"Art Without a Frame"
Matthew 11:2-6
Rev. Everett L. Miller
Note: The illustration in this sermon is based upon the April 8, 2007 Washington Post article, "Pearls Before Breakfast" by Gene Weingarten
On Friday, January 12, 2007 there was a musician playing for tips in the L’Enfant Plaza of the Washington D.C. subway system. He began playing just before 8 o’clock in the morning, during the busy rush hour. Most of the people who were entering the plaza and heading to board the train were government employees. There was also a shoeshine stand, a magazine and newspaper stand, and a machine that sells lottery tickets all in the same area as the musician. At first glance there was nothing out of the ordinary about the situation; street musicians play their guitars or saxophones there all the time. But despite the appearances of there being just one more musician in a long line of musicians in public space amidst the busy-ness of modern life, there was something very extraordinary that was happening that morning. You see, it wasn’t just any street musician.
Joshua Bell is considered one of the most talented classical musicians in the world. He is a violinist who began as a child prodigy. He is now 39 years old. He has played for royalty in Europe. He has performed with the greatest orchestras around the world. He has been awarded the Avery Fisher Prize recognizing him as the greatest classical musician in America. He has played on the soundtracks of movies. The reason that he was in Washington D.C. in the first place was because he was playing at the Library of Congress. It has been said that “he plays like a god.” Interview Magazine said that his playing "does nothing less than tell human beings why they bother to live." He plays a violin that was handcrafted in the early 1700’s which cost him 3.5 million dollars but is perhaps one of the handful of violins in existence that would be worthy of such an artist. It has been said that at times when he is playing he is able to make his single violin sound like two instruments playing in harmony with one another. He is one of the greatest violinists who have ever walked this earth.
The article in the Washington Post, which I have to say is some of, if not the, best newspaper writing I have ever read, says that “Three days before he appeared at the Metro station, Bell had filled the house at Boston's stately Symphony Hall, where merely pretty good seats went for $100. Two weeks later, at the Music Center at Strathmore, in North Bethesda, he would play to a standing-room-only audience so respectful of his artistry that they stifled their coughs until the silence between movements. But on that Friday in January, Joshua Bell was just another mendicant, competing for the attention of busy people on their way to work.”
So why was he playing for tips in the Washington D.C. subway? Well, the Washington Post came up with an experiment and talked him into participating in it. He dressed in jeans, a T-shirt, and a baseball cap, took a cab from his hotel to the subway station. And he began to play his 300 year old, 3.5 million dollar violin. He wasn’t just playing any old songs either; he played one of the most difficult pieces for any violinist to play from Bach’s Partita #2 in D Minor. They set up a hidden camera, planting a few Washington Post employees around the area and the experiment began.
The article offers the following as the reason for the experiment: “His performance was arranged by The Washington Post as an experiment in context, perception and priorities -- as well as an unblinking assessment of public taste: In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?” In other words, would people realize what their ears were hearing and their eyes were seeing? Would people allow the beauty right in front of them to intrude upon their busy lives?
The Washington Post was a little bit worried about how much trouble they might get in when the crowds would begin to form. What if so many people stop to listen and watch that rush hour traffic backs up and people start taking pictures and the crowds get so large in that tight space that tempers flare. There could be some sort of riot. Who knows what could happen?
It turns out that they didn’t need to be worried. In the 43 minutes during which he played the Bach piece twice, sandwiched in the middle with Ave Maria, 1,097 people walked by and almost every single one of them ignored the music altogether. One person even walked by and started to speak louder on her cell phone because of all the racket. A few people dropped some money in. Some people even put in just a penny or two. His total was $32.17. One man stopped and listened for three minutes. At one point in the video it appears that a woman has stopped for a moment to listen and when he finished the piece she immediately starts walking, drops a few coins in his case and says something that sounds like, “That was pretty good.” Repeatedly children would try to stop to listen and they would smile then their parents would grab their hands and hurry them off to wherever they were going. All races acted the same. Men and women acted the same. But the children always tried to stop. They knew something beautiful was happening.
Afterwards Joshua Bell said the most difficult part of the whole experience for him was when he would finish a piece and there would be dead silence. He was used to crowds exploding in applause in those moments. But there was only silence. He said, “When you play for ticket-holders you are already validated. I have no sense that I need to be accepted. I'm already accepted. Here, there was this thought: What if they don't like me? What if they resent my presence.”
The Post employees in the station stopped a few of the people, telling them they were doing a survey about commuting. Then the Post started calling people and asking them the question, “Was there anything unique about your commute this morning?” They called about 40 people. One man didn’t even realize there had been a musician there. One man could remember all the lottery numbers he picked that morning but could not remember much, if anything, about the violinist. There was one man who enjoys classical music, the one who stopped to listen for three minutes. He couldn’t explain it in technical musical terms but he said, “Whatever it was, it made me feel at peace."
The Washington Post talked to all kinds of experts to get their takes on the results of this experiment. They talked to a classical musician and critic. They spoke with a philosopher and even spoke to the senior curator at the National Gallery of Art. I find his explanation to be the most convincing and interesting. He said the problem was context. You would expect to hear the greatest violinist in the world playing on stage in a huge auditorium with hundreds or thousands of tuxedoed and evening-gowned cultural elites in the audience. You would not expect him to be in a subway station when you were on your way to work. People didn’t notice him there, the curator, said because people didn’t expect him to be there in blue jeans and a T-shirt in a subway station.
Joshua Bell is considered one of the most talented classical musicians in the world. He is a violinist who began as a child prodigy. He is now 39 years old. He has played for royalty in Europe. He has performed with the greatest orchestras around the world. He has been awarded the Avery Fisher Prize recognizing him as the greatest classical musician in America. He has played on the soundtracks of movies. The reason that he was in Washington D.C. in the first place was because he was playing at the Library of Congress. It has been said that “he plays like a god.” Interview Magazine said that his playing "does nothing less than tell human beings why they bother to live." He plays a violin that was handcrafted in the early 1700’s which cost him 3.5 million dollars but is perhaps one of the handful of violins in existence that would be worthy of such an artist. It has been said that at times when he is playing he is able to make his single violin sound like two instruments playing in harmony with one another. He is one of the greatest violinists who have ever walked this earth.
The article in the Washington Post, which I have to say is some of, if not the, best newspaper writing I have ever read, says that “Three days before he appeared at the Metro station, Bell had filled the house at Boston's stately Symphony Hall, where merely pretty good seats went for $100. Two weeks later, at the Music Center at Strathmore, in North Bethesda, he would play to a standing-room-only audience so respectful of his artistry that they stifled their coughs until the silence between movements. But on that Friday in January, Joshua Bell was just another mendicant, competing for the attention of busy people on their way to work.”
So why was he playing for tips in the Washington D.C. subway? Well, the Washington Post came up with an experiment and talked him into participating in it. He dressed in jeans, a T-shirt, and a baseball cap, took a cab from his hotel to the subway station. And he began to play his 300 year old, 3.5 million dollar violin. He wasn’t just playing any old songs either; he played one of the most difficult pieces for any violinist to play from Bach’s Partita #2 in D Minor. They set up a hidden camera, planting a few Washington Post employees around the area and the experiment began.
The article offers the following as the reason for the experiment: “His performance was arranged by The Washington Post as an experiment in context, perception and priorities -- as well as an unblinking assessment of public taste: In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?” In other words, would people realize what their ears were hearing and their eyes were seeing? Would people allow the beauty right in front of them to intrude upon their busy lives?
The Washington Post was a little bit worried about how much trouble they might get in when the crowds would begin to form. What if so many people stop to listen and watch that rush hour traffic backs up and people start taking pictures and the crowds get so large in that tight space that tempers flare. There could be some sort of riot. Who knows what could happen?
It turns out that they didn’t need to be worried. In the 43 minutes during which he played the Bach piece twice, sandwiched in the middle with Ave Maria, 1,097 people walked by and almost every single one of them ignored the music altogether. One person even walked by and started to speak louder on her cell phone because of all the racket. A few people dropped some money in. Some people even put in just a penny or two. His total was $32.17. One man stopped and listened for three minutes. At one point in the video it appears that a woman has stopped for a moment to listen and when he finished the piece she immediately starts walking, drops a few coins in his case and says something that sounds like, “That was pretty good.” Repeatedly children would try to stop to listen and they would smile then their parents would grab their hands and hurry them off to wherever they were going. All races acted the same. Men and women acted the same. But the children always tried to stop. They knew something beautiful was happening.
Afterwards Joshua Bell said the most difficult part of the whole experience for him was when he would finish a piece and there would be dead silence. He was used to crowds exploding in applause in those moments. But there was only silence. He said, “When you play for ticket-holders you are already validated. I have no sense that I need to be accepted. I'm already accepted. Here, there was this thought: What if they don't like me? What if they resent my presence.”
The Post employees in the station stopped a few of the people, telling them they were doing a survey about commuting. Then the Post started calling people and asking them the question, “Was there anything unique about your commute this morning?” They called about 40 people. One man didn’t even realize there had been a musician there. One man could remember all the lottery numbers he picked that morning but could not remember much, if anything, about the violinist. There was one man who enjoys classical music, the one who stopped to listen for three minutes. He couldn’t explain it in technical musical terms but he said, “Whatever it was, it made me feel at peace."
The Washington Post talked to all kinds of experts to get their takes on the results of this experiment. They talked to a classical musician and critic. They spoke with a philosopher and even spoke to the senior curator at the National Gallery of Art. I find his explanation to be the most convincing and interesting. He said the problem was context. You would expect to hear the greatest violinist in the world playing on stage in a huge auditorium with hundreds or thousands of tuxedoed and evening-gowned cultural elites in the audience. You would not expect him to be in a subway station when you were on your way to work. People didn’t notice him there, the curator, said because people didn’t expect him to be there in blue jeans and a T-shirt in a subway station.
The curator gives this example: "Let's say I took one of our more abstract masterpieces, say an Ellsworth Kelly, and removed it from its frame, marched it down the 52 steps that people walk up to get to the National Gallery, past the giant columns, and brought it into a restaurant. It's a $5 million painting. And it's one of those restaurants where there are pieces of original art for sale, by some industrious kids from the Corcoran School, and I hang that Kelly on the wall with a price tag of $150. No one is going to notice it. An art curator might look up and say: 'Hey, that looks a little like an Ellsworth Kelly. Please pass the salt.'" He says that Joshua Bell playing the violin in the subway is like art without a frame. It doesn’t meet expectations so it is not appreciated and even just outright ignored.
It would have been difficult to ignore the voice of John the Baptist when early on in Matthew’s Gospel he did things like call some of the people who came to be baptized a “brood of vipers.” Last week I felt sorry for Lisa when she was liturgist because I got to read a passage about mutual love and hers included these words of John the Baptist: “Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” It would have also been difficult to ignore John when he said that one was coming after him who “will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” He knew that he was doing what Isaiah had prophesied, “preparing the way for the Lord.” Finally this coming one would bring judgment up John’s own people and separate the righteous from the unrighteous. That is perhaps the frame that he put Jesus in, a Messiah who has come to draw a line in the sand, to burn up the wicked. But after John has been arrested by Herod for both gathering too large of a following and speaking against Herod’s stealing of his brother’s wife, John has received news of what Jesus is doing and it doesn’t seem to fit the frame he had placed around Jesus.
So John's disciples find Jesus and they relay his question to him. “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” John Calvin thought that John the Baptist was only doing this for his disciples’ benefit because there is no way that he could doubt Jesus’ messiahship. But I can see how John might have been sitting in his jail cell, surely knowing that he is going to be killed sooner or later, and starting to wonder where all the unquenchable fire was. He was getting news that Jesus was healing people, hanging out with outcasts and sinners, feeding hungry people, teaching things like “blessed are the peacemakers.” Where is the unquenchable fire? Maybe Calvin is right, after all he was much smarter than I will ever be, but maybe John’s expectations and Jesus’ reported actions weren’t adding up. Jesus wasn’t meeting expectations.
Although John seems to have expected a spiritual messiah of a sort, most of the Jewish people were almost surely looking for a powerful, military Messiah. And who can blame them? They’d been slaves in Egypt, conquered by Assyria, exiled by Babylon, colonized by Greece, been briefly governed by some of their own people who ended up going corrupt, then they became subjects of the Roman Empire. When your people have been overtaxed, murdered, raped, and your holy temple defiled more than once, who can blame you for looking forward to God sending you someone to get you out of these terrible straights? So they put frames around who they expected to be their Messiah. And in the very century in which Jesus lived there were several pretenders who at least for a time seemed to fit the frame nicely and gained fame as Messiahs until they rose up against Herod or Rome and met their death just like every other freedom fighter against the empire, and really in the same manner that Jesus did, but they did not leave any effects behind, practical, spiritual or otherwise and they certainly didn’t rise from the tomb.
But Jesus’ response, although it is based on several passages from Isaiah, most notably chapters 35 and 61, does not fit within the frames that had been constructed for him. He says, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.” To us Christians a couple thousand years later all that sounds like stuff the Messiah would be doing. But as one commentator I read this week wrote, “As far as we can tell from the surviving writings of the time, nobody in first-century Judaism expected the Messiah to appear as a healer.”
So like Joshua Bell playing the violin in the Washington D.C. subway and the curator’s hypothetical $5 million dollar work of art hanging on the wall of a restaurant, Jesus was in a manner of speaking, “art without a frame.” And Jesus seems to have a pretty good grasp on this because he follows his list of actions with a beatitude. “And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me,” which sounds a little bit like confident version of Joshua Bell’s self-conscious question, “What if they resent my presence?” In other words, blessed is anyone who does not resent my presence as a work of art without a frame, or at least without the frame that people expected to see me in.
Jesus was almost constantly out of context. You would expect to meet the Messiah of the Jewish Nation perhaps on the back of a horse as he gathers men from the hills and farms to form an army to overthrow the Romans. You might expect to meet the Messiah of the Jewish Nation as a great high priest who could purify the religion and chase out the pagan Gentiles. That is how the prophecies had been interpreted for centuries. And like I said earlier, when your neck is under the boot of the Roman Empire that is who you want and in some cases need—a deliverer. You wouldn’t expect the Messiah of the Jewish Nation to be a homeless itinerant preacher and healer who wasn’t raising an army to kill Roman centurions but instead was healing their dying servants by his word alone. So John’s question is not out of place. “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”
Towards the end of Joshua Bell’s 43 minutes a man who had once aspired to be a classical violinist himself stopped way on the other side of the shoeshine stand to listen to him. The article gives his interview like this: “When he was called later in the day, like everyone else, he was first asked if anything unusual had happened to him on his trip into work. Of the more than 40 people contacted, Picarello was the only one who immediately mentioned the violinist. "There was a musician playing at the top of the escalator at L'Enfant Plaza." Haven't you seen musicians there before? "Not like this one." What do you mean? "This was a superb violinist. I've never heard anyone of that caliber. He was technically proficient, with very good phrasing. He had a good fiddle, too, with a big, lush sound. I walked a distance away, to hear him. I didn't want to be intrusive on his space." Really? "Really. It was that kind of experience. It was a treat, just a brilliant, incredible way to start the day."
And finally, at the very end of his 43 minutes a young woman stood in front of him and could not believe her eyes. Could he really be who I think he is? She had seen Joshua at the Library of Congress a few weeks earlier. When they called her she said, "Joshua Bell was standing there playing at rush hour, and people were not stopping, and not even looking, and some were flipping quarters at him! Quarters! I wouldn't do that to anybody. I was thinking, Omigosh, what kind of a city do I live in that this could happen?"
It’s bad enough for most of us when we go to an art museum and we stand there looking at this huge painting in the expensive frame by the artist who we remember from art history class and we still don’t get it. So it is kind of hard to totally blame the 1,070 people who didn’t even stop to listen to the greatest violinist in the world play for free. But it is still a kind of indictment on our modern lives. But still, some people got it.
That man who leaned against the wall for three minutes and said, “Whatever it was, it made me feel at peace.” He got it. Even though the adults wouldn’t let them stay to listen, the children who kept trying to stop as their parents tugged on them knew something beautiful was happening. They got it. The man who when he was asked, “Haven’t you seen musicians there before” responded, “Yes, but not like this one,” then went on to say, “It was that kind of experience. It was a treat, just a brilliant, incredible way to start the day.” He got it. And finally there is the young woman who had had the privilege of seeing him a few weeks before in context at the Library of Congress so she recognized him and confessed that to him. She got it. Blessed are they who were not offended by Joshua, who did not resent his presence. They were given the gift of the most beautiful music in the world for free. It was being played for all to hear and he was standing there for all to see, but only they had ears to hear and eyes to see what was truly happening right in front of their faces.
Well, even though Jesus seemed out of context, even though he didn’t fit the frame, some people got it. Blessed are they who are not offended by Jesus, who do not resent his presence. They are given the gift of the most beautiful message in the world for free. He spoke his words for all to hear and he performed miracles there for all to see, but only they that had ears to hear and eyes to see what was truly happening right in front of their faces got it. They are the ones who would go out into the world to say something not dissimilar to what that magazine had said about the violinist; he "does nothing less than tell human beings why they bother to live." Oh but he does so much more. They got it.
In closing let me adapt something said by the British author John Lane in his reaction to the Joshua Bell experiment by offering it also as a response to the gospel of Jesus. “If the surge of modern life so overpowers us that we are deaf and blind to something like that -- then what else are we missing?
May we "get it" this Christmas.
