Today’s Gospel reading (Mark 9.38-40) highlights the difficulties we face in trying to live up to The Great Commandment - to love God and to love our neighbour. It shows us that suspicion and judgement of others - even those of the same faith or religion - is nothing new - and even plagued the disciples; those closest to Jesus. The passage reminds us that setting aside our fear of ‘otherness’ is crucial if we are to live a life in Christ.
In the reading, John complains to Jesus that someone who wasn’t a disciple was seen performing an exorcism - and they continued, even after the disciples tried to stop it. How can someone who is not known to be one of the disciples of Jesus perform acts in His name? They aren’t ‘one of us’! Jesus tells John: ‘Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterwards to speak evil of me. Whoever is not against us is for us.’
Challenging perceptions of ‘otherness’ has been one of the results of “Faith - An Exhibition” which has transferred from Gloucester Cathedral to All Hallows’ By The Tower until 15th June 2018. It was a great privilege to attend the opening of the exhibition today and hear thoughts from the artist, the Bishop of Gloucester and Reverend Mark Paulson the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Interfaith Advisor.
The art - like the subject it sets out to address - is big; so huge in fact that the exhibition contains just a fraction of the 37 canvasses by Russell Haines, who only started painting seven years ago, after a stroke. But even the impressive scale of these canvasses can’t contain the portraits - most of which fill the frame; (only a few are life size or smaller). The images fizz with high-voltage energy. A graffiti-style collage of controlled chaos overpainted with multi-coloured, multi-layered strokes creates a halo around most of the portraits; incorporating just-visible family photographs, religious symbols, newspaper cuttings, facts and figures and verses from scripture as well as secular texts.
Lives of the faithful exhibited on canvas, with all their doubts, contradictions and complexities exposed. The style and technique provide a glimpse of what’s going on ‘inside’ the heads of these people, as well as what’s on the surface. Perhaps this is not a coincidence - as Zerbanoo Gifford, one of the subjects and a Zoroastrian, explains in the exhibition guide “I believe that my whole DNA is imbued with my heritage.”
In introducing the series, Russell Haines said: “Painting each of the participants has meant being in serious conversation with them about their lives and their personal beliefs, how they came to believe and why they believe. Hearing their stories and immersing themselves in their lives, as I painted them, means I have come to know them as people first and foremost.”
We are invited to paddle in that stream of consciousness; to share in and continue the conversation in our own imaginations; to consider the diversity of the Imago Dei; to immerse ourselves in these lives as God immerses himself in ours.
Engaging with this art is an intense and intimate experience - made even more so by the positioning of the canvasses in the space, which necessitates viewing at close proximity, requiring some nimble footwork and physical dexterity to navigate around fellow visitors.
The series includes portraits of Hindus, Muslims, a Druid, an Atheist, a Witch, as well as members of the clergy - including the Bishop of Gloucester. I found I was drawn to the less “obvious” portraits - in terms of the faith of the subjects - those not surrounded by symbols (like the image of Stonehenge behind the Druid or those in clerical or religious dress). It was the portraits of people in ‘ordinary’ dress and surrounded by less iconography that made me want to read the personal biographies of the sitters that accompanies each painting. Perhaps this is because they were not obviously “different” to me?
Online coverage of the exhibition seems to focus on the vandalism of some of the pieces while on display at Gloucester Cathedral in a suspected islamaphobic attack. At the opening of the exhibition in London, Rachel Treweek, the Bishop of Gloucester and the first female Diocesan Bishop, suggested that such fear of difference or ‘otherness’ is a consequence of our broken relationship with each other - but that the lasting repair of those relationships - true reconciliation - is about more than finding some shared ‘interest’ or focus; to do so is to miss the point of ‘relationship’ entirely. Bishop Rachel explained that - perhaps too often - these days ‘friendships’ inhabit a sort of echo-chamber where we co-exist in eternal agreement.
Relationship also means standing together in difference. We are all made in the image of God - we share a common humanity - but are as different as the number of grains of sand on a beach. Bishop Rachel suggested that exposure to and familiarity with such difference - through the sharing of stories (such as through this exhibition) is one way to help our common humanity shine through.
Reverend Mark Paulson, Interfaith Advisor to the Archbishop of Canterbury, illustrated this with a moving personal story, explaining how he had developed a great friendship with a Muslim woman who had supported his family during the terminal illness of one of his children. So strong was her connection that, despite the taboo, she embraced him in public when she learnt of his child’s death.
Perhaps reflecting on her own history-making story as well as Reverend Mark’s experience, Bishop Rachel explained that you can’t re-write previous chapters of the story of humanity - but we can all help to write a new one. She said that she knows she is a ‘broken’ person and so does not seek to judge others if she doesn’t agree with them - she is not offended by those who hold views that are different to her own.
What grace - especially when considering all the “different views” Bishop Rachel must have experienced throughout her ministry, expressed in different ways (one can imagine the anonymous emails and letters and perhaps worse). The “activist” in me is champing at the bit to make a big song and dance about the injustice and inequality that I perceive - like the disciples in today’s Gospel reading, it is my perception of what is right that is right! Bishop Rachel’s call to us echoes the words of Jesus in the reading - to set aside our “perceptions” about other people and achieve what Russell Haines experienced after painting each subject “I have come to know them as people first and foremost.”
In concluding her remarks at the opening of the exhibition, Bishop Rachel said: “God has called me by name - my prayer is that you will all become the person god has created you to be.”
Links
More work by the artist Russell Haines can be seen here.
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