Sermon preached on the First Sunday after the Ascension at St. John's Hills Road in Cambridge.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

A few days ago, the weather forecast announced that what we have just experienced last week was likely to be the last cold spell before the summer would eventually settle in. Because of the slightly unpleasant weather, I decided to make my way into one of my favorite places in Cambridge, the Fitzwilliam Museum, right before the bright and warm weather would bring us outdoors once again.

Because I have come to know the museum very well, this time I went with a mission. I wanted to see a painting representing Christ healing the Sick in the Temple by 18th century artist Benjamin West. Unfortunately, when I got there, the painting wasn’t there! I started wandering through the art gallery to find it. After some asking around and some googling, I finally found out this beautiful work of art was in fact in storage.

This has to be one of life’s minor disappointments for me. I found it mildly irritating, especially as I noticed how many contemporary pieces of art were scattered among older collections, perhaps in the hope of creating unexpected conversation, that neither I nor the other common visitor seemed to appreciate. It did make me wonder whether the old masters were perfectly fine on their own. Meanwhile, West’s painting was collecting dust in the museum’s dungeons.

Afterwards, I found myself reflecting on this. It reminded me of the Christian faith itself. Sometimes, the deepest things, what we truly need or desire the most is not the visible and immediate. It is something we actively have to search for. Saint Paul says in Ephesians: “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened”. I find this to be one of the most beautiful passages in the New Testament. 

Paul does not pray so that Christians might become more efficient, more successful or indeed even more intelligent! Instead, he prays for Christians to have enlightened hearts, so that they, so that we, may see the world in a transformed manner. Doesn’t that resonate with us in this moment in time? Ours is not an age that encourages especially deep attention. Seeing the world with new eyes is suddenly very important. We are surrounded, overwhelmed, and overstimulated by constant noise, whether it is loud opinions, outrage, novelty, there is very little that actively helps us to see clearly and make sensible choices.

I have always loved Georgian art and architecture for precisely the opposite reason. I would imagine, part of this is personal. Coming from Rome, I can easily recognize in Georgian England the inheritance of the classic world through proportion, symmetry, balance, ordered space, and harmony. The language of Rome, the lines of Renaissance and Palladian architecture, the geometry of the gardens. The quiet confidence of Georgian churches and terraces all owe something to the world and the imagination of antiquity. 

Yet, the English transformed those classical forms into something entirely new. While Italian classicism overwhelms through splendor and drama, Georgian beauty is quieter and more restrained. It values proportion over spectacle and calmness over excess. Think of a Georgian square in London or Bath in the evening light, the interior of James Gibbs’ stunning St. Mary-le-Strand or St. Martin in the Fields. The measured elegance of an 18th century landscape garden such as that at Chiswick House. There is plenty of room for breathing and this is why I probably find it spiritually nourishing. It is perhaps the most intrinsically English artistic and architectural style.

Because good Georgian art has a confidence in its beauty, it therefore helps the individual to flourish. Benjamin West, whose painting I had gone to see, emerged within that world. He was born in 1738 Pennsylvania in the North American colonies, into a Quaker family. That early deeply Protestant colonial world was visually austere. Churches were plain, religious imagery was seen with great suspicion, it was the cultural antithesis of Catholic Europe, with its paintings, frescoes, and statues. The white weatherboarded American scene felt empty. West was born into an artistic void.

Yet, somehow this young man from provincial America ended up becoming the president of the Royal Academy in London as one of Britain’s most important painters of the Georgian era. He was not simply a solitary genius resisting his upbringing. Without knowing, he was part of a Renaissance for the Church of England, a process of recovery of sacred art that had begun after the destruction and iconoclasm of the 17th century. You can still see traces of this in the beautiful London City churches by Sir Christopher Wren. Alongside, Wren came artists such James Thornhill and William Hogarth, whose paintings are full of spiritual blindness and vulnerability.

This concern is deeply Pauline, Paul believes the great human problem is not simply ignorance but a distorted vision of reality. We are fascinated by the wrong things, we admire the wrong forms of power, we mistake noise for truth and spectacle for glory. Saint Paul therefore prays: “that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened”. A phrase that sounds odd, but the Apostle of the Gentiles means something very precise. He is saying that there is a kind of perception much deeper than just ordinary sight. One can look at Christ and not recognize him, one can be surrounded by beauty and remains spiritually asleep. I believe this is why West’s painting matters.

In Christ healing the Sick in the Temple, Christ is quietly standing at the center while the sick, the blind, the exhausted, the poor gather around him. But there is no Renaissance or Baroque theatrical triumph, there is no drama. There is Anglican calm and understatement. The great power of Christ in this masterpieces is displayed through gentleness. Everything draws us toward Christ because he radiates life himself. West understood something that Christianity insists upon, that divine power is restorative, but is also not self-advertising, noisy or even coercive. This is according to Paul, the “immeasurable greatness” of God’s power, not the power of emperors or armies, but a power that heals and restores. The power that brings life where it seems impossible, quietly.

This matters as many people today are exhausted by the world they live in, whether it is politics, the constant bombardment of information, anxiety about their livelihood or the general pressure of modern life. There is a sense that we are losing the ability to pay attention to what is deepest and most human, that includes beauty. Perhaps, this is why Paul’s prayer is so relevant today.

The Church is not simply here to provide updates and information on God. The Church is here to help form a perception and to help people gain that special sight once more. The Church is here to help people see dignity where there is failure, grace where there is weakness, and hope where we see decline. 

In our first reading, David has come to the end of his life, looking back at all his successes and failures, unable to trust his own strength and achievements and so he trusts in God’s covenant. Psalm 47 reminds us that “God is king over the all the earth”. This is the ultimate claim running through all these readings. The world is neither simple, easy, nor untroubled, yet it is beneath all of its confusion that Christ still stands at the heart of it, quietly gathering our wounded humanity around himself.

Perhaps, our task as Christians in every generation is simply to keep learning how to see him, resisting our spiritual distractions, to not allow what is important to go into storage. To become people whose hearts are enlightened to recognize where true life lies for the deepest truths are not the loudest. Yet, they are still there for those willing to seek them.

Amen.