WHAT NO EYE HAS SEEN

“God has prepared things
for those who love him
that no eye has seen,
or ear has heard,
or that haven’t crossed
the mind of any human being.”

1 corinthians 2:9 (common english bible)

Now that I have stepped away from interim ministry for a while, I intend to write more frequently on this platform on a wider variety of topics. Even though faith, ministry, and the church will still be the major focus of my reflections, I feel unencumbered by the obligation of a weekly sermon, which requires at least a fragment of fidelity to the assigned lectionary readings. I can explore topics that aren’t necessarily appropriate for the pulpit, and I can rant without fear of offending a benevolent benefactor. Be assured that I don’t anticipate going off the rails. I am still solidly rooted in my identity in Christ and will never be hesitant to witness to my faith.

One goal I have for retirement is to improve my photography skills. Since my teen years, I have had a fascination bordering on obsession with still pictures. As a youngster I delivered newspapers, and one year, The Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph, the newspaper I worked for, had a subscription contest for delivery boys for which the prize was a Kodak Brownie Twin 20. I was among the lucky ones who got enough people to sign up and earn me the camera. I took pictures of everything and anything that moved. I was ready to conquer the world!

During those days, my favorite television programs was Man with a Camera, which starred Charles Bronson. I fantasized with capturing that image that would solve a mystery, catch a criminal in the act, or acquit a wrongly accused but innocent person.

Our neighborhood postal carrier also had a sideline job as a free-lance photographer. He mostly shot weddings, but on occasion, the weekly African American paper, The Pittsburgh Courier, would pick up his photos and feature them on the society page. It was a thrill for me to see, in print, the product of someone I knew! He was one of my earliest role models. I peppered him with questions about technique and anything else that would someday make me his equal.

As an adult, I cannot recall a time when I did not have at least a point-n-shoot camera handy. With the advent of digital photography, I graduated to a 35-mm DSLR about ten years ago. For the past several months, I have been watching as many YouTube videos as possible that deal with exposure settings, shutter speed, focus, and creating eye-catching images with photoshop. I am far from perfect, but I like to think that I’m getting better. I hope to sharpen my skills in time for a cruise that my wife and I have planned for later this year. She is already anticipating how insufferable I will be on the trip.

My son has also acquired my fascination with photos. Wherever we go, a camera hangs from his neck like an appendage, documenting everything we do and all that we see. He gets a kick out of comparing his shots with mine. We put all his photos on a tablet which is his constant companion. He can spend hours on end flipping from photo to photo, recalling the special moments.

A few days ago, I was driving through the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. These drives always bring to mind the first verse of Psalm 19: “The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.” Inspired by the breathtaking beauty that what I was seeing, I stopped. Here was a perfect opportunity to grab some impressive landscape scenes, like the covered bridge at the top of this post, and the field that accompanies this paragraph.

However, looking at the camera screen after taking the photos, I was hardly satisfied with the results. They weren’t bad, but they didn’t quite seem to capture exactly what my eyes saw, and my mind imagined when I clicked the shutter. You would think that after all these years, I would be better able to compose what I had envisioned.

In several of our recent Gospel readings during these past Sundays Jesus has been spending a great deal of time trying to help his hearers understand the Kingdom of Heaven. Photography didn’t exist in Jesus’ time, of course, so he painted pictures with words. He would give countless examples of what the Kingdom of Heaven is like, but the people, his disciples among them, never seemed to quite understand. I wonder, as skilled an orator as Jesus was, how exasperated he must have been when no one grasped the idea.

Those of us who bear the responsibility of preaching often find ourselves in the same situation. As long as people think of Heaven as some geographical location or destination, we will never realize that, as Jesus once said, “the Kingdom of Heaven has come near.” Living in (and into) the Kingdom calls us to embrace a new way of living so radically different from our current life that it is unimaginable.

I may never take the perfect photo. However, as long as I have a camera I won’t stop trying, no matter how frustrated I may become. Thanks to digital technology, which allows one to click away interminably without wasting valuable film, I live in hope that someday one of my attempts will leap off the screen at me and cause me to say, “That’s the one!”

In the same manner, as long as we are on our earthly journey, we are encouraged, as the Apostle Paul urged us, to “live a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love.” (Ephesians 4:1-2) More often than not, we will fall short. But like digital technology, God’s grace always gives us the opportunity to begin again.

God has blessed us to be a blessing to others; to project an image of the Kingdom captured by the camera that is us, made visible through the lens within us, that creates a reflection which flows out of our relationship with Jesus.