Vincent van Gogh first wanted to be a minister of the Gospel, but he was rejected by the church though he was very popular with the people he served. Even with this disappointment Vincent never lost his faith in the creative power of Christ to transform lives. What happened was that Van Gogh made a conversion from the religion of his parents to an understanding that the Divine was found to beauty of creation and in the humble circumstances of the poor and marginalized.

Vincent defined this as true piety, which he called "the white ray of light." The work of the peasant painter Millet, he noted in an 1883 letter, has a gospel and "this white light." 

For van Gogh, to believe in God now meant not that one should believe all the sermons of the clergymen or "the arguments of the bigoted, genteel prudes," but rather that there was a God, "not dead or stuffed, but alive, urging us to love, with irresistible force." 

Van Gogh pursued his art with his former religious zeal and mission, claiming, "Our purpose is self-reform by means of a handicraft and of intercourse with Nature -- our aim is walking with God."

Today, we are going to look at his first great masterpiece called the “Potato Eaters”

 This painting exemplified Vincent’s newfound faith in God and in Creation. What you observe in this painting is a family crowded around a small table, sharing a simple meal of potatoes and coffee by the dim light of an overhead lamp. In some respects, the painting might seem rather unorganized but for its one unifying element: the lamp, with its warm glow piercing the isolation. The lamp was van Gogh’s symbol of love and recalls the light of the gospel which he once brought into the huts of the peasants and miners.

The act of sharing in any meal can be a stark reminder of how inclusion, forgiveness, and reconciliation can be incorporated in the life of an individual, a family and community as a means of grace.