Giles Goddard | March 30, 2010
Van Gogh, friendship and justice
Readings – Isaiah 53.1-9, St John 15.12-17
He has sent me to preach the Gospel to the poor, declared Vincent van Gogh to his brother, Theo, in a letter dated 1876. For the next three years van Gogh singlemindedly pursued his calling to the ministry, first as a student of theology and then as a missionary to the coal miners in the Belgian Borinage. Deeply moved by the poverty surrounding him, van Gogh gave all his possessions, including most of his clothing, to the miners. An inspector of the Evangelization Council came to the conclusion that the missionary’s excess de zele bordered on the scandalous, and he reported van Gogh’s behavior to church authorities. Although van Gogh was successful in his ministry, the hierarchy of the Dutch Reformed Church rejected him, and at the end of 1879 he left the church, embittered and impoverished.
I’m quoting extensively here Kathleen Powers Erickson’s paper on Van Gogh and faith which can be found on line.
He became even more passionate about his art, and began to see that as the expression of his vocation. After van Gogh’s "conversion" to art, he rejected the religion of his parents for what he thought was true piety, which he called "the white ray of light." The work of the peasant painter Millet, he noted in an 1883 letter, has a gospel and "this white light." "The sermon is black by comparison." For van Gogh, to believe in God now meant not that one should believe all the sermons of the clergymen or "the arguments and Jesuitism of the bigoted, genteel prudes," but rather that there was a God, "not dead or stuffed, but alive, urging us to love, with irresistible force." Van Gogh pursued his art with his former religious zeal and mission, claiming, "Our purpose is self-reform by means of a handicraft and of intercourse with Nature -- our aim is walking with God."
There is a painting in the current exhibition at the Royal Academy called Open Bible (1885). It shows a large, dark, open Bible, and a copy of Emile Zola’s Joie de Vivre (Joy of Life) ,) and a snuffed-out candle in the background. The Bible was owned by Van Gogh’s father – a Lutheran pastor - and it still falls open to the page which is depicted in the painting – Isaiah 53.
Although the exact verses are not decipherable, van Gogh was well acquainted with Isaiah 53:3-5, which foretells the suffering of Christ as the sacrificial lamb. During his preparation for ministry, van Gogh admired Christ’s humility as a common laborer and "man of sorrows" whose life he tried to imitate.
So what’s the connection between Van Gogh, friendship and justice? Van Gogh clearly had an understanding of what was at the heart of Jesus’ life and ministry - that life we are remembering and giving thanks for especially this week. I’ve chosen, today, to put the Suffering Servant passage alongside this great gospel – I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing, but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.
I have called you friends. Just as Van Gogh tried to befriend the poor in his early ministry, and as we are trying to do now through the Isaiah Community. Last week we remembered Oscar Romero, who laid down his life for his friends, the people he served. Friendship as an idea is something I’m finding more and more important at the moment. And the notion of friendship in the communities I’m involved with is something which, I have to say, I’m finding transformatory. The notion of friendship implies so much. It’s the instantiation of love, the living out of love, in a way which is both challenging and liberating. I find, in my own experience, that if I view the drinkers in the churchyard as my friends, my relationship with them changes. If I view the congregation, here, or the other people who form part of the life of this church, as my friends, then the relationship changes. And if I view the poor and the excluded as my friends, the relationship changes.
But it doesn’t change everything. Because however much we seek to befriend those around us, we are left with rampant and gross injustices - which call for other responses. Which call for justice, to right the wrongs which have been done. Aristotle, I’m told, has the wonderful notion that justice is necessary because of the failures of friendship. Justice kicks in when friendship fails. Friendship fails when people are left in poverty, when women are excluded, when lesbian and gay people are discriminated against, when society fails to provide homes for its citizens. And we as Christians are called to right the failures of friendship through pursuing justice – describing the love of God in friendship and love.
Van Gogh pursued his vocation through art, through trying to describe the love of God in all he saw. And we pursue our vocations in many different ways. But this week, we remembering especially the suffering of our friend Jesus, and in imitation of Christ we seek Christ’s justice.
Readings – Isaiah 53.1-9, St John 15.12-17
He has sent me to preach the Gospel to the poor, declared Vincent van Gogh to his brother, Theo, in a letter dated 1876. For the next three years van Gogh singlemindedly pursued his calling to the ministry, first as a student of theology and then as a missionary to the coal miners in the Belgian Borinage. Deeply moved by the poverty surrounding him, van Gogh gave all his possessions, including most of his clothing, to the miners. An inspector of the Evangelization Council came to the conclusion that the missionary’s excess de zele bordered on the scandalous, and he reported van Gogh’s behavior to church authorities. Although van Gogh was successful in his ministry, the hierarchy of the Dutch Reformed Church rejected him, and at the end of 1879 he left the church, embittered and impoverished.
I’m quoting extensively here Kathleen Powers Erickson’s paper on Van Gogh and faith which can be found on line.
He became even more passionate about his art, and began to see that as the expression of his vocation. After van Gogh’s "conversion" to art, he rejected the religion of his parents for what he thought was true piety, which he called "the white ray of light." The work of the peasant painter Millet, he noted in an 1883 letter, has a gospel and "this white light." "The sermon is black by comparison." For van Gogh, to believe in God now meant not that one should believe all the sermons of the clergymen or "the arguments and Jesuitism of the bigoted, genteel prudes," but rather that there was a God, "not dead or stuffed, but alive, urging us to love, with irresistible force." Van Gogh pursued his art with his former religious zeal and mission, claiming, "Our purpose is self-reform by means of a handicraft and of intercourse with Nature -- our aim is walking with God."
There is a painting in the current exhibition at the Royal Academy called Open Bible (1885). It shows a large, dark, open Bible, and a copy of Emile Zola’s Joie de Vivre (Joy of Life) ,) and a snuffed-out candle in the background. The Bible was owned by Van Gogh’s father – a Lutheran pastor - and it still falls open to the page which is depicted in the painting – Isaiah 53.
Although the exact verses are not decipherable, van Gogh was well acquainted with Isaiah 53:3-5, which foretells the suffering of Christ as the sacrificial lamb. During his preparation for ministry, van Gogh admired Christ’s humility as a common laborer and "man of sorrows" whose life he tried to imitate.
So what’s the connection between Van Gogh, friendship and justice? Van Gogh clearly had an understanding of what was at the heart of Jesus’ life and ministry - that life we are remembering and giving thanks for especially this week. I’ve chosen, today, to put the Suffering Servant passage alongside this great gospel – I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing, but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.
I have called you friends. Just as Van Gogh tried to befriend the poor in his early ministry, and as we are trying to do now through the Isaiah Community. Last week we remembered Oscar Romero, who laid down his life for his friends, the people he served. Friendship as an idea is something I’m finding more and more important at the moment. And the notion of friendship in the communities I’m involved with is something which, I have to say, I’m finding transformatory. The notion of friendship implies so much. It’s the instantiation of love, the living out of love, in a way which is both challenging and liberating. I find, in my own experience, that if I view the drinkers in the churchyard as my friends, my relationship with them changes. If I view the congregation, here, or the other people who form part of the life of this church, as my friends, then the relationship changes. And if I view the poor and the excluded as my friends, the relationship changes.
But it doesn’t change everything. Because however much we seek to befriend those around us, we are left with rampant and gross injustices - which call for other responses. Which call for justice, to right the wrongs which have been done. Aristotle, I’m told, has the wonderful notion that justice is necessary because of the failures of friendship. Justice kicks in when friendship fails. Friendship fails when people are left in poverty, when women are excluded, when lesbian and gay people are discriminated against, when society fails to provide homes for its citizens. And we as Christians are called to right the failures of friendship through pursuing justice – describing the love of God in friendship and love.
Van Gogh pursued his vocation through art, through trying to describe the love of God in all he saw. And we pursue our vocations in many different ways. But this week, we remembering especially the suffering of our friend Jesus, and in imitation of Christ we seek Christ’s justice.
