Needless Beauty

Needless Beauty?What's the point of that?  What does it do?  Do we really need that?  Why this waste?  Ever heard these questions before?  Interesting questions.  Common questions.

Yet, if you take a few moments to look at the night sky, what do you see?  On a good night, you can see thousands of stars - just a fraction of what is there.  Now with the aid of amazing telescopes we can see so much more, more than we can wrap our minds around.  Huge, expansive, amazing beauty!  Very little is particularly useful to us, or serves any "practical" purpose as far as our existence on this planet, or, as far as we can tell, does much if anything toward supporting life as we know it.  Some might look at this and exclaim, "What a waste!"  Someone else may look at it and say, "How beautiful!"  Is it possible that beauty is reason enough for existence?  Could it be that we worship an extravagant God that is bigger than our utilitarian, pragmatic, transactional  ways of framing our lives?  Is our understanding of salvation bigger than a business transaction or legal proceeding?  Is it big enough for the God of the universe?  Is our picture of God big enough for what is really real?

What is your picture of God like?  In the scripture passage this week (see passage to the right) we are confronted with competing images of God.  One of a very pragmatic, utilitarian, even narrow picture of God, and one of an extravagantly, graceful picture of God, and the response it stirred up in the woman in the story.  Expressions of love and grace are often extravagant.

That's what Pastor Jon explores with us this week as we consider, not just God the master mechanic, or God the legal expert, or God the strategist, but God the extravagant artist.  If you would like to listen to the sermon again, or perhaps for the first time, you can access our sermon library by clicking here.