My very favorite movie is “A Trip to Bountiful.” Geraldine Page won an Oscar for her performance of Carrie Watts an older Texas woman desperate to get back to her home town of Bountiful, Texas.
The film begins with the hymn: Softly and Tenderly and in the opening scene you here the refrain “Come Home, Come Home, all you who are weary...come home.”
A mother is running, chasing a little boy in over-large over-alls through a field of Texas Bluebells
It is a tense scene…. She is straining so hard….
Her hair is flying out of its bun….
And.... It it is not clear whether the child is running in fear or in joy. Is he running away from home? Fleeing something terrifying? He has that full-on, disjointed, loose-limbed run of a small child.
................
And it takes a long time for her to catch him....
When she does. . . .it is clear
She holds him up to the air.... and she draws him close.
The child is Home.
It is an emotionally satisfying, deeply visceral scene.
After this gorgeous opening the movie moves to a cramped apartment in Houston, Texas. Carrie, or Mother Watts, the name her Daughter -in-law uses, seem at first like she might be a bit un-hinged. Her laugh is nervous, her movements jerky, her Daughter-on Law believes that she is manipulative, emotional, controlling. She seems oafish and clumsy in the small apartment. She cries easily. The relationship between Carrie and her Daughter-in-law is very tense. The daughter in law seems overwhelmed by this intruder in her home and spends most of her times at the beauty parlor or drinking cokes at the local Woolworths.
The daughter yells at the Mother-in-Law for singing her hymns and walking too fast and for “sulking.”
The son is caught between:
Carrie has hatched a plan to return to her home-town. She hides her pension check and suitcase and when her Daughter-in-law leaves to get her hair done she rushes to the train station….
She discovers that there is no longer any trains that stop in Bountiful. Undeterred she makes it to the bus station.... just ahead of her daughter and son.
At this point you still think she is more than a bit eccentric, but you also can sympathize with the desire to leave the city.
On this journey back to her home town, back to Bountiful, she meets a young traveling companion and she begins to tell her story:
How her family survived the dustbowl
About her young romance
About the vivacity of this small town, Bountiful, and the people that lived and worked there.
It is home and a kind of earthly paradise.
When she gets there…. Bountiful is no longer. It is a Ghost town. Nothing remains but over-grown fields and broken down homes. Her best friend –who she has come to live with-- is dead. Carrie can't go home again. And then the son comes....... chasing his Mother to Bountiful
And Carrie breaks down overrun with the emotions of all that has been lost. They sit together in a field of blue bell and while it’s still clear Carrie can't literally get back home.
Sitting there with her son...
you realize that she was that strong, beautiful Mother running after the child.
And moreover you realize that her Son begins to see her in this old light as well…
The person that seemed rough, out of place, a little nuts back in Houston seems lovely and strong sitting in the fields of her home-town.
The nervous twitter becomes a girlish laugh, and the son says what needed to be said all along. That he understands the significance of the place. That he loves it too. And he understands the reason for her journey. And that they continue to share a deep love.
And it is a kind of Bountiful.
Like Carrie who comes to realize that Bountiful is not just separated from her by miles, and distance but by Time.
My faith journey began in a small rural church. My parents didn’t attend the church. I started going, by myself, on the big, yellow church bus when I was a little North of three. I always knew that I had started going when I was very young, but was recently going through my Moms diary and found a date.
As a child I found church inviting, if not somewhat confusing. My Mom told the story of how when I first went to church I would come home talking endlessly of Jesus. Jesus gave me Kool aid, Jesus colored with me, Jesus told me a story and sang with me. My Mom was puzzled at first about my mysticism, but soon realized that I thought my Sunday school teacher who frequently said--Jesus, loves you--was Jesus. Mommy always said: Mommy loves you.
Church was good. There was the bus to ride, the man that gave every kid that entered the church a stick of Juicy Fruit, the aforementioned cookies and Kool-Aid. The big tins filled with broken crayons and the pictures to color of lambs, David and Goliath and stain-glass windows.
There were also songs: and I learned them all committing them quickly to a memory that has always been sharp.
There were the ones we learned in Jr. Church
Jesus loves the little ones like me, me, me
Jesus loves the little ones like me, me, me
Little ones like me sat upon his knee, Jesus loves the little ones like me me me
And there were the hymns that we sang “upstairs.” Songs that thrilled me not because of my interest in the music, but because of the mysterious things they said
This is my Father’s world.
and to my listening ear all nature sings and round me rings the music of the spheres
Love lifted me... when nothing else could help love lifted me
the love of God, how rich and pure, how measureless and strong.
Love, so amazing, so divine, demands my life, my heart, my all.
And there were the sermons that skimmed over me.
I felt very safe nestled into this church that told me that there was a God and that his son was Jesus (who may or may not be available to have Kool-Aid with later this afternoon) and the that I learned that I was very, very loved.
We would have a revival in Spring and a crusade at the beginning of the summer. We were meant to invite people to the crusade meetings, but the revival services were mostly for us: to recommit, to spurn sin, to reassess…. to open ourselves to the potential, the possibility that God had a particular call for us.
And I can still feel the tension in stomach the nervous energy going up my arms and into my shoulder as the preacher talked about sin and longing, brokenness, and that Christ was there, inviting us, always, to come home
Up to the brown carpeted altar.
As I got older. The distance to the altar became greater. Not only because of the fear of coming up and being different. But because of my sense of the vast spiritual distance that could be travelled in a few steps--from hell to heaven. From Sickness into Life. From Fear in to Faith. From Anxiety into Trust. From Homeless to Home
And even as a small child the pull was there...to overcome some deep seated anxiety within in, some longing, by walking a few steps forward.
As a child I experience the church as good, as powerful, as home in many ways.
In its crazy pursuit of me in the yellow church bus.
In the calls of grace found in the altar call—that I could come to Christ Just as I was.
In the way that Christ seem so very present through mundane things like Kool-Aid and cookies and people who took the time to color with me and teach me songs. In that feeling of being loved and belonging.
But on the edge of it always was fear. Great and profound fear. Of Hell, Separation from my parents if they didn't become saved, and that Jesus would come back and I wouldn't be fit for heaven. I wouldn't be ready.
The following happened more than once:
There was nothing as a child I love to do more than jumping on my parent's bed and it was absolutely forbidden, but I could never quite control the impulse.
And I was always terrified that if I was jumping on the bed and Jesus came back.
That I would go to hell
And I still jumped on the bed.
The pure joyful pleasure of sin!
Breathlessly asking for forgiveness again and swearing I wouldn't do again….
And then there was my Mother. She told me things like: they are all hawks in that church.
Why are they always talking about war?
Jesus was against war, Jodie.
Why are they so certain Jesus is a Republican?
Why are they always talking about blood?
Jesus's blood, the blood of the lamb?
She said that she favored the Methodist where Jesus was a kind shepherd and the people weren't so judgmental
Jesus care about the poor, Jodie.
And for awhile I thought she held all these view because she wasn't saved, but the more I studied the Bible. The more I realized that she was right. On many... most accounts.
When I went to college I learned new ways to think about war
and the poor.
I learned there that this revival thing was very new and not something that Christian had always done at all. It could be dated. That the theology I had been taught was just a tiny peninsula and there was a whole continent of things to know, and wonder and think and learn about God.
It was easy to dig deeper and further back into the Christian tradition, and for a long time I was able to convince myself that I was not really leaving.
But almost imperceptibly... I realized that there was no returning. I couldn't be patient with the flags, and the politics agenda, and all those things my Mom had critiqued.
The church of my childhood was separated from me by time, and I have mostly been very happy in those other churches that I have attended since.
But, sometimes I admit that I feel a little out of my depths. I feel like Carrie in the Houston Apartment; I feel oafish in these new homes. I want to run when I should be walking… humming my hymns under my breath. There are times that I want to go back to Bountiful.
Mostly because as time has worn on I realize that I still mostly resonate with the fools in Paul's passage. With the foolishness of preaching…. With what Paul calls the wisdom of the cross...
Paul calls into question human excellence, or at least excellence as the world sees it with its over-bearing confidence about who is beautiful, and wise, and successful.
As Paul puts it
26 Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, 29 so that no one may boast before him. 30
This passage is always there to challenge my temptation to think that what God wants from us primarily is our knowledge, our flawless perfections, our capacity to do things really, really, well.
I certainly know that it is not our goal to live a life individually or communally of mediocrity, but the logic of the entire book of I. Corinthians seems clear:It is nearly impossible for human beings to even know what excellence is. . .
Yes. God wants our BEST. but if we had time to really lay out the logic of the theological reflections in the book of Corinthians. This is what you would find: a natural progression from a conversation about the foolish wisdom of God, about the wisdom of the cross, to a discussion of the “love” that is of greater worth to God than all human excellence.
I believe that the church is most truly itself when it lives in the most dynamic way this call to enact the foolish wisdom found in love. The church is salt and light when she expects constantly to be a student at the hands of teacher that is providing her with mysterious parables, and scandalous assertions.
This goes well beyond just embracing intellectually the idea of the upside down-kingdom…. To just know in our heads that God favors the poor….It means that we begin the hard work of finding Jesus again and again in new and even more outrageous places. Yes, all the usual subjects: The poor, the sick and the scared the criminal the addicted. But, that we also seek Christ in those things that annoy us, that resist our sense of what is beautiful….That we expect to find Christ in our pewmate whose breath is bad and whose politics is worse…. Who does not respect our personal space…. Or, who just can't seem to sing in key…. Or, in those kids who can't sit still…. It means that we listen to voices even when they are quiet and we must strain to hear them….. That we listen for the spirit in the complaints of the person who always complains. In short, that we find God's presence in things that offend us, that we find ugly, and disconcerting.
It is exhausting work.
Thankless work.
And here’s the things.
We will never figure this out.
When we think we understand the secret wisdom that Paul says has been hidden from the rulers of this age---
We find ourselves to be once again fools.
Love makes us all fools.
But, that is okay.
The best thing about love is the way it blows away perfection. It can blow away so many things. . .seemingly solid things... things proven to be dross really. The sound principles of self-help book, or the 7 habits of leaders. And, things we might value even more: The perfectly executed sermon or that precise harmony “the tongues of men or of angel”
The well-timed and unrelenting voice of the prophet.
Or to quote Paul's much more eloquent words--
If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Perfect does not stand a chance next to love.
Effortless always looks shabby next to faithfulness...
Good will always subverts the gloss.
Paul’s main argument to the Corinthians presses on with its unrelenting logic:
When love comes everything else is neglible. Nothing. Naught.
Who can stand the day of its appearing?
But if we allow ourselves to really grow in this love there is such great comfort in it.
When there is nothing else, then and only then, does it becomes perfectly clear that
all we can really cling to is our very best--Love, stronger than death.
I can't help but go back to the logic of those altar calls...
In the incredible, beautiful folly of them I learned things that have stuck with me.
We all are in such incredible need of grace... We need grace to love and even more importantly we need grace as we try our best to love and end up botching it. Hurting people. Breaking things. Shattering them really.
And we need to know that just like the child at the beginning of the film trip to Bountiful that we are being pursued by a love that might seems at first to be a bit un-hinged.
…..And we need to know that we are all driven by an incredible longing.
our hearts are restless
ever wandering
Deeply longing to return to a home that we have never seen…never experienced.
And I learned at those altar calls that at the centre of a congregation life stands an invitation.
It is an invitation larger than any of us…. It is an invitation to try to live into this foolish wisdom of Christ until we are transformed into love.
To speak about this foolish love until-- in the words of one hymnist-- our poor, lisping, stammering tongues lies silent in the grave.
And I learned in those altar calls to embrace folly
When I try to explain to friends about circles of support and accountability. About offering friendship to men that have sexually abuse children and accountability so that it won't happen again. They sees why this would be useful. But, the don't understand it. Doesn't see why anyone in their right mind would want to spend time with those people. Can't seen them as anything other than irrevocably bent. This program only make sense if we embrace the foolish love of Christ
And our pacifism. A pacifism that embraces nonviolence not because we are certain that it will work. Or that it will get us what we wish for—justice, peace, No, we are pacifist because it is the way to live in the broader world when you are committed to the crazy love of God that insists that we love even our enemies.
And more than any of these thing that we pray together. That many times we celebrate together, but frequently we also share with one another that we are sick, confused, alone, overwhelmed, dying. That our relationships are broken.
That we share these things even when we know that we live in a world where the strong and beautiful are influential.
When we know we might face judgment,
And in the altar call we learn
You can go home. Maybe, not quite, but you can move into the future in a way the connects you more deeply to the past, more deeply into the present moment—into that experience of loving relationship with Christ and other—into a deeper commitment to following Jesus
All that makes an altar raised is a few 2 by 4s and some boards. It is not much more that makes this church physically a church.
I keep going back to chuch because I still believe that church is a place where one can traverse impossible stretches of space both mental and temporal. From hopelessness to hope…. From loneliness to belonging….From Darkness to Light…. In this place: A new light is shining.
And I will admit that even now—in this place—between the bars of the music—in the silences that bear up our prayers...In my own reckless nerves. In the sighs that bear too much pain for polite conversation….in our Ugliness and in our profound need of grace.
In the way we keep trying to understand and live out the foolish love of Christ.
That I hear:
Earnestly, Tenderly,
Jesus Calling.
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