As I was thinking about that, the idea of beauty and the beauty of God, a line came to me from out of our culture that says, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

That comes from a 70s song by Ray Stevens. So, in this season, I am inviting us to be the beholders, to be the ones looking for the beauty around us, noticing what is happening in nature and in the people around us. Beautiful things happen if that is what we are looking for.

This picture was sent to me by Jonathan Paredes. He went to a conference in San Francisco, and this was the window in a church where they had a worship. He sent it to me because he said this reminded him of me and my theology because this was meant to be a depiction of creation. Just these swirling colors coming together.

The season of Lent is meant to be a thoughtful reflection of seeing things as more than they may initially appear. There’s looking with our eyes, just glancing, and there’s looking more in-depth. Then there’s looking with our hearts, and I invite us into that journey to look with more than just our eyes, to look with more than just a glance, but to see the beauty in the world, the beauty in one another, the beauty in each person.

This is a great time to remember that we are all made up of the same matter.

The same matter that made up the palms. I have the dried palms on the table because I thought you might not even realize that they’re the dried palms from one year that get burned to become the ashes I just put on your forehead.

This is a very purposeful thing that we do. We take the leftover palm branches and burn them and have them for the next year’s ashes. And all of that, the palm branches, the ash, our bodies, stars in the sky, and the trees, everything has the same matter that was created by God and everything has a little bit of the divine within it.

Today, we gather to begin this journey with Jesus towards his death and resurrection as we work to become better people.

We call this the cultivators of awe and wonder. Tonight, it’s about being cultivators of beauty. That’s why you see farm implements in the Sanctuary. Those corners will grow as we go through lent.

Because we’re in a season of working, right? Soon, the farmers will begin to plant. As I was thinking about tonight’s theme of beauty of the world, I want to remind you, that we’re to see that as God sees it. It’s the beauty that God sees. Sometimes we miss it.

We tend to look at ourselves and think that we are not beautiful enough. So, we adorn ourselves with clothing, fancy nails, and all kinds of things to make ourselves look more beautiful to the world. Where God believes that we are beautiful in our natural state and doesn’t want us to worry anymore about all of those other things.

Jesus’ message to us is to relax. Don’t worry. Things may look bad, but the spirit of God is alive and well and working in this world. We will learn new things through the challenges that we face.

This picture is from my cross-country trip in 2017 when we were on sabbatical. This is a sunset on the Oregon coast. I have seen sunrises on the east coast, the Atlantic. I have seen sunsets on the bay, but I decided since I was on the west coast and I wanted to see a sunset on the Pacific. A sunset on the Pacific to me meant when the sun touched the water.

About an hour before sunset, we started walking because I needed to find the perfect place where I was going to see this, and as time was going, so was the sun. I realized that I was tired, and I was getting grumpy and frustrated. If you look carefully at this picture, you will notice that the sun is about to go down into a cloud bank. So, it didn’t matter where I was on that beach. I was not going to see the sun meet the water.

Fortunately, I took this picture. It’s a beautiful picture of a sunset, but it wasn’t what I wanted because I wanted something more. Because I wanted something more, I caused so much grief and argument for nothing. All I needed to do was say, “Wow, I’m watching the sunset on the Pacific” instead of complaining about this rock that was in my way or the fact that there’s a cloud and I’m not going to see the sun meet the water.

It all depends on your definition of beauty, right? What is it that is beautiful? So what is the beauty of God?

Look around and be amazed. Be amazed at what you can see. Creation is the perfect beauty of God. We just need to stop and look.

You might be looking at this picture and thinking, she’s lost her mind now. Because that is not the most beautiful picture I’ve ever seen. Yet, I will say the picture does not do it justice. If you could see close enough, there are hundreds of snowdrop blooms ready to open when they get to the right temperature.

If you can see lots of little white dots, every one of those little white dots on top of the decaying leaves, grass, and branches are little flowers, which will open one of these days. It will be beautiful, and it’s beautiful in this moment as it’s getting ready to be born.

What do we call beautiful? Can we expand our understanding of what beautiful really is? So that we can embrace all of God’s creation. All of the different varieties of people and animals and plants that God has created for us.

May it be so. Amen.

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