Focus on These Things: Whatever Is Beautiful
August 5, 2018
Rev. Thomas Harper
Genesis 2:9-15

Out of the ground theLordGod made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. A river flows out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it divides and becomes four branches.The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold;and the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there.The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Cush.The name of the third river is Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. TheLordGod took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. Genesis 2:9-15
Today is our second to last sermon in the series “Focus on These Things” where each week we lift up a value from Philippians 4:8 to focus on. This morning we’re talking about focusing on beauty.
We read the Scripture this morning not only to see how well the people can pronounce all those hard names but also to remind us of what we may so often take for granted, that God created all of this and made it beautiful.
The word beauty in Greek is better translated as “pleasing to the eyes,” and so not only did God create this world functional but also ascetically pleasing for us to look at. God took chaos and created order. And at the end of it declared that “it is very good.”
So, this morning I want to explore the spiritual value of focusing on beauty in three areas. In the world, in others and in ourselves. Let’s pray. Father God, open us up that we might receive a word from you today. Holy Spirit, I pray now that you would speak through me or if need be in spite of me, that we would encounter your presence. Reach into our hearts this morning and underline something that’s going on there. All these things we pray in the name of your Son Jesus Christ. Amen.
What do you see?
My first ever seminary class, on the first day of class, when I walked in and sat down my Theology 101 professor put a religious work of art upon the screen. She started her class with this question: “What do you see?”
The picture was an elaborate depiction of the crucifixion, and as students began to give their various answers it became evident that there was no right or wrong answer based on the professor’s countenance. Some people said they could see the pain in the face of Jesus as he hung there. Others said they could hear the laughter of the Roman guards as they mocked him. I’ll never forget when one student said he could see a quiet calm in Mary’s eyes as she watched her son finally complete the salvific work that he came here to do.
Now that I think about it, we spent the entire first class ever in seminary just looking at works of art, religious works of art throughout history, and each time answering for ourselves that question, “What do you see?” The point was of course to ask ourselves “What are you focusing on? How much of yourself are you bringing into the work of art? What do you choose to see in it?”
So, this morning let me ask you this question. When you look at the world what do you see? Do you see the beauty of God’s creation around you? Or do you find yourself focusing on other things, uglier things, like sometimes things we see in the news. Or divisive politics, or your Facebook feed. Your Twitter account, or maybe those gossip magazines that so often pull for our attention when we’re just trying to check out our groceries in the line?
I have to be honest with you, friends. Sometimes I get on my Facebook feed, and I can only scroll down for just a little bit before I put it down and say, “Internet, you’re on a time out.” Because there’s a lot of divisiveness, isn’t there? There’s lots of bitterness, lots of ugliness.
Now personally I hope your social media is a little bit divisive. Because if it’s not, that means you need to branch out in the friends you have. You don’t want to be friends with only people who think and act or believe the same as you.
But I have to be honest. That’s not why I go to the Internet. I’ve often joked with my wife that I wish there were a filter button I could click that would only show me pictures of people’s babies or puppies. Focusing on what is beautiful – like those sweet children we baptized this morning.
Now don’t get me wrong. There is plenty of ugliness out in the world, isn’t there? And I’m not saying we should ignore it or pretend like it doesn’t exist. No, there are some things that you see on the news that should make you angry. And as the church, we are called to stand up against the ugliness in this world. That is one of our charges. But I don’t think we’re called to live in the ugliness all the time. Because if we do that, ugliness starts to grow in our hearts as well.
Have you ever met somebody who is so angry about politics that all they ever do is talk about politics? I had a buddy in college who got so wrapped up in conspiracy theories surrounding September 11 that that’s all he would ever talk about when I was around him. He would show me videos and lay out his proof, and eventually I’d say, “Hey, man, I don’t know. Can we go play video games now?” Some people seem to feed off the ugliness around them.
Here’s another way to ask the same question. What gives you life versus what sucks life from you? And then, what do you spend most of your time thinking about? So, for example, my family gives me so much life but the commute to and from work every day sucks the life right out of me. Now traffic is a part of life and I can’t ignore it or pretend that that ugliness isn’t there. The roads in Houston will never be finished ever. But that doesn’t mean that I have to focus on that. Rather I could choose to focus on the hour and a half, sometimes two hours, that I get to spend with my two baby girls in the back seat, singing songs and laughing together.
See, what you choose to focus on will affect how you see this world. And if all you ever focus on is ugliness then you may grow to the point where you are no longer even able to see the beauty anymore.
C.S. Lewis in his book The Great Divorce gives us images of what heaven and hell look like. Highly metaphorical, he’s not talking about who’s going to heaven or who’s going to hell because none of us want to be about that business. It’s above our pay grade. But he is talking about why people choose heaven and choose hell.
Listen to what he says in the preface to his book: “But what you ask will become of earth. In the end earth, I think, will not be found by anyone to be a very distinct place. I think earth if chosen instead of heaven will turn out to be have been all along only a region of hell, and earth if put second to heaven to have been from the beginning a part of heaven itself.”
I think he’s on to something here. Because it’s not hard for me to imagine someone waking up in hell and looking back on their life and saying to themselves, “I have always been here. My life was a living hell.”
But I can also imagine someone in heaven looking back on their life and saying, “I saw glimpses of this place everywhere while I was alive, and looking back on my life, and seeing where God had showed up and being able to see him retroactively, I’ve been here this whole time and I just didn’t fully see it yet.”
There is so much beauty in this world, beauty like in a self-sustaining nature, that if tomorrow all humanity went away nature would go right on going on without us to help it. Or in the changes and cyclical nature of the seasons where over the course of the year we experience different seasons… well, maybe not in Texas. But in the world, you’re supposed to experience four different seasons as God designed. Or in that sunset that captures your eye. You know the thing you don’t usually see but every once in a while, you’re driving home, and you say, “Man! Whoever painted that, that is beautiful!”
My friends, there is so much beauty in this world. Do you take time to see it?
The next area on which we should focus on beauty is in other people. Seeing the best in others rather than pigeon-holing them into little boxes of our own negativity. Seeing other people as God sees them, not for their weakness but for their potential. When you interact with someone, do you focus more on what you have in common, or do you focus only on how you think or act or believe differently? See, when we diminish the positive attributes of others and only focus on how we’re different, then that creates a barrier to relationships.
Again, back when I was in seminary I took a world religions course. And part of that semester we would spend twelve weeks in inter-faith dialogue with a group of people from another religion. We’d come together once a week for an hour and just talked about our differences. We talked about what we believe and what they believe and why we believe. And at the end of the hour we would go to the local food bank and side by side just serve the community together.
I confess that I was a little nervous when we were about to meet our group of Muslims that we were going to be in relationship with. Because this was right around the time when ISIS was starting to show up in the news. See, there was already a pre-existing barrier there before we even met one another. And we had to choose what we were going to focus on. Were we going to focus on the ugliness of our history? Or was I going to focus on the fact that these Muslims don’t look or act anything like any of those I’d seen on the news.
And even though there are still very real religious differences of belief between us that wasn’t going away, we could still serve the community together, just for an hour once a week. Because here’s the thing. What you think about in your mind will eventually manifest itself as truth in your life.
I read somewhere once that the key to loving your life well is learning to love what you already have. So, by all means focus on the beauty of your spouse, and not on their annoying tendencies.
Now again, I’m not saying that we ignore or deny the ugliness in others, things like addiction, abuse or co-dependency, but there is value to seeing beauty in other people.
There’s a pastor at Church Elevation that said, “The next time I see you I will only be able to treat you as good as I have been thinking about you.” When we see beauty in other people we allow them to be more than who we think they are. We allow them to grow into God’s holiness, like my cousin who is no longer the obnoxious little kid that I remember as I was growing up. He’s a man now so I need to let him be the grown-up that he is.
Or my four-year-old daughter who seems to only ever care about herself. Her selfishness can baffle me sometimes. But then one random morning we’re just getting ready and little sister is crying and Sophia walks over to her and hands her her own Teddy bear to console her. That’s what I choose to focus on. That’s what I choose to lift up in my daughter as she navigates her young life.
Now, look, I know every relationship is different, and I know that you never know what you would do in a situation until you get there. I know it doesn’t always work out this way. I want you to know that I’m not coming into what I’m about to say with being naïve at all. But I have seen a marriage come back from the brink where it seemed like all hope was lost. And when I talk to them today, they tell me that they consider this now their second marriage to each other, and even though from time to time they have what they refer to as “Dodo bird moments,” where the pain of infidelity comes right back front and center. They say you can never forget that – how could you forget that? They choose to focus on what is beautiful about each other now and who they are for each other today. That’s a powerful story of spiritual redemption. When we focus on the beauty in others we see them as God does, not for who they are today but for who they one day shall become.
And finally, we need to focus on beauty in ourselves. And this one can be the hardest, but I think it’s also the most important. When you look at yourself in the mirror what do you see? Do you see beauty, or do you see ugliness?
Now when we’re talking about beauty there are a couple types of beauty that we’re talking about. Outward beauty or self-image, or inward beauty - self-worth. And it’s amazing to me how subjective these things can be sometimes. Because we all know very attractive people who for some reason or whatever reason, they can only see themselves as ugly. And you probably know one or two people who you might say are plainer looking, but for some reason think they’re all that and a bag of chips.
Now to tell you when I was thinking over that last line I thought of a bunch of different ways to say that but landed on “all that and a bag of chips,” because I know it’s cheesy, but a safe pastor is safe, so subjective sometimes. And I wonder why that is. Because it seems to me that life would be a lot easier if we could all just see ourselves as beautiful.
But having low self-worth can be even more damaging. In one of my favorite movies, “What Dreams May Come.” Robin Williams is trying to console his wife who is suffering from severe depression. He says to her, “I don’t care what the doctors are telling you, what you believe to be true in your mind is true, whether other people know it or not.”
There are some people who can see all the beauty in the world but none in themselves. That’s really hard. I don’t know why that is.
In your bulletin this morning there is a story from Kathryn Coleman, and she talks about seeing beauty in the midst of her own struggle with depression. It’s powerful, and I would encourage you to read it, and depending on where you’re at this morning this can be a really hard part. But here’s the gospel, friends, God sees you as beautiful.
Because let’s be honest, there is plenty of ugliness in us. But that’s not how we’re defined. The Gospel says, “I am not my failures. I am not my job. I am not based on the relationships that I am in. I am in Jesus Christ, God’s beloved.” And God sees you as beautiful in ways we can’t even fully understand at this point. We only capture little glimpses, like when I find myself just staring at my four-year-old daughter and thinking to myself, “Man, you are so beautiful.” Every once in a while she does this thing with her eyes, and it just blows me away. Or when I see the joy in my wife’s face as she smiles at me because our one year old has said something really cute, or when your son kisses his son. Then you see just a glimpse of the beauty that God sees in you, a precious child of God.
So, my friends, focus on beauty. Focus on beauty in this world so that you can be reminded that God is redeeming this whole thing, and that one day all the ugliness will fade away. Focus on beauty in others so that you can better learn to love that which you already have. And see people as God sees them, not for who they are now but for who they are becoming in Christ. And finally, focus on beauty so that you can see it in yourself as the cherished child of God.
^“Finally, beloved,whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is beautiful, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, focus onthese things.”
Let’s pray. Father God, I pray that this week you would show up in unexpected places that we might behold your beauty in the world and in the relationships and by the grace of God even in ourselves. All these things we pray in your name, Amen.