Gravity

The Deer Make-Up in Question

I went to the movies last night and saw “Gravity” upon the recommendation of most of my Facebook timeline.  It seemed appropriate – Halloween is the day when you’re supposed to let yourself be scared, and I’m much more likely to watch a science fiction thriller than a bloody horror flick.  So with my face painted like a deer, 3D glasses, and tub of butter popcorn at my disposal, I settled in for some fun.  

I wasn’t prepared for the visceral impact this movie would have. 

Thankfully I was the only person in the theatre, because throughout the film I would frequently fling my arms up around my head in stunned fear or let loose an “oh God, no!” despite the fact that I hate it when people talk through movies.  This movie, y’all.  Holy Hell, this movie.  It was gorgeous.  And terrifying.  And heart-wrenching.  And grip-your-chair-arms intense. 

When it was over (it was only 90+minutes), I walked to my car and started driving home.  And then burst into tears.

Dramatic, right? 

“Gravity” was exactly what excellent Sci-Fi should be – a story framed by the technologically (im)possible but focused on the heady questions of existence and life.  As I drove along the seawall, catching glimpses of rough seas and shredded cloud-cover and the lights of stars long dead, I tried to make sense of what I’d seen.  It’s the consequence of degree programs that push analysis and elaboration; you can never “just” watch or read anything ever again. 

As I reflected, it occurred to me that “Gravity” was about more than just the titanic struggle of astronauts; it was about, amongst other things, the desperate struggle to live in the aftermath of the cataclysmic choices of other people; it was about the aching loneliness that survivors feel as they struggle to carry on; it was about the difference between merely living and choosing life.  It was, at its heart, a story about what it means to be human – to suffer, to experience joy, to accept defeat, to conquer adversity, to let go, to live with hope, to die with dignity.

Or maybe that’s what I saw because I see all things through the lens of my own history and experience.  In Sandra Bullock’s character, I saw myself – the numbness, the hopelessness, the fear, the anxiety, the incredulity that life could really go as badly as it was.  But I also saw myself in her struggle for meaning, her relentless unwillingness to lose it all, and her self-discovery that she wanted more than just existence but LIFE.  To search for dawn, and earth in her hands, and the possibility for a tomorrow that isn’t burdened by loss.

For so long, I thought I was the shredded remains of a life destroyed, listless in the vacuum of tragedy, being pummeled over and over by the circling consequences of Cliff’s choices, consequences that never seemed to stop multiplying.  But I cried in my car on the drive home from a space-movie because I realized I am more than a scarred victim – I am the triumphant survivor who has emerged from the unthinkable and discovered that I still have the power to walk.

Choose to LIVE my friends.  Choose to carry on.  Choose to walk out of your own darkness.  And if it seems too hard, call on me and I will venture back into the shadows for you.  We can make it – together.

For a day such as this

The following is the text of a sermon I preached today. My scripture was Matthew 2:13-18.
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In the first and second chapters of Exodus, we read a violent and terrible story of an evil pharaoh whose fear and need for power leads him to murder babies. The command goes out that every baby boy born to the Hebrews should be thrown into the Nile to drown. And Moses’ mother hides him for three months until in an act of desperation and breathless hope, she fashions him a tiny boat and floats him down the Nile. It is a terrible world indeed where a three month old child is safer in the waters of a Nile than in the house of its parents. A terrible king. A terrible world.

Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy.

In the second chapter of Matthew, we read a violent and terrible story of an evil king whose fear and need for power leads him to murder babies. The command goes out that every child under the age of two in Bethlehem should be killed. And Jesus is spared only because an angel of the Lord appears to Joseph in a dream and warns them to flee to Egypt. It is a terrible world indeed where a child is safer on the run and in exile than in the house of its parents. A terrible king. A terrible world.

Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy.

On Friday, we read and heard and watched the violent and terrible story unfold of an evil man who murdered adults and children in an elementary school in Connecticut – 20 children between the ages of 6-7. It is a terrible world indeed where a child is not safe in an elementary school. A terrible man. A terrible world.

Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy.

And today is the third Sunday in advent and this is supposed to be the Sunday of Joy – when we remember the angels who appeared to Shepherds who were watching their flocks by night and sang a song of exultation that our King had come. And maybe you are like me and feeling as far from joy as dark is from light. How can we possibly feel any joy when we see the faces of our children and fear clenches our hearts? How can there be joy in a world where children are murdered in elementary schools in Connecticut, in their homes in Syria, in refugee camps in the Sudan?

Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy.

Our poets have long been lamenting the sorrows of this world, and as I've been laid low with grief by this tragedy, the words of William Butler Yeats came to me: Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned. The poet Jeremiah, in his Lamentations, says words that ring very similarly as he lives through the destruction of Jerusalem: My eyes are spent with weeping; my stomach churns; my bile is poured out on the ground because of the destruction of my people, because infants and babes faint in the streets of the city. They cry to their mothers, ‘Where is bread and wine?’ as they faint like the wounded in the streets of the city, as their life is poured out on their mothers’ bosom.

Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy.

Many have been quick with words for the tragedy of this last week – claiming to know the mind of God, the will of God, the purpose of pain, the causes and solutions to this present darkness. Well meaning folk make God an idol of child sacrifice with careless words and misread scripture. Well intended people use tragedy to bolster pet arguments or silence dissent. And many of us sit in stunned quiet, our wounded spirits crying out at the spilling of innocent blood, in voices like the martyrs of Revelation: HOW LONG, O GOD?! HOW LONG?!

Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy.

I do not have an explanation for what has happened. I know of no reasons, of rational explanations, of sure-fire steps to be taken to prevent further tragedy. I refuse to take this pain from you with easy answers and theological chloroform; children are dead and their bodies are still in the classrooms where they were murdered and Christmas is in 9 days. And today is the Sunday of Joy. And somehow we must hold our grief in one hand and this Advent season in the other and discover a way to negotiate them both. Somehow we must hold our children close and then send them to school.

Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy.

This is what I can say to you. Jesus was born not because the world was so good, but because the world is so broken. The Christ child came not because it was the perfect setting but because the times are terrible. The Messiah entered the world by way of a teenage mother in the company of livestock because we needed to be saved and He is the only one who can save us. The bliss of his birth was followed closely by unspeakable evil, which only served to underscore HOW MUCH WE NEED THIS CHILD. And adds depth to the songs of the Angels who sang: I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.

There is joy to be had in this day, and it is nothing like the easy happiness of fortunate times, of full bellies and safe homes and absent violence. The joy in this day is that violence and terror and loss and grief and murder and evil and injustice and inequality and hatred and malice – they are not the final word. The joy in this day is that the story we are hearing, of lost innocence, is not the STORY that God is ultimately telling in Jesus Christ. That God sees our suffering and is DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT through the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That we are more than just grieving family and friends but the community of the Church who have been empowered to go out into a dark and broken world with the GOOD NEWS of JESUS.

Our Joy is that the people languished in darkness for centruies but that the light finally came.  That a young girl could sin a song about God, a God who shows His mercy is for those who fear him, who scatters the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.  Who brings down the powerful from their thrones, and lifts up the lowly; who fills the hungry with good things, and send the rich away empty.

Our Joy is that God is with Us. When we attend funerals and cry over tiny coffins. When we rail against violence and political apathy. When we search for answers. When we ask impossible questions. When we take a stand against evil. When we sacrifice for the sake of others.

Our Joy is that God is the center and God will always hold, that the kingdom cannot be drowned, that anarchy is not loosed forever.

Our Joy is that Emmanuel was born, is about to be born, is coming, will come again.

Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy.