Real Artistry
Pondering the Real and Almost Real
A few weeks ago, a friend was preaching at our church on Mary pondering in the Nativity of Luke’s Gospel. Since he mentioned Mary ponders actively, that got me, well… pondering. This Advent we went through a 2019 Advent series from Abington on Wednesday nights with the idea of the almost versus the altogether. This is a riff on John Wesley’s sermon The Almost Christian in which he talks about the idea of almost and altogether as the difference between the person who is going through the motions versus living in discipleship to Jesus. So I’ve been pondering the altogether and how we might approach that as we enter Christmas.
When I consider the altogether, I think of the real versus the illusion we encounter in the Christmas story.
We have the reality of Mary saying yes to God and becoming the God-bearer.
We have the reality of Mary singing the Magnificat and announcing the radical reality of the coming Kindom of God.
We have the reality that God is born in a manger to a poor couple far from home.
We have the reality of shepherds visited by angels announcing the birth of a king who will bring altogether peace and altogether joy to earth.
We have the reality of new creation blossoming in that birth.
The reality in the Christmas story shines a light on the falseness of the peace promised by Rome; a peace only possible through the sword. Are there ways in which we still reach for that false peace and ignore the reality of how God works? I’ll let that question hang a bit.
As I considered a way to describe the real and the almost real, I started thinking of how some music stars are performers and stars, but some are that plus being artists. There is a difference between a rapper and a rap artist for example. That brings me to an idea that keeps popping up involving the hip hop world.
If you do not know, Drake is a pop rapper who is incredibly prolific in output. That and his constant picking “beefs” with other performers and stars is his way of staying relevant. Mostly his beefs have kept him relevant and gaining publicity. That is until he picked a beef with Kendrick Lamar this past year. The two had been in a semi-conflict for a while, but Drake put out a diss track aimed at Kendrick. Diss tracks are a staple of the hip hop/rap world and even Taylor Swift. The problem with Drake is that he’s not really an artist, he is an almost artist. Kendrick Lamar is an artist. He remains relevant by dropping racks and albums around creativity rather than a normal schedule. Between his Kendrick’s better and more cutting diss tracks and his own album release, the gulf between the two in artistry is telling.
But there were more big artistic releases in hip-hop/rap this year and those all feel like they are aimed at Drake and show the difference between the genuine artists and almost artists. From Eminem’s The Death of Slim Shady, Kendrick Lamar’s GNX, and Snoop Dogg’s Missionary we have three artistic releases that show how good music and poetry can be in contrast to prolific pop works. The three I mention above are the tip of the iceberg, but they all tap into the past and the future with artistry. The latest being Snoop Dogg, who includes elements of East Coast, West Coast, the South, Detroit/Midwest, and other parts of the world. It makes Drake look provincial and his name has not been in the scene news as much. It highlights the difference between artists and almost artists.
That’s the deep truth of Christmas. In the Nativity, we see the beginning of a new creation. It is into this seemingly dirty and obscure scene that God’s artistry shines a light on the falsity of Empire and the way the world demands fealty. The Nativity upends the world in such a way that the trajectory of history is disrupted and the truth of God with is clear. God shows the weakness of Caesar and the ways of Caesar. While the Church is often tempted by the prolific output of Empire, when we hear the refrains of artistry, we remember the beauty of a God of Love and Mercy.
On this not quite silent night, ponder the artistry of God with us as we live into new creation.