Collision of worlds - OTN Patron launches Open To All exhibition in London
The sanctuary of the American International Church, London, with Elizabeth Gray-King's artwork on display, and the artist [right] speaking to people who gathered for the exhibition launch. Elizabeth preached and OTN Patron, URC General Secretary Revd Dr John Bradbury introduced her. WATCH HERE [60 mins]
GOD’S LOVE for each of us - and all of us - is at the centre of a painting exhibition which is touring cathedrals and town centre churches.
Fine artist and theologian Elizabeth Gray King is showing 13 intriguing and affirming canvases, exploring the equality and inclusivity of God’s love. Here’s the reflection from OTN Patron and United Reformed Church General Secretary Revd Dr John Bradbury’s from the launch of the exhibition at the American International Church, London on Sunday 23rd June.
Elizabeth and I first met well over 20 years ago I would think. I can't remember exactly where - I think I'd done some input on a course Elizabeth was running or something, and a conversation began over I seem to recall a couple of rather large glasses of wine, and all those years later that conversation is still going.
Elizabeth is one of those people who can help keep me sane where not much else is and has dug me and the United Reformed Church out of one or two holes over the years. And somewhere along the line Elizabeth collided happily with the Open Table Network, and part of the result is the exhibition that we see here. And I collided with the Open Table Network a few years ago. I knew many years ago Kieran the Director and one of the founders from my time in my first ministry in Liverpool, and when I was ministering in Cambridge I was involved in starting an Open Table which was one of the most exciting bits of ministry I think I've ever done.
And here we now are in the church I call home, where nobody's really terribly bothered if I'm Patron of this or General Secretary of that. But here we are and here's Elizabeth and here's this amazing exhibition in collaboration with Open Table - it is indeed a very happy collision of worlds.
“The Open Table Network... should not need to exist but sadly it does - far too many people have been far too damaged to risk crossing the threshold of a church unless it is totally clear that it will be a safe space for them. Open Table provides that visibly safe space.”
But of course, for many of us who identify personally as LGBTQIA or even plus our human identities and the life of the church are often not a terribly happy collision but quite a damaging one. The Open Table Network exists to provide safe worshipping communities where everyone, whoever they are, however they identify, can come as themselves created and loved by God to worship. It should not need to exist but sadly it does - far too many people have been far too damaged to risk crossing the threshold of a church unless it is totally clear that it will be a safe space for them. Open Table provides that visibly safe space.
Founded initially in Liverpool at St Bride's Church by Kieran and others, it has grown like topsy - there are now over 30 Open Table communities up and down the country, gathering to worship, gathering around the communion table together a table that has so often in the history of the church been used to exclude and not to welcome.
And so, it is a real joy this morning to be here as Patron of the Open Table Network, as General Secretary of the United Reformed Church, and as a member of the American International Church at this moment that so many parts of my world are happily colliding. And Elizabeth's work is perhaps a visual space where we can explore the collision of worlds and our own deepest identities, our faith, the life of the church, the life of the world itself, as we're drawn into those profound questions around the collision of identities in colour, shape, texture, art in all its glory.
So I pray that this exhibition will give many folk here in the centre of of London the chance to reflect on the ways in which their worlds collide happily - and perhaps at times unhappily - as together we find inspiration with the Holy Spirit, through Elizabeth's art, through our innermost nature as created beings in the image of God, reflecting on what it might mean to genuinely be open to all.
