Building Shalom: Worship, Art, and the Invitation to Kingdom Living

Published on April 8, 2025 by Dr. Maria Fee

“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people who are God’s own possession. You have become this people so that you may speak of the wonderful acts of the one who called you out of darkness into his amazing light.” – 1 Peter 2:9

A Kingdom Shaped by Justice and Shalom

What does life in God’s kingdom look or feel like? The Bible offers a prototype. Moses’s victorious exit from Egypt stands as a priestly act, for the long desert march commenced an inauguration of a holy nation. Israel’s new purpose was to be YHWY’s royal representatives, modeling just practices before other nations.

The Ten Commandments are a royal pronouncement introducing the Hebrews to the Eternal One, while also proclaiming their liberation from Egypt. They were now free to choose God’s way. The Ten Words—the Rabbinic term for the Ten Commandments—presents an ethic of shalom to be embodied and performed. More than a greeting of peace, shalom signifies wholeness, all the parts of creation and culture working together for human flourishing.

Kingdom shalom sets a standard for living peaceably with God and neighbor. The Ten Words then operate as a vision for justice—access to the good for all. As one scholar exclaims, “there is no shalom without justice.”[1] More than rules, the Ten Words establish what it means to honor YHWY as well as steward self, others, and the created order. To deny God leads to minimizing the personhood of others. To treat people, things, and place as less than, only works to limit the scope of the Eternal One.

Art as a Sacred Practice of Community

Along with the Ten Words, the book of Exodus offers a picture of what peaceable living could feel like—a snapshot of people laboring together to welcome the Eternal One. And art plays a central role!

Chapters 35 and beyond detail Israel’s sacred activity of constructing the tent of meeting. Everyone was included in the project. Justice leaves no one behind. Designers designed, teachers taught, weavers weaved, gold was hammered, carpenters crafted furniture, perfumers refined fragrant oils. Some offered possessions of costly metals, jewels, richly dyed yarns, finely woven linens, furs, leathers, and oils.

Make no mistake, the text makes plain how the material world can negotiate what cannot be seen such as love, forgiveness, kinship, and wonder. Each component of the tent, its scale and volume, the colors, images, vestments, and utensils held symbolic weight. Every element served as a visual reminder of God’s provision, beauty, and hospitality. Its splendor fed the soul, elicited awe, leading to devotion. This is a glimpse of shalom.

Israel’s worshipful activity banded the tribes in collective industry to produce a distinct sacred arena. God would dwell amid the wanderers instead of on a mountain top. The regal nature of the mobile tent announced to the Israelites, and to surrounding nations, a different kind of kingdom. It heralded an alternative nation where instead of a king, the Israelites would represent God, the ultimate King. Subsequently, a new type of royal people would seek to usher divine shalom into the world.

Liturgy Beyond the Church Walls

This biblical picture of spiritual and artistic activity is closely aligned to liturgy. While a liturgy usually indicates the ordered contents of church rituals, it also comprises a wide range of endeavors that benefit a specific community or society at large. In ancient Greek society a leiturgia describes the contribution of patrons towards civic well-being, work accomplished by some people for the benefit of all people.

An example of this type of liturgy can be found in the contemporary art world. In response to broken social orders, artists have employed creative remedies inviting all types of collaborations. They have installed libraries and planted gardens, cooked and shared meals. They have initiated programs for immigrants, the formerly incarcerated, and the unhoused. While their labor may appear like social work, as artists, their methods supply critique, awareness, and further engage the imagination to explore what shalom repair could look like.

Take for example the Chicago artist Theaster Gates’s Sanctum (2015). Inside the bombed-out ruins of Bristol, England’s Temple Church, Gates constructed a chapel-like structure out of reclaimed building materials. He then reactivated the space with 522 hours of non-stop sound performances by area musicians, poets, and actors. “Sanctum,” explained Gates, “is primarily a platform on which the people of Bristol have an opportunity to hear each other.”[2] Such gatherings hearken the vitality of religious traditions with its resonant experiences of community. It is not incidental that as a teenager, Gates lead his church’s youth choir.

The Creative Spirit and the Call to Build

To rejuvenate worship and practice shalom—both inside and outside of the church—it benefits to pay attention to and follow the ways artists can contribute. Another profitable approach is the reexamination of Christian liturgical traditions further reframing and employing them according to our time and circumstances. As Sanctum shows, a liturgical way of being enables encounters with strangers transforming them into friends. Indeed, the power of artistic rituals creates community. A liturgical way of being differs from most public interactions which denies vulnerability and deep emotional connections.

Lastly, for Christians, the scriptures disclose the creative agency of the Spirit, therefore artistic labors align with spiritual formation. In Exodus 31, Bezalel and Oholiab are filled by the Spirit to launch wonderful acts. When believers connect to God’s presence in the world through the Spirit, they follow the divine drive to build, heal, fix, and make whole. The arts create places for shalom to mediate the transformation of people, things, and society—calling people out of darkness and into divine light.

to cultivate your artistic gifts and deepen your understanding of worship in community. Choose an artistic track that inspires you and participate in a variety of toolbox classes, including visual art-focused sessions taught by Maria Fee, the author of this post.

Maria Fee Headshot Dr. Maria Fee is an artist, theologian, and educator. Her visual art explores ideas of fragmentation, metizaje (cultural mixing), alienation, and hospitality. These notions also drive her theological endeavors currently explored in the book Beauty Is a Basic Service: Theology and Hospitality in the Work of Theaster Gates, Fortress Press. As a seminary professor, Maria applies art-based methodologies to theological courses such as The Visual Arts and the Christian, Word and Sacrament, and Capstone Theology and Art. Dr. Fee holds an MFA in painting, M.A. in theological studies, and a PhD in theology and culture.