to be getting it, not him. His caution against being painted was due to his understanding and response to the second commandment which is not just in the Bible it’s in the top ten of the Bible’s most important statements - right? Yes, it is, and it's not just in the top ten, it's in the top two! it comes in very near the top of the charts. It’s huge! But why?
Well, let’s go back to the story in Exodus 20, Moses has led the people out of Egypt and is laying the foundation for a new nation. Its like they have had their war of independence, but now have to put together their constitution and start nation building. The first order of the day was to disassociate themselves from Egypt. Egypt was a particularly artistic place, there were pictures everywhere. The problem was that images had a tendency of telling the stories of life and eternity too literally. In other words the pictures were telling the stories too well and little was being left to the imagination. People were being led astray from the meaning of the symbols to the symbols themselves, they were no longer “getting it”. It wasn’t working anymore.
So the Ten commandments outlawed pictures, enshrining the heroes and patriarchs in stories and words alone. It was an innovation. This dramatically more abstract system, encouraged imagination and greater intellectual creativity, because the stories were no longer illustrated. You had to supply your own mental images. It was brilliant and it worked - for a time.
By the time Jesus came on the scene, the cycle was repeating itself, only this time, the beautiful words were being hacked and re hacked into rigid formulas that were imposed and enforced without imagination. Meaning had once again been sacrificed in favor of literal dogma.
Christ moved things even further ahead. Pictures had failed, words had failed, now there was a new story, a living one. This was a revelation, it was refreshing, it made sense and it worked - for a time.
Despite the new clarity that Christ brought, the struggle for meaning continued over centuries. By the Middle Ages, with a mostly illiterate population, the church was again using images to tell it's story, keeping the words away from the common people and in a language they could neither read or understand. The official Church ruled supreme and was able to dictate to the populace at will with little to no resistance.
But as new translations of the Bible began to become available, people started forming their own interpretations again, their own mental pictures. These new images seemed freer, bigger, more hopeful than those trapped in statues and stained glass. Thus the Protestant movement was birthed and with it once again, a turning away from, proscribed, literal tenets towards more abstract, creative thinking.
Despite the advances of the Reformers, and several theological and cultural cycles since, a new kind of graven image has again become enshrined in our culture: The story itself.
The debate today for a historical or scientifically verifiable narrative has at times clouded the purpose and meaning of the sacred text. Our tendency to resort to the comfort of dogma at the expense of imagination and meaning, perhaps reveals the motive behind the second commandment. Showing us that Moses understood the danger of our desire to live on spiritual auto pilot instead of in relationship, with all it's attendant wild, unpredictable beauty. Auto Pilot? Yes, that's the idol we choose, predictable, known, safe, limiting, dumb, fixed, dead.
Perhaps if Moses was writing today he could have re-worded things a little, something a bit like this: "If I'd wanted you to know everything I would have shown it all to you up front, so don't limit me to what you know. I'm bigger, and so are you. Instead, let me set the pace, let's live together in the tension of unknowing, where trust surprises and delights. Let's run together in the adventure of living and there find life's true image, a portrait that cannot be rendered either in stone or in art or words, but only in life itself."
Not everyone gets it of course, but I know someone who did, and because of her, an old Pakistani gardener sat on the back porch of a house in the foothills one sunny afternoon in the spring and had his portrait painted. Blissfully unaware of the irony playing out around him, in that she who broke the law sinned not, while he who kept it sinned. Thankfully she covered his sin with her grace, so all ended well. As it can for us too if we, like her, lean towards life and the beauty that cannot be rendered, even by art.
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