David Horton, Minister of Music & Worship + September 22, 2024
Beguiled by Beauty Week 6 - From Beauty to Compassion and Justice
In his sermon for the 6th and final week of the Beguiled by Beauty worship series, David Horton explores the profound question: can beauty truly save the world? Through Scripture and reflections on the journey of the past six weeks, we discover how beauty, though fragile, holds transformative power to awaken hope, inspire justice, and stir compassion. Beauty invites us into a deeper connection with God, sparking a radical hope that refuses to give in to despair. As we embrace this wild, tender hope, we are called to live out love’s bold work, bringing justice and healing to a broken world.
Sermon Transcript
From automatically generated captions, and lightly edited for readability by Chat GPT
Grace and peace to you from our Creator, whose voice echoes through creation, bringing forth mountains that witness the messengers of good news. Well, can you believe it? It’s been six weeks! I don’t know about you, but the summer has been a sneeze of time—just gone. It’s over. We’re already towards the end of October—or I’ll leave that as it is.
So, as we arrive at this sixth week of Beguiled by Beauty. Of course, this hasn’t been a journey measured in physical miles, but it’s been a pilgrimage of our wandering hearts. We’ve wrestled with beauty, grappled with belief (as we always do), and confronted countless hard questions. Yet today, we’re going to continue that journey with hearts open to the Divine spark within us, and especially all of creation. And most of all, we’re saying *yes* to that crazy, radical goodness the world so desperately needs.
As we wrap up this series, you might be asking: “Okay, beauty is wonderful, but how does it contribute to a better world? Can something as delicate and ephemeral as beauty be a catalyst for change? Can it be? Can it motivate us to not only acknowledge the world’s suffering but also actively work towards healing it?”
To start unraveling this theology of beauty (remember, theology is a different lens that we use to look and relate to God—so this is the theology of beauty that we’ve been basically studying for the last several weeks), we first have to explore how beauty is a reflection of God. It’s going beyond those societal definitions to discover beauty within ourselves. In the second week, we contemplated the beauty that is inherent in life and how we can collaborate with God to create even more beauty in the world. During the third week, we learned to embrace our imperfections and find solace in God even amidst life’s challenges. In the fourth week, we uncovered the profound love of God and experienced God’s closeness. Finally, in the fifth week, we discussed how God is constantly seeking us and how we can remain open to God’s love, even during difficult times.
So, on this final Sunday in this series, we’re connecting beauty to justice and compassion—probably our biggest and most sacred call. Let’s first start with our scripture chosen for today. It’s from the prophet Isaiah. He paints a vivid picture of this calling. Here’s just a few snippets:
“How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the one who brings good news, who announces peace... Listen! Those who keep watch raise a cry; break out together in song! For Yahweh comforts the people; Yahweh bears a holy arm in the sight of all nations. All the ends of the Earth will behold the salvation of our God.”
It’s good stuff. So imagine standing on top of a mountain, the world spread out before you in all its breathtaking splendor. That’s the vision Isaiah is painting for us when he speaks about beautiful feet bringing good news. When we truly see the world’s beauty and the radiant goodness of God within, something fierce awakens within us. It’s a strength that refuses to let suffering and injustice win.
As Dr. Wendy Farley reminds us (and many of you have been reading that book along with the series), we must learn to hold both the lament and the celebration—to cherish the light and even grieve the darkness. Hope, my friends, is our most powerful weapon. And amen for that, because even amidst the chaos, I still get to hang on to hope by its fingernails. Not the polite, sensible kind of hope—this hope is a flamboyant rebel, strutting around in a tutu and waving sparklers, daring to whisper: “Hey, what if... just *what if* the impossible happened?”
It’s in that tiny spark of defiance against the darkness, that stubborn refusal to give in, that’s where the real magic lies. It might be a bit ridiculous, sure, but it’s kind of wild that it fills you with gratitude for simply being alive. And speaking of magic, celebrating beauty is about holding it with open hands, acknowledging its delicate nature and the shadows that constantly threaten to dim that light. It’s like holding a tiny bird—so darn lovely, right? But it could fly away at any second, or worse, get eaten by a cat.
But that’s the deal with beauty. You can’t have the sunrise without the sunset. You can’t have the sweet song of life without hearing some off-key notes of pain and unfairness mixed in. It’s all part of this whole messy, heartbreaking, beautiful thing. This is the paradox of hope. It’s right there, in this tension, in this holy space between joy and sorrow, that we discover our purpose. Suddenly, we become the hands and feet of Christ, reaching out to those who are hurting and fighting for a world where beauty can bloom and everyone is treated like they matter.
When we see the little spark of God in someone else’s eyes, our hearts just burst open with love. And that love, my friends, is the most transformative power in the entire universe. Can I get an *amen*? Amen!
So I hope you now understand that appreciating beauty isn’t just about the aesthetics. It’s about recognizing the inherent value in everything around us. When we acknowledge the complexities of life—the struggles and the strengths and everything in between—it changes how we approach ethics. Decisions become less about abstract rules and more about responding to the real experience of others. We act with compassion and empathy, driven not by duty, but by a deep sense of connection.
We rise, we act, we love—and wow, is there some grace in between. This is the heart of it all. It’s reorienting ourselves towards beauty, to be captivated, beguiled by its wonder. This is the true spiritual transformation. When we decide to really see beauty, to really let it knock us sideways with its awesomeness, something shifts inside us. It’s like we’re suddenly on a different road, headed toward a whole new way of being.
This is where we start to spot glimmers of God’s creativity everywhere—in every single person we meet. And when we do, it’s impossible not to feel a little more tender towards them, to not want to stick up for them when things get unfair. We also start to appreciate all the crazy variety in this world—from those giant redwood trees to the tiniest little wildflowers pushing up through the sidewalk cracks. We realize we have to protect that beauty and fight against everything that tries to mess it up. Because let’s face it—the world needs more beauty, not less.
If these past weeks have taught us anything, it’s that beauty isn’t some fancy extra thing—it’s what keeps us going. It’s the alchemy. It’s like, yeah, the world might be a dumpster fire right now, but that sunset? That’s the universe giving us a little wink and saying, “Hang in there, kid.”
And people of faith, Jesus followers, it’s our job—sorry, it’s our core purpose—to be mirrors of that light, bouncing it off each other, reminding everyone that we’re all in this together. We’re all connected, every single one of us loved beyond measure by God.
This work is incredibly challenging. It’s exhausting. Life is undoubtedly difficult without the added responsibility of being those beacons of hope in the world. The pain is overwhelming, leaving us feeling crushed. It’s called compassion fatigue, and it’s very real. But no one’s expecting you to be the superhero. You’re not supposed to carry this whole mess by yourself.
This is why we’ve been practicing just a few of the Christian contemplative practices throughout this series. They offer a profound rhythm of renewal. Cultivating a contemplative connection with God through daily practices—breath prayer, meditation, mindfulness, walking, just simply being. *Lectio Divina* (that’s prayerfully reading and reflecting on scripture), the *Examen* (a powerful review of the day, a prayerful review of the day)—these all can offer solace and renewal amidst the challenges of compassion fatigue and the burdens of life.
Imagine these practices as a sacred well, a source of endless replenishment. As we lower our buckets, we release the stagnant waters of ego and self-focus and instead create a space for the wellspring of love and compassion to rise up and fill us. And remember, this journey isn’t a one-time event. It’s a continuous cycle of emptying and filling, surrender and renewal.
Within this rhythm, we uncover a profound truth: our longing for God, for goodness, and for beauty isn’t separate from our capacity for compassion. In fact, it’s the wellspring of our strength to love, to serve, and to live a life that truly matters. We often think that wanting something badly and letting go are opposites—but they’re not. They’re dance partners. The ache, that longing, it’s the spark that ignites the soul. It creates space for something greater than yourself to enter in. It’s the willingness to open your hands, to surrender. And it’s only within that messy, beautiful dance of yearning and letting go that we stumble upon the sacred.
And when we do, you’ll see it with undeniable clarity—that every single life is sacred. Every single one. Our well-being is tied up with the well-being of others. It can’t be said enough: we’re all in this together. We are all a vibrant ecosystem of souls, each one reflecting the Divine spark. Our well-being is intertwined—a reminder that we cannot truly thrive while others suffer.
But there’s hope, my friends, for there’s a boundless reservoir of love and compassion in this world waiting to be shared. I promise you that with every fiber of my being, I'm truly all in on this one, and it can start right here and right now.
So go, get out there, be nourished by beauty, be filled with compassion, and please make some noise with good news. That beauty may whisper softly, but a seed of justice blooms—and that's when love's wild work begins. Let every action, every word, every breath be a radiant reflection of God's boundless love and unwavering justice. And for that, we say:
Amen.
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