The Gestalt Switch | A Sermon on Perspective & the Gospel
A Sermon by the Reverend Mother Crystal J. Hardin on The Feast of the Holy Name, January 1, 2023.
Luke 2:15-21
At some point, you have probably seen an image called “a Rubin vase.” It presents as a simple black vase on a white background. But, if you look more closely, you discover that it is not a vase at all, but a pair of faces looking at one another. But wait, somehow, it’s also still a vase.
The idea behind a Rubin vase (and others of its kind) is that it demonstrates the way in which the brain attempts to make sense of the world. It’s a bi-stable image, meaning it creates two different, but stable, perceptions: a vase and a pair of faces.
A Rubin vase is one example, but there are others. Some are quite complex and far more difficult to discern. But, once our brains recognize and register both perceptions, we cannot look at the image in the same way as before. It has changed. Or, rather, our perspective has changed, opened, and allowed for the possibility of more than what we at first perceived. This has been deemed the Gestalt Switch.
Venezuelan born artist Jesus Rafael Soto was one of the leading exponents of Kinetic art –art that moves or appears to move. The intrigue and glory of his work is in the way it heightens viewer awareness of the roles played by perspective in the experience of art and the world at large. As one biographer notes:
Soto’s lesson is that [so much] depends on perspective. What from here seems to be one thing might from there appear to be something else. To know the absolute truth of a given state of affairs would be God-like. But it is possible to see something from multiple directions. You can walk around it, and further certify its reality by touching and grabbing — if it’s the sort of thing that can be touched and grabbed. However uncertain one or another perspective may be, a lot of them tend to add up in memory to convincing pictures of reality. Yet even so, another observer’s points of view might add up differently [1].
I’d like to suggest this morning that the Bible (or, if you’d like to church it up, Holy Scripture) can and perhaps even should be approached in this vein.
When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, ‘Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.’ So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger (Luke 2:15-16).
This well-known and beloved telling of the birth of the Christ child is a pageant favorite. Our own children and youth brought this telling to life here at Saint George’s on Christmas Eve. Reading this passage from the Gospel of Saint Luke, our minds begin to paint a familiar picture. Perhaps our nativity scenes are different, but I have little doubt that you have one (and that it probably involves a manger, barn animals, and hay of some sort).
May I suggest you consider two others.
Kelly Latimore is an artist and iconographer who knows something about perspective and, in particular, how to encourage an exploration of perspectives in her works. In one of her most recent icons, entitled “Tent City Nativity,” we can look upon the Holy Family as they might appear in modern times. Mary cradles Jesus as Joseph gazes at him in his smallness. They are huddled close to one another inside a small tent that sits among many other tents in the shadow of a cityscape. They are not alone. Unhoused persons move around them, making a fire and preparing for a cold night ahead. Snow covers the ground, and a dog is the only animal attending the family on this most holy night.
Accompanying “Tent City Nativity” are words from the artist:
Christ was born in a makeshift shelter in a stable, and . . . the holy family is forced to flee their homeland for fear of persecution. This is the classic modern-day definition of a refugee. The Holy Family is still among us here and now, in the faces of the refugee, the immigrant, the poor and the oppressed [2].
A strong reading of the Gospel of Luke and a captivating image to meditate upon.
So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger.
Here’s another perspective.
Padraig O Tuama, Irish poet and theologian, is author of “What Were You Arguing About Along the Way?”, which is a compilation of reflections drawn from his Spirituality of Conflict Project. He notes the typical Christmas Eve pageant setup of Luke’s familiar Gospel narrative and then urges us to look again:
Luke’s Gospel . . . records no stable, no animals, and, most importantly, no inhospitality [he writes]. Luke, normally so kind and gracious, giving so much time to stories of the marginalized, rushes through the birth of Jesus as if it were of little importance. Joseph and Mary had gone to Bethlehem for the census and [finding no room at the inn, after Jesus was born he was laid in a manger].
See? No animals, no inhospitality, no stable. Sorry/not sorry. There is a deeper story here, despite what our traditions might suggest [3].
He goes on to remind us that the word Luke uses for inn, kataluma, is quite different than how many of us may perceive it.
Most people of the time lived in a one-room structure. In that room there was space for living, sleeping and a fireplace. Additionally, the animals were brought in for the night to that same space – for their protection and because of the warmth they gave. Those houses lucky enough to have a kataluma had an additional upper room. This room, the kataluma, the upper room, could be rented out, like the ancient world’s equivalent of Airbnb.
Sidenote: the last supper took place in such an upper room.
Joseph and Mary, arriving in Bethlehem, could not find a kataluma. [But we know] they were in Bethlehem because that’s where Joseph’s kinsfolk were. So they had the baby and laid him in the manger. The manger would have been where mangers always were: in the living space of a family, a family who made room for Joseph, Mary and Jesus in their own home. Presumably they were relatives of Joseph.
This reading of Luke is much more ordinary, much less dramatic. And, importantly, this reading is much less offensive to the good people of the Holy Land who are aghast at Western tellings of the nativity story that imply that anyone would turn away any woman – whether kinsfolk or not – in the last moments of pregnancy.
In this image of the familiar tale:
[The Holy family] found shelter in the kindness of people, presumably Joseph’s kin. This kindness was so ordinary, so expected, so taken for granted that Luke, the gentle evangelist, did not even make mention of the family whose home was used for what we consider to be the birthing of the God-child to confused parents.
This too is a strong reading of the Gospel of Luke and a captivating image.
So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger.
One of these readings may strike you as more dominant than the other and the Gospel may now look a little bit different as well. But, in truth, both exist firmly in their own right, thoughtful and rather orthodox readings of Scripture alongside tradition and reason –it is your perspective that accepts one and rejects the other or is affected by one and is less convinced by the other. Both may now shape how you see Luke’s telling of the Christmas story, and yet the Gospel remains the same. It is we who have changed.
The Bible is meant to be held, read, considered, wrestled with, and explored. At different times in our lives, as different matters weigh on our hearts, our perspectives change, open, and allow for the possibility of more than what we at first perceived. The Gospel truth of it will not change, but the way we embody that truth may.
Latimore’s icon works in and on us, calling our attention to the plight of the oppressed, the immigrant, the refugee, and the impoverished. It speaks to the incarnational truth, even 2000 years later, Christ is still being born in our midst, most especially on the edges of our comfort.
O Tuama’s reading too works in and on us, calling our attention to the everyday graces of hospitality that acknowledge that same incarnational truth. Where simple acts of love exist, there Christ is also.
Through grace, these multiple mangers change our hearts and minds, stretching us onwards and outwards. This is meet and right, because we know that our faith is meant to be lived and thus our perspective never stationary.
Scripture, Soto’s art, and the principle behind the infamous Rubin Vase, suggest to us that always there is another perspective to be had: a way to see ourselves, one another, and the world in a different, fuller way. We need not be afraid of what we may find, because we were created for the tale of the many mangers: the great Gestalt Switch.
After all, the human child born to Mary and laid in a manger is also the very Son of God who will give his life for each one of us and alter the course of the world once and for all. Come let us adore him, the little baby Jesus who is also Christ our Lord.
Amen.
[1] Ken Johnson, “The Mechanics Behind Perspective,” The New York Times, 13 January 2012, https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/13/arts/design/soto-paris-and-beyond-1950-1970-at-nyu-review.html?searchResultPosition=1.
[2] Kelly Latimore, “Tent City Nativity,” 29 December 2022, https://kellylatimoreicons.com/blogs/news/tent-city-nativity.
[3] Pádraig Ó Tuama, excerpt from “What Were You Arguing About Along The Way,” featured in Heartedge Mailer Christmas New Year 2022.
