Creation as a Homily

Creation as a Homily Commentary by Buki Fatona Cite Share Show Bible Passage The central idea in Isaiah 40 is that creation tells us about God. God is ‘known’, ‘heard’ (v.22), and ‘understood’ (v.23) in creation because God ‘stretches out the heavens like a curtain’ (v.22). Alma Thomas’s Earth Sermon evokes this idea of creation’s expanse as a homily to God’s infinitely expansive being. Thomas, an African American and ‘the first negro woman to receive a BS degree in fine art’ (Thomas n.d.: 2), has first-hand experience of exceeding limits. According to her: When I was a little girl … there were things we could do and things we couldn’t. One of the things we couldn’t do was go into museums, let alone think of hanging our work there. Perhaps this is why Thomas’s works of art give the impression of exceeding boundaries. Although bounded in black lines, in the shimmering fragments of colours of Earth Sermon we glimpse the essence of existence. As Thomas asserts: Colour is life … for a world without colour appears to us as dead. Colours are the children of light…. Light, the first phenomenon of the world, reveals to us the spirit and living soul of the world, through colours. (Thomas n.d.: 4) Light as revealer of the soul or essence of things illuminates the connection between Isaiah 40 and Thomas’s Earth Sermon. Seeing God in creation, as Isaiah 40 invites us to do, requires light. The heavens which God stretches out like a curtain are punctuated by stars, the universe’s light source. Similarly, in Earth Sermon, white peeks out in between the spectrum of colours. The phenomenon of light emphasizes the epistemic paradox in perceiving the infinite being of God: light reveals but it can also be blinding. Consequently, the best way to enjoy light is through that which it illuminates rather than by staring directly into its source. It is the same with God: God is seen in the colours of nature—creation’s homily, or earth’s sermon. References ‘Autobiographical account’, in Alma Thomas papers, c.1894–2001. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, available at https://womenshistory.si.edu/object/AAADCD_item_18479 [accessed 19 November 2024]