Anne Frank’s Last Birthday Cake, acrylic on canvas, mixed media, 18” x 20,” 2024.
We never know when the tides of time will change. Most of us aren’t creatures of change, but prefer instead the well-worn and familiar paths. As a United Methodist pastor, I moved every two or three years during my ministry, so one thing I kept was my telephone company. I know some people like to switch providers almost as often as they switch their underwear, but that’s not me. Having to switch utility companies, banks, and hairdressers was more than enough agony for me. I signed up for this life, however, so I kept my moving boxes and made a spreadsheet for notifying all my address changes.
I talk about this because I only lived in three homes as a child. I never had to leave in the middle of the night to escape bad debts, the law, or a hateful Nazi regime. I have no way to imagine Anne Frank’s life, except when I was also 13 years old, I read her wonderful diary. Anne kept her diary, beginning at the same age, during the two years she spent in hiding while the Germans occupied her homeland during World War II. She had received a red, cream, and beige checkered cloth notebook diary for her 13th birthday on June 12, 1942. The underground Dutch radio station had encouraged people to keep diaries so future generations would know what the conditions were under the German occupation.
Because of the Nazi purity rules, Jews weren’t allowed to mix with non-Jewish persons. According to the Nazis, Jews were not Aryans or the Master Race. They thought Jews belonged to a separate race that was inferior to all other races. The Nazis believed that the presence of Jews in Germany threatened the German people. They believed they had to separate Jews from other Germans to protect and strengthen Germany. Their Nuremberg Laws were an important step towards achieving this goal.
We hear this same sentiment today from the neo-Nazi movement groups who say, “Jews shall not replace us,” and “Immigrants are poisoning the blood of our nation.” As a result, only Anne’s Jewish friends could come to her birthday party. Her father set up a movie projector to show “Rin Tin Tin,” the famous Hollywood dog film star. The chairs were set up in rows like a movie theater. The family went all out for their Anne. Her mom had baked cookies for her classroom to share, since they couldn’t come to the party, but she baked a strawberry cream cake for this party attended by her Jewish friends. This was early June and the strawberries would be juicy, fresh, and in season.
Anne and Hanna playing before the Frank family fled into hiding.
Two weeks after her 13th birthday, Anne and the Frank family had disappeared from the neighborhood. They left no forwarding address. Her best friend of eight years, Hannah Pick-Goslar, didn’t see her again until they were both in the same concentration camp. Hannah survived. Anne did not, but the enduring story of her life in hiding continues through her diary.
When I was painting this, I used a large doily as the “cake.” I’d been saving it for a halo for a saint painting, but it works great for a cake top too. My viewpoint is from above, and I omitted the 95 candles. No need to burn the house down! The cream color was a bit pink, but if I were a young teen girl, I’d want it more pink than just white. I painted the background as a blue sky, because young people almost always have hope and optimism. The left side of the canvas has the storm clouds approaching, as well as the grey soot soiling the sky from the overworked crematoriums at the concentration camps where so many Jewish people lost their lives in the Holocaust.
If we can learn anything from one small girl who ate strawberries on an early summer day, I hope it will be to appreciate the beauty of this brief moment and to love one another deeply. Also, life is too short to hate anyone just because they are in someway different from you. Celebrate their differences as part of God’s creative generosity to this world. Also as Mary Oliver reminds us about the importance of keeping a journal:
“Instructions for living a life. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”
One of my favorite icons is the Rublev Trinity of 1411, which represents the three angelic visitors who came to Abraham and Sarah’s tent in the wilderness. They stopped there on the way to Sodom and Gomorrah, two cities known for their lack of hospitality to strangers, so the largess Abraham showed by preparing a feast for them in the wilderness was notable in contrast. Of course, while Abraham couldn’t see these strangers’ wings and halos, nevertheless we should “not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it” (Hebrews 13:2).
Rublev’s Trinity: Original egg tempera on wood panel, Tretyakov Museum, Moscow, 1411-1425 CE
Rublev’s Trinity is a classic icon. It’s the prototype for all the Holy Trinity icons. Three figures are seated at table, under an oak tree and in the vicinity of a large house, the home of Abraham and Sarah, at Mamre in the wilderness. These figures represent the Three Persons in One God, or The Holy Trinity. The icon underlines the sameness of the three figures by using a single identical image, repeated three times but robed differently to suggest three different qualities of the three Angels—the Three Aspects of God.
The central figure represents the Son, who blesses the cup on the table. The right figure in blue is the Holy Spirit, while the rose-colored robed figure represents the Father. The Oak of Mamre stands for the cross of Christ. Even the symbolic wilderness mountain dips its peak in reverence to the holy visitors. Rublev imagined the patriarchs living in a house, but they were tent dwellers who followed herds and pastures.
Jerusalem Temple Mount, from an antique map, acrylic on canvas, 2023
I actually repainted this icon over a map of the ancient city of Jerusalem. Wars have been much in the news lately, not just in the last few months, but the last few years. Russia’s invasion into Ukraine has devastated their land and people, not to mention making a negative impact on hunger worldwide and even the price of food here at home. The Sacred Mount in Jerusalem has always been contested, so much so that the three monotheistic religions fight over that territory. Even the holiest Christian sites are often guarded by Islamic families to keep them open for everyone.
Holy Trinity, stage One
Once I chose this base, the mountain, tree, and the house wrote themselves. I found the table easily in the underlying shapes and the three visitors also. This isn’t a faithful copy of the Holy Trinity Icon, but a spiritual copy of the icon. I kept the colors and the ideas, but I wrote something new. As I painted, I had these thoughts about our faith and our life.
Holy Trinity, stage two
Not In My Backyard, Not In My Neighborhood, Not in My Church—how often do we hear these words? Sometimes we even hear them spoken in our own estranged families of origins. This isn’t a recent phenomenon. Our scripture is full of broken families: Cain and Able were the first; plus, Abraham’s children, Isaac and Ishmael and their descendants, have had sibling rivalry and struggles from the beginning. The house of David certainly had its problems even if David was a “man after God’s own heart.” In the New Testament, the Jews wanted the gentile believers to convert to their religion first, and then to keep the law, the food rules, and celebrate the festivals in order to be a “good Christian.” The leaders had to compromise on their beliefs before everyone could fully share Christian hospitality at the table together.
Holy Trinity, stage three
Paul has a dire warning for the congregations about The Works of the Flesh in Galatians 5:16-21—
Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law.
Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Our modern world has a problem with idolatry. We often put our work, our family, our possessions, or our politics above God. We often choose our church because of our political beliefs, when we should let the overwhelming love and grace of God for all God’s creation imbue our political choices. We forget as Christians we are grafted into the nation of Israel, as the writer of Ephesians 2:12 reminds us:
“Remember that you were at that time without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.”
Christ came to those who were near and to those who were far, broke down the dividing wall between the two and brought them together to eat at one table. Before they were enemies, but with Christ, they became one people. Divisions should not exist in the body of Christ, just as no one should be excluded from fellowship. The near in those days were the Israelites and the far were the Greeks, Romans and other pagan communities. In Christ, however, they were one.
DeLee: Holy Trinity after Rublev, acrylic on canvas,
Abraham knew the reputation of Sodom and Gomorrah, since Lot was his kinsman. When Abraham negotiated with God to spare those twin cities of iniquity, he managed to bargain God down to the hope of finding at least ten honest people, righteous in their ways with God. That was as low as God would go. Lot, with his two daughters, his wife, and the two would be husbands made six, but the men didn’t want to flee. That left only four and so the two cities were doomed for their lack of hospitality to strangers.
People today often think that sexual behavior doomed these cities, but lack of care for the stranger was a higher priority in a dangerous and unforgiving landscape. Offering food, water, and shelter meant life to travelers. Four thousand years ago, our spiritual ancestors remembered the stories of Abraham. In Deuteronomy 26:5, when the people brought their offerings to God, they were instructed to make this response before the LORD your God:
“A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous.”
No longer are we a wandering people. Instead, we are mostly a nation of settlers, people who have been in one place for awhile. We no longer are a nation of immigrants who are wresting a new nation out of the raw materials of the land and becoming a melting pot of different cultures which have settled it. We look with suspicion upon someone who moves into our neighborhood, especially if they don’t look or act like us. If they don’t speak our language or eat our food, we tend to shun them. We don’t show hospitality. We don’t add their flavor into our soup, and try to keep them from melting into our pot.
No one likes change. I think of the old joke about “how many United Methodists does it take to change a lightbulb?” The answer is “none—that lightbulb was given as a memorial to my Aunt Harriet’s dead husband, and it cannot be changed!”
Hospitality requires us to change the lightbulb, however, for bringing light to a dark stairway will make it safer for people of all ages to traverse. Hospitality asks us to open our pews to people who don’t think like us, so we can wrestle with the theology of God and the calling of our faith for this present age, not just our yesterdays. Hospitality calls us to serve as a respite and refuge for the aliens, the immigrants, the homeless, and the newcomers who arrive in our communities.
Unfortunately, too many of us have bought into tribal thinking, which is a form of all or nothing thinking. Gang behavior is tribal thinking, for if you don’t kowtow to the group think, you will likely be dead. Excommunication from the church is a form of punishment for wrong thinking or wrong acts, and secession or rebellion is action against authority you no longer respect or recognize. Our church has just gone through a sad time of people cutting ties because they no longer share the understanding of Abraham, who offered sustenance and protection to strangers in the midst of the barren wilderness. In ancient times, those who received this gift were bound to mutual respect and protection. Food and water in the wilderness saves a life. Our hospitality to strangers in an uncertain world can save their lives and souls. Maybe we once again need to see afresh with ancient eyes our sacred texts, instead of with our current political and cultural blinders on our eyes. Then we could truly entertain angels unawares. And we would be blessed for this.
As the writer of the letter to the Ephesians closed out his third chapter (Ephesians 3:20-21):
“Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”
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