This past Friday I
was able to sneak away from campus for a motorcycle ride. This is one of the keys to maintaining my
sanity, such as it is. On the ride, I
was stunned by the beauty of this river valley where we live. The weather was like a summer day, yet the turning
of the leaves had begun on some of the trees; for others, the golden
transformation would come at a later day.
I had to stop on more than one occasion to take it all in. I watched ducks fishing with their bottoms up,
which always cheers me for some reason. What
a great way to look for food. And yet
with so much beauty in the world, many of our students were saying goodbye to
Raul at his funeral in New York City. How does the human heart hold such
dichotomies at the same time? How do we
hold it all together without breaking apart?
Even as I went through the routines of my week, Raul and his family and
friends were never far from my thoughts and prayers.
Our community was
going so many different directions this week.
For our Jewish students, Rosh Hashanah began last Wednesday, celebrating
the Jewish New Year of 5775. The Jewish
High Holy Days will end next Friday with Yom Kippur. On Rosh Hashanah, the first day of the Jewish
New Year, apples are dipped in honey in the hopes of a sweet new year. Rosh Hashanah is a celebration of the precious
gift of creation—of sacred life itself.
It is the birthday of the world.
But the Jewish High Holy Days end with the Day of Atonement on Yom
Kippur, the day of forgiveness which is much darker in its divine power. It is a calling to repentance. During the High Holy Days, the Jewish people
are called to reach out to those they have hurt or wronged, in ways both large
and small. The High Holy Days, taken as
a whole, include both the power of creation yet also the call to repentance to
participate in the beauty of creation.
New beginnings involve soul searching during the turning colors of
fall.
As I tried to make
sense of beauty and repentance together, along with love and sorrow, I was
reminded of the movie Pleasantville. It is an excellent autumn movie. The film came out quite a while ago, in 1998. The movie is about a perfect television world,
a utopia, where there is no pain. But
there is no growth either. Within the
movie, Pleasantville is a 1950s style television show portrayed in black and
white. The show is centered on a perfect
family called the Parkers. They have no
problems, and everything turns out just right for them, every time. There are no arguments, no pain, no aging, no
divorce, and certainly no death. Even
the temperature never changes: it’s always 72 degrees. The basketball team never loses. Into this utopian world of television are
transported a regular pair of high school students from our complicated world
named David (played by Tobey Maguire) and Jennifer (played by Reese
Witherspoon). The twin siblings try not
to interfere with the black and white world, but things begin to change, imperceptibly
at first. The new reality begins with a red
rose in full color, blooming at night.
But soon the perfect black and white colors begin to change in wider
ripples, following after the rose. As
Ralph Waldo Emerson said of roses in his essay “Self-Reliance:”
“Man
is timid and apologetic. He is no longer
upright. He dares not say, ‘I think,’ ‘I
am,’ but quotes some saint or sage. He
is ashamed before the blade of grass or the blowing rose. These roses under my window make no reference
to former roses or to better ones; they exist with God to-day. There is no time to them. There is simply the rose; it is perfect in
every moment of its existence…Its nature is satisfied, and it satisfies nature
in all moments alike…When a man lives with God, his voice shall be as sweet as
the murmur of a brook and the rustle of the corn.”
Because
of the arrival of David and Jennifer, the perfect world of Pleasantville is
blown apart. It begins with flowers, but
moves onto people. Black and white
characters burst as if into flame, into full color like in The Wizard of Oz. They
become “colored” in the language of the film.
A strong surge of emotion seems to trigger the transformation to full
color, and the new identities are not timid, or apologetic anymore. They are standing upright, as Emerson hoped
for in “Self-Reliance.” They are
human—they have discovered their full humanity.
Some of the transformations are inspired by romance, but this is not
true in every case. Jennifer—the Reese Witherspoon
character—finds her deeper humanity by reading a book, and David discovers his
true identity by defending himself in a fist fight. The town fathers—still in black and
white—fear the independence of the colored people, and eventually put David on
trial for the chain of events he has set in motion. The judge gets so angry that he bursts into
full color himself. The trial becomes a beautiful
chaos, with even the town fathers in full bloom.
The movie Pleasantville urges compassion, in every
direction. The events that give others
their full humanity may be different from how you discover your true self. Pain comes to everyone, and pain has come to
us this week. We all feel differently. We all grieve differently. But grieving we are. And yet the good things in life are still
good. Creation, in all of its majesty
and awe, is still here, but it is no black and white utopia. We live in a reality aflame with color where
there is danger, peril, illness, death, and yet great beauty all around us. Our full humanity can be recognized, one
person at a time, and we look at each other in full color this morning. Grief is not far from us, but neither is the
love of God who made things the way they are.
The
gospel reading from Matthew deepens our awareness of what it means to be fully
human. The scene is in the temple, and
an argument takes place, one which foreshadows the trial of Jesus. In the visual lexicon of Pleasantville, Jesus represents the world of color, his antagonists
the black and white status quo. Everything
has changed because of Jesus’ presence, and the chief priests and elders want
to know why—by whose authority is Jesus doing these things? The chief priests and elders live in the
safety of the past. They are timid and
apologetic, and they are afraid of the upright personal religion that Jesus is
sharing with his followers. They see its
danger, especially in the appeal to his growing followers. This isn’t the trial of Jesus—not yet, so
Jesus answers their question with a question.
“I
will ask you one question; if you tell me the answer, then I will tell you by
what authority I do these things. Did
the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?”
They
can’t answer the question. Not because
they don’t know the answer, but because the right answer won’t produce the
desired political outcome. How often
does this happen in our world? So Jesus
doesn’t answer their question, but he does offer a parable of two
brothers. One son refuses to work in the
field of his father, but eventually does, while the second son agrees to go,
but then changes his mind. “Which of the
two did the will of his father?” Jesus asks.
This parable is so apolitical and innocuous that even the chief priests
and elders get it right. You may say no
to God at first right now, but, when the time comes, you change your mind and go
to work in God’s field.
The two brothers
represent the choices we have about how to respond to the gift of life, the
invitation of creation, even when invaded by sorrow. We’re asked to go to work for God right
now. As the leaves begin to change, so
do our hearts—they are heavy, hopeful, overflowing, and open to the Spirit of
God. We walk upright in full color.
The gospel from
Matthew is not specific about the kind of work needed in the father’s field by
the two brothers. But after the week
behind us, I imagine the command is this: Take
care of each other. The command goes
out to every member of the Kent
School community. Take care of each other now, and in the days
to come.
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