Wasted money?

The sad reality is that beauty has become something appreciated only by those who can afford it.  Look at the great churches with impressive addresses.  They are wonderful places to lift the eye to the Lord as well as the heart.  But the equal assumption is that the poor need more utilitarian structures, simpler places that reflect more their surroundings.  The opposite is true.  Beauty is not a luxury for those who can afford it but something every Christian should know.  Church buildings should not reflect the humility of our surroundings but the grandeur of the heavenly vision.  We know from reading the Book of Revelation that heaven does not subscribe to the idea that form follows function.  St John provides us a rich and elaborate description of the place where God's glory dwells and where we shall dwell with Him forevermore.  Yet somehow we seem too content for that vision to await the other world and to live with a more utilitarian view of God's House on earth.

Some presume the piety of Judas whose outrage at the expensive ointment wasted on Jesus received a rebuke from none other than Jesus and a promise that what she had done will never be forgotten.  Do the people who complain about paying too much for beauty actually support the poor?  So those who lament that too much money is spent on beauty and buildings have little ground on which to stand.  There ought to be a sense of the world to come when we enter into God's House here on earth -- it is, after all, an outpost of heaven planted here so that we might yearn for the fuller vision.  Yet we continue to put up buildings that are a blank canvas and then wonder why our people treat sacred space as an extension of their family rooms.  Our only nod to beauty seems to be the ever present screens and the images we select from stock albums to illustrate the occasion.  It is a sentimental beauty put in service to a message, more like an advertising image than art and more about us than God.

Good architecture and good art in service to the Lord is not a luxury for the few but an urgent need of the middle class and the poor.  Beauty in service to the Word inspires the faithful as well as teaching them the truth of Scripture.  Surroundings are not insignificant to the purpose for which the faithful gather.  Warehouses are functional and worship spaces should also be functional -- that is, they should serve the purpose of the highest and noblest calling, the worship of God.  But they should not look the same because different things are happening in each space.  What does it mean when the buildings are brutalist in style or in disrepair?  What does that say about us and the way we view God or what we value?

One last thought, while the art of the Church need not be Norman Rockwell in style, abstract and modernist architecture and art do not communicate wonder or inspire or encourage the faithful to behold the Lord in the beauty of holiness.  But the center of all that art is not man but God, the God who has willingly given to us His only Son in flesh and blood, whose obedient life bears the fruit of righteousness for the unrighteous, whose life-giving death pays the price of sin, whose mighty resurrection sets us free from our captivity to death, and whose ascension prepares the place where we shall be also.  It is not art for art's sake or beauty for the sake of beauty but all for the sake of Christ, for the service of the Gospel, and for the encouragement of the faithful.  

There are a few examples for Lutheranism here in the US.  Historic Trinity in Detroit.  Or a more recent example Our Savior in Houston.  But there are not enough.  My own parish has had a reasonable budget and worked hard within that budget to do something noble.  Stained glass, liturgical painting, decent paraments, and the like.  People often compliment us on how beautiful our building is but every Lutheran building should be a testament to the beauty of the faith, the wonder of such a surprising mercy, the presence of a bit of heaven on earth, and the shadows of the heavenly liturgy among us.  It is not a matter of taste but of the mystery of Christ's presence for us and our salvation.  We can do better.  We should do better.  Don't you think?