Emptied and Consumed

This well-worn hutch was a permanent fixture in my grandmother's kitchen. It probably had been there during the Great Depression when she worked in a South Carolina textile mill. I remember it filled with home-canned peaches, tomatoes, and green beans that she picked from her garden and shared generously with neighbors. It is a symbol of hard times and giving joyfully out of poverty. In response to the scripture passage, I set the humble cupboard on the dais of a rural chapel built at the end of the 19th century in Northern California. Hundreds of common glass food jars, transformed with silvered interiors and candles, flow from the cabinet and down the aisle. The installation evokes an altar spilling forth its treasure of sacred vessels. Though Christ was rich, for our sakes he became poor, that through his poverty we might become rich.