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Sermon - Fifth Sunday after Pentecost (B) - 5th July 2009
St Aidans' Anglican Church West Epping - 7 & 8am
Reading: 2 Samuel 5:1-5, 9-10, Psalm 48, 2 Corinthians 12:2-10, Mark 6:1-13
“My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.”
The films “Chocolat”, “Amelie” and “As it is in heaven” are films about grace. If you have not seen them then they are well worth seeing. They were released in 2000, 2001 and 2006 respectively.
Chocolat takes place in a small town in France in 1959. The town has always expressed their community life using the word “tranquilite” (tranquillity). You knew what was expected of you, you knew what your place was. And if you happened to forget, someone would remind you. They trusted the wisdom of ages past, lived with the values of tradition, family and morality. Into this town comes Vianne, played by Juliette Binoche. She does not go to church, has a daughter without a father present and has the gall to open a chocolaterie right in the middle of Lent! As she opens and conducts her business, it becomes clear that she is anything but traditional. Vianne does nothing by the book. She does nothing out of obligation, but everything out of love. It is her encouragement that brings Josephine out of her abusive marriage. It is her encouragement that brings Armande together with her grandson. It is her encouragement that brings a widow of 30-some-years out of mourning and into a new relationship. The town is transformed by her chocolaterie and her grace.
Only the young priest, Fr Henri's, Easter Sermon shows any grace from the community ruled over by the mayor. “I want to talk about Christ’s humanity, I mean how he lived his life on earth: his kindness, his tolerance. We must measure our goodness, not by what we don’t do, what we deny ourselves, what we resist, or who we exclude. Instead, we should measure ourselves by what we embrace, what we create, and who we include.” Someone from outside the church and the community shows God’s grace in spite of the so called “tranquilite”!
In the film Amelie, Amélie Poulain is a girl who grew up isolated from other children. As she discovers herself Amélie displays grace, executing complex, but hidden schemes that have an impact upon the lives of those around … She escorts a blind man to the Metro station, giving him a rich description of the street scenes he passes. She persuades her father to follow his dream of touring the world by stealing his garden gnome and having an air-hostess friend send pictures of it from all over the world. She matches a co-worker with one of the customers in the bar. She convinces the unhappy concierge of her building that the husband who abandoned her had in fact sent her a final love letter just before his death. She supports Lucien, the young man who works for the bullying owner of the neighbourhood greengrocer. The good things she does are never rewards, merely a gift of grace that is brought into someone's life. She is a truly grace-full person
“As it is in heaven” is a feel-good movie and a feel-bad movie, a strange combination that seems very Swedish. That's part of what makes it distinctive: it has that sense of gloom about human nature that cold countries often have, combined with a determination to root it out of the culture. The way to do that, the file postulates is to fill the lungs.
The film doesn't attack religion per se, just the narrow form that emphasises the permanent stain of sin, the primacy of guilt and the wrathful nature of God, particularly as displayed by the Pastor.
In a small village, the Lutheran pastor turns into a kind of Swedish Inquisition, a scheming, jealous, controlling streak of misery with a meek and mild exterior and a stash of porn magazines behind the encyclopaedias. Pastor Stig is the repressed captain of the film's team of bad spirits, although his failings are human, rather than divine. "I used to be somebody," he blubbers, after his world has collapsed. You can't help but feel for him as he is locked into a graceless view of faith.
That's part of the film's appeal, it has a big heart full of grace, …
… a famous conductor who's barely functional … retires to live in the old schoolhouse in the village where he was born. He is encouraged to take on responsibility for the church choir.
… The pastor's wife finds her spirit transformed by the vocalisation; Gabriella, has to endure frequent drunken beatings to come to practice. The pastor becomes increasingly hostile, as Daniel takes his church choir away from him. … Good music will do the rest. The experience of belonging to the choir brings grace in the most unexpected manner.
Out of weakness displayed in these three films grace abounds.
The cross is the central symbol of our faith because it, better than any other, seizes upon the proclamation that power, indeed, resides with God. The cross stands empty by God's power, by God's grace, by God's goodwill toward all humanity. Christ, as the perfect representation of true power, the power of God, embodies a certain ambiguity about life. On the one hand, he is crucified in weakness, subject as we are to the power of oppression and death. If the story ended there we would be lost and there would be no basis for hope. As the resurrected one, on the other hand, Christ becomes the epitome of power, because God, the all-powerful one, raised him from the dead and promises the same to us.
The grandeur of Paul’s religious life, with its spectacular visions and numerous revelations, as shown by the reading earlier need not be the litmus test of our own faith. We are more likely to identify with Paul in his weakness, but if we see in that weakness, as he did, the way for God's power to be vigorously at work, then we can be God's agents.
We should reflect about what "boasting of weakness" does not mean. It should not become, as it easily could, an occasion for a cop-out, for doing very little or even nothing. In the same fashion, it could become a justification of the status quo, for not making an effort to change things, because we are so weak. Weakness in the presence of God’s strength brings grace.
“So I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may dwell in me”.
These comments on the films are by Carla Thompson Powell and Darrel Manson, www.deaconsil.com, and http://www.smh.com.au/news/film-reviews/as-it-is-in-heaven/2006/12/08/1165081131261.html
The New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol XI, Abingdon Press 2000.