What have we come to expect of depictions of the Holy Family? How about surprising your youth with the unexpected?
Artists of all ages in our church helped to create these African mask-inspired depictions of Joseph, Mary, and the baby Jesus. How would your youth react to this depiction of the holy family, so different from the anglo-European images we often see on the fronts of greeting cards this time of year?
It might be interesting to gather a collection of images that depict Mary, Joseph and Jesus in unexpected ways to show to your teens. For instance, this image of a homeless family or perhaps these intriguing images from the Middle Ages and earlier of Mary breastfeeding the infant Jesus. Consider this contemporary image by Marc Chagall ("The Couple - a Holy Family" 1909), the unconventional recasting of the holy family in this Benneton advertisement, or this use of the holy family to make a political statement. How might sharing these images with your youth help them to think in new ways about Jesus, family, contemporary issues facing Christians, and how God is still at work in the world through the relationships that weave us together as "family?"
2 comments:
Love this. I have a nativity scene from Chile where all the figures are indigenous.
Part of me is a little disturbed when I think about the imperialism factor here, I'm also very touched that they made the figures to look like them and their own culture.
Thanks for commenting Rachel. At our Nativity Walk event, it was particularly interesting to see the nativities from other parts of th world and the way the each interpreted the characters from their various cultures. Of course, you can also find many examples of nativities for sale that reflect pop culture: a zombie nativity, pig nativity, and so on.
Post a Comment