“No good tree bears bad  fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit; for each tree is known by its own fruit.”   ~~ Luke 6:43-44a 

My family was known for its colorful sayings. “You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear” and “a zebra can’t change its stripes” were two of my parents’ favorites. Yet the whole of the spiritual and the creative life is about transformation!  If I took these sayings to heart, I would never have started on the great journey that has been my life’s work!

Both the artist and the person of faith believe that something ordinary, even ugly, might be the raw material for a work of beauty if only it were to be put under a shaping hand that is tapped into the creating and inspired power that is the source of all beauty that moves and cares for the world in which we live. Picasso can take the rusted out bicycle seat and its handles, weld them together to create a bull’s head, and so create a thing of beauty from what once was destined for the junk heap. The master’s hand transforms the useless and laid aside into something desirable and valuable.

The parable goes on to say “figs aren’t gathered from thorns, nor are grapes from a bramble bush” (6:44b). This is obvious to anyone who knows where food comes from! When my daughter was eight years old, I served a small church on the southwest side of San Antonio where many of the truck farms are located.  She saw a field of bright green balls, all growing in straight rows and sitting directly upon the soil. “What’s that?” Cabbages.  “Why are they on the ground?” That’s how they grow; they’re plants.  “Ugh! I’m never eating cole slaw again!” More for me. Your loss, my gain. All plants grow in the ground: carrots, lettuce, potatoes, watermelons. “Disgusting!”(I figured when she got good and hungry, she’d get over her disgust at where real food comes from. Everyone needs to know that real food doesn’t come neatly wrapped and clean in cellophane or a box at the grocery store.)

Jesus says “the good person out of the good treasure of the heart produces good, and the evil person out of the evil treasure of the heart produces evil for it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks’ (6:45).

So are we born good or born evil, with no hope of changing, like the zebra with its stripes? If this is so, then why did God bother to send us a Savior? Transformation must be possible, for we can be saved, and saved to the fullest! We aren’t trees, sow’s ears, or mere zebras. We are born in the image of God, made in his likeness and we are destined for eternity. The God who loves his creation will not let his creation fall again into hopeless despair.

Like the artist, God takes our rough materials, even those that have been thrown on the junk heaps of life, and reworks them into something new and beautiful with his recreating power.  Even the worst of us, who have destroyed our lives and the lives of those around us, can receive forgiveness and renewal.  We can be transformed by God’s recreating power! Where our nature and fruit might have originally been for evil, with Christ we can now be and work for good.  A greater hand than ours has touched our hearts and lives.  That transformation by the master Artist will shape us until we are the masterpiece God wants us to be.

We won’t live the life of a great work of art hidden in a climate -controlled museum, surrounded by a gilt frame or guarded by security. Instead, we will go out to share our beauty with the weak and wounded of the world. We will be a living witness to the work of transformation, not only in our creative work but also in our lives.  We won’t be like cabbages wrapped in cellophane waiting for God to take us up to the heavenly banquet. Instead we will be the living, breathing fruit of God’s tree of life bearing fruit for God’s kingdom until Christ comes in his final victory!

Our practice this week is to find images of transformation in your world. You could take photos and post them to your Facebook page, you could make a collage from magazine photo cut outs, or you could write a poem of the images you find in your life. Offer this experience to God and give thanks for the new creation that is at work in your life!

Joy and Peace, Cornelia