Marc Chagall, eminent Jewish artist, became controversial in the Jewish community with his effort to reconcile Jewish and Christian faith. Deeply, he felt Christianity had emerged from the Jewish faith orientation. His paintings were impressive in capturing both Old and the New Testaments. Migrating from Russia to Paris and after to the United States as the Nazi threat rose in Europe, Chagall launched efforts to compose a literature that included the whole Bible. He put twenty five years of effort into completing the Old Testament he presented to his wife as a gift. The entire text and illustrations were magnificently bound for her, with more modest copies for others. One passage included Jesus hovering over the Jews during the Hitlerian Holocaust. Jesus was hanging, gazing from the Cross. I might continue here, if I had sufficient expertise, to use art as a form in which different points of view were evident to the various artists. One painted Christ on the Cross from the viewpoint of God. The top of the head of Jesus was the center of the painting. The scene was as though the onlooker were in a poised helicopter looking down on the event. The painting is impressive, creating moments of silent thought.
One feels imaginative about the extent of faith in Hiram, the close friend of King David, a friendship that carried over to Solomon. We are checked in feeling about any mindful isolation of Israel when Hiram, or the Queen of Sheba, or Cyrus is acknowledged in Scripture as having excellent rapport with Israel and Israel’s leaders. One wants more information related to the day by day affairs of Israel with neighboring kingdoms. The greatest problem in the collapse of Israel, the Twelve Tribes, was inner division. On the death of Solomon the unity was lost and tribalism renewed effective authority. Like most free people, there appears to be some decline in the sense of duty, community and cooperation. Growing materialism (suggested in Solomon’s experience); with growing sophistication may have led to distorted pride; coupled with secularism (immediate and attractive, so to diminish the restraints of faith); and, the contexts of eclecticism created in progress – all reduce the meaning of faith and unity God will give if his principles are followed. The genuine prophets were insistent on what could not be changed, and what could be. To change that which ought to be retained will lead to some mixture that holds within itself a demise of nations and cultures. We see it, simply at first, in Cain and Abel, in Noah’s generation, and the story proceeds with increasing complexity to our time. The graph goes up and down for nations, to dissolution. At this writing the scholars are trying to discover why the Mayan culture in South America, achieving monumental accomplishments, died. Apparently the conquistadors were not the only conquerors. Native tribes fought each other to the death. History tells the story of ups and downs – and outs in self destruction.
One may find the pattern in smaller contexts, as with the family. What has been taken as more important than any other social entity, the family has been weakened not only by the confusions of social rulings, but by the members of the family who have diluted the sense of blood relationship, of loyalty, of mutual interests above some self-interests, and the like – of love and rightness with each person. When we read of families holding love, intimacy, shared interests, involvement in care, in a feeling that this is what God has given, the story is magnificent. Readers are sometimes transported in reading the letters of soldiers in both the Federal and Confederate armies to their families, and the letters sent to them from their families, to sense the meaning of what ought to be. The meaning of love, loneliness, values, and common aspiration emerges from the pages. Many have high literary quality in them. Ideals are truly possible for us.
Families, companies, states, churches should live together with high respect for their mutual agreements, and with sincere efforts to reduce barriers to patterns God prefers. Why do we fail by forcing differences to prevail over our similarities, or negatives to shroud affirmatives? The understanding and application of freedom permits us to choose our way, to include the intimate persons in our lives with whom we can find patterns for mutual growth with shared values, but to live and work for human and world culture that though varied, honors God and us. In God We Trust. It is a motto that honors the best for all, reducing human arrogance. We wonder why the humanist may press us to give up that context. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020