What comes to mind when you think of the colour orange?
Orange: A zingy, citrus zap sizzling, crackling spark; a colour a flavour dazzling electrical arc – a bouncing buzz of energy between red’s heat and yellow’s glow. The neon flash of a salamander’s tail in a dappled creek’s bubbling flow.
To what extent are our thoughts about the colour orange captured in this poem? What else comes to mind?
In nature, the colour orange is found in Monarch and Viceroy butterflies – which are both poisonous to predators. The colour orange in clown fish also speaks of warning as they live in poisonous anemones. Those who have orange cats suggest that colour serves as a bit of a warning as they tend to have interesting temperaments. Search orange cat on YouTube for lots of fun videos highlighting this perspective. Orange is the colour of zingy and zesty in nature too.
We don’t really do zingy and zesty in the church. I guess that’s why we don’t have a season where we use orange as a colour. Well, that and vestments and paraments are expensive so we try not to go overboard with symbolic colours. We stick to white, green, purple, red, and blue.
Orange has become symbolic in Canada thanks to the story of Phyllis Webstad. She shared how her grandmother gave her a brand-new orange shirt for her first day of school. When she arrived at the Indian Residential School, she was promptly stripped of that shirt, and her identity. Her story has become an important metaphor highlighting the reasons Truth and Reconciliation are important. There is something zingy and zesty about Frist Nations, Metis, and Inuit peoples in Canada that the rest of us need to humbly honour.
Perhaps this is why it makes sense that our marking of Truth and Reconciliation includes today’s Gospel which offers a harsh reminder that we need to pay attention to those around us. We cannot allow good things to distract us to the point that we fail to see suffering. We need to recognise Lazarus sitting at the gate, Phyllis stripped of her orange shirt, and all those left to struggle. We need to see that God has gifted these beloved children with zestyness and zingyness too. There is no person in this world that exists that God does not already love. As people of faith, we are called to do the same without question, without exception, without judgment.
Like the rich man, we need to be continually warned that people cannot be ignored or mistreated without consequence. Creation cannot be ignored and mistreated without consequence. It is in everyone’s best interest to embrace the zestyness and zingyness of Creation ensuring everyone and everything is able to live fully into who and what they have been created to be. We know this because we have experienced firsthand the blessings of diverse individuals whom we have met through our ministries like the clothing cupboard and our work with the 2SLBTQIA+ community and our openness to welcome so many zesty and zingy individuals into our family of faith. This diversity has truly been a gift to and of this congregation!
May we continually learn from the colour orange to appreciate the zesty and zingyness of others and all of creation. This we pray as we sing: 414 God of the Sparrow
