Fifth Sunday of Lent

Our sermon series, “Tell Me Something Good” includes artwork and an artist’s description for each Sunday and the days of Holy Week.  We hope that this artwork will help you to connect more deeply with the scripture throughout the season. 

There Is Good by Hannah Garrity
Inspired by Matthew 23:23

In this series of scriptures, gathered crowds drew my attention.19 Jesus always drew a crowd, but so
did the voices of hate in his time. In our current historic moment, this dichotomy of crowds for justice and crowds for injustice confounds me. Are all crowds worthy of joining? In the background of this piece, I dyed and collaged together torn newspaper, representing the fabric of the world, to portray the cacophony of crowds gathering. What is drawing them in? Is everything that compels us to gather right and good? No.

The clarity comes in this scripture: “For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith” (Matthew 23:23). Most especially, in the context of Jesus denouncing the scribes and Pharisees, the crucial point is that gathering to enact justice is good and gathering to enact injustice is not.

The crowd depicted in this artwork is inspired by the 100,000 who gathered strong in Budapest, Hungary, in June, 2025. The Hungarian parliament had outlawed Pride as part of a larger systemic effort to take away the rights of the LGBTQIA+ community in Hungary, and a “wider effort to curb democratic freedoms ahead of a hotly contested national election next year.”

In the four corners of the artwork, symbols of justice, mercy, and faithfulness echo the clarity of Jesus. Gathering for justice is the work of the gospel. —Hannah Garrity

If you could place yourself in this image, where would you be and why?