What comes to mind when you think of the colour blue?
Blue: Jays and marlins stroke the sky our marbled planet swirls – air and ocean intertwined a liquid, breathing world.
To what extent are our thoughts about the colour blue captured in this poem? What else comes to mind?
Blue is a fun colour. In fact, the colour blue can actually feel like a trick – the blue whale looks blue in the ocean, but grey out of the water. There are birds and butterflies that shimmer blue as a structural colour – the hue comes from light bouncing at a particular angle off microscopic structures on the surfaces of scales, shells, and feathers. The blue of a marlin makes it difficult for predators and prey to see. The colour blue is like a trick. Blue is not always as it seems.
Blue has a fun history in the Church too. Remember, I mentioned what the most expensive colour is to make? Because of the cost to make it, purple has royal connotations and has been valued in the ways we worship but was not practical for many churches across the centuries.
What colours make up purple? Blue and red! As it turns out, historians were looking through the vestments and paraments of English churches and realised that most of them used blue as their Advent purple. In recent years, we have chosen to make that official colour for Advent and associate the colour with the hope of the season.
Once again, the colour blue becomes something more than what it seems. Just as the steward’s actions in the Gospel story today are not quite what they seem. He uses shrewdness to protect himself against the loss of his job. That shrewdness is really compassion towards those indebted to his employer. The story is a trick, reminding us, as Jesus concludes, that we need to seriously consider what is most important in our lives and focus our energy accordingly. We can’t serve two masters – God and wealth. The colour blue teaches us to go with the one that brings us grace, safety, and opportunities to use our gifts.
May we embrace the invitation of the colour blue as it tricks our eyes and challenges us to shift our perspectives so that we can celebrate with hope and possibility. This we pray as we sing: 408 Wind Upon the Waters
