Articles in this section are from the past 6 to 12 months,
But there is nothing covered up that will not be revealed, and hidden that will not be known. Luke 12.2
There is a scene in Casablanca (1942) which is particularly stirring, and patriotic. It takes place about halfway through the movie. Major Strasser of the Gestapo and his fellow officers of the Third Reich are drinking in Rick’s Café and start singing Der Fatherland. Victor Laszlo, organizer of the anti-Nazi underground, starts singing the Marseillaise. The band joins in, and the largely French crowd drowns-out the singing of the Nazis. As the camera scans the crowd at Rick’s it focuses on the face of Yvonne. She is something of a party-girl who has recently dated Rick, and is out that night with a German officer. She is singing the loudest of anyone, in a very deep, husky alto. The conviction her voice is unmistakable – it isn’t acting. Neither are the tears that well up, making her eyes glisten in a way only black-and-white filming can capture. One single tear streams down her cheek as the anthem concludes and she cries out, “Vive la France!”
It is a genuine moment. It isn’t acting. I’ve seen the movie more than 50 times and from the first viewing I had no doubt that tear was real. Yvonne is played by the French actress Madeleine LeBeau. She was married at the time to Marcel Dalio who plays the Croupier at Rick’s. In real life she and her husband had narrowly escaped the Nazi occupation of Paris, travelling by freight car to Lisbon. Their escape was made more difficult by the fact that Marcel was the most recognizable actor in Europe, having starred in both “The Grand Illusion,” and “The Rules of the Game.” From Lisbon the couple travelled to Mexico City on forged visas. Their false documents were discovered in Mexico City, so they applied to 60 countries for political asylum. Canada took them in, and soon, friends in Hollywood found them work in American motion pictures.
And so when she sings the French national anthem with such emotion and conviction, she isn’t acting. That single tear on her right cheek is real. She has earned it.
Sincerity is evident. Insincerity may be hard to detect, at least for a while, but sincerity is evident.
One of the over-arching themes of the Sermon on the Mount is sincerity – that we are good from the inside out, or we are not good at all. The Beatitudes are about internal qualities, not external actions. The application of the Ten Commandments Jesus makes in Matthew 5.21-48 focuses on intention and attitudes as much as action. The one who looks at a woman in order to lust has already committed adultery in his heart. Giving alms, praying, and fasting must be sincere or they are worthless (6.1-17). We must be careful what we treasure, for where our treasure is our heart will be (6.21). We must be careful how we judge others lest we be found guilty of hypocrisy (7.1-5).
Jesus will go on in Matthew 15 to say something startling to his listeners: It is not what goes into a man that defiles him, but what comes out (v.11). He explains:
Do you not understand that everything that goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is eliminated? But the things that come out of the mouth proceed from the heart, and those defile the man. (17-18)
We would do well to remember that. If we are to be good at all it happens naturally, from the inside out, as we know more, pray more, yield more, serve more. When that happens, that which is genuine will be noticed. Sincerity will have its effect. Otherwise we are just play-acting, and we will not be able to maintain our disguise for long. Crocodile tears are hard to hide.
The abduction of 129 schoolgirls by the radical- fundamentalist Islamic group, Boko Haram in Nigeria last month was the latest act of aggression in an escalating war such groups are waging against women. As we agonize and pray over the fate of these girls we remember the prayers we offered for another schoolgirl, Malala Yousafzai, when she was shot on a bus coming home from school back in 2012. The Taliban took responsibility for that attack in the Swat region of Afghanistan. We know that these highly publicized events are only the tip of an iceberg of oppression and violence against girls world-wide. Why? Why do these fundamentalists feel so threatened by girls who want to learn?
And any such man is no disciple of Jesus.
I don’t think I like any literary character better than I like George Smiley, master MI-6 operative, who, over the course of three books finally defeats his Soviet nemesis, Karla. Smiley is actually featured in eight novels by John Le Carre, but three are known as the “Karla” novels because they center on his chess match with the ruthless Russian master-spy. Early on Karla comes into possession of Smiley’s cigarette lighter, a gift from his wife, inscribed: To George from Ann with all my love. Ann, the love of Smiley’s life, is a serial adulteress. The notion is that while Smiley loves such a someone he has a weakness. Smiley finds out that Karla too has a weakness – a troubled daughter he loves and protects, hidden away in a mental institution in France. Smiley exploits this vulnerability to force Karla to defect. When Karla is taken into custody, he drops the cigarette lighter at Smiley’s feet. Smiley just leaves it there and walks away. He has gained the upper hand because he has ceased to care.
“George, you won” his friend and protégé, Peter Guillam, says. “Did I?” Smiley replies, “Yes, yes, well I suppose I did.” Smiley has long ago abandoned the notion that the government he serves possesses the moral high ground. He has won because his opponent had someone he loved, and Smiley leveraged that love against him. Smiley won because he stopped caring about the one he loved. In the end, is that winning?
Roy Orbison asserted, back in 1961, that love hurts. He was to discover the accuracy of this assertion when, in 1966 his beloved wife, Claudette, was killed in an automobile accident, and again two years later when his house burned down and his eldest son was killed in the fire. To love is to make one’s self vulnerable, even when no one tries to hurt anyone else. This is why most of us have developed armor, disguise, and defenses to protect us from the ravages really caring can wrack. We teach ourselves not to care too much, and for some folks in our orbit, not at all. We all learn not to pick up Smiley’s lighter, because we know to care too much is to hurt.
Jesus confronted the inevitability of this in Bethany in John 12. His friend Lazarus died, and had been in the grave three days before Jesus made the trip to be with the family. This was all part of Jesus’ plan as He intends to raise Lazarus from the dead. Yet, His dear friends Mary, and Martha spent so many days worrying over their brother, mourning his death, and wondering at Jesus’ seeming abandonment. Even Jesus can’t keep love from hurting – even when things go just as Jesus has planned.
God is love (I John 4.8). It is not just that He does love, He is love. Thus God hurts. God is the father in the parable of the prodigal son who keeps looking down the road to see if his son will return. God is the husband in Hosea who takes his wife back from her prostitution. God is the father in Hosea 11 who despairs for His delinquent child - Who says “My heart is turned over within Me,” (v.8).
God permits Himself no callouses. He never walks away. He loves, and loves, and loves. We hurt Him and He still loves. Because He is love.
So I was visiting my daughter Julia last week. She has a Wichita address, but lives within a few strides of Haysville, Kansas. I got to town early, and had time to kill before Julia or her husband Jonny got off work, so I went to Subway to enjoy free refills, and get some work done. I was there nearly an hour and a half. In that time there were 17 people in and out of the shop, including me and the two nice young people behind the counter. Of those 17 people I was easily the thinnest. That wouldn’t have been remarkable 10 years ago, but I’ve put on a good 3 pounds a year since my cancer surgery, despite efforts to reverse that trend. I’m almost never the skinniest person anywhere, not even back in my hometown, Huntington, West Virginia, which has been the fattest, most diabetic town in America for three years now. That’s why I like hanging out at the Subway in Haysville, Kansas.
There are many reasons I love being an OWL. Our Older Wiser Loving Seniors group has the most fun, the best fellowship, and the coolest activities, of any group here at Manassas. But a big reason I love being an OWL at 52 (you’re supposed to be 55 to join) is that I am usually the youngest guy there. Many of our OWLS have known me for more than 30 years – some were at our wedding. They remember me when I was young, skinny, and had a head full of curls. I still get to be the kid for a little while longer when I am with the OWLS.
It is important to choose your companions and your setting.
The Bible tells us the presence of God creates an atmosphere where certain qualities flourish. Being in God’s presence makes a difference, makes us better. Humility, for instance, thrives in the presence of God. Humility is such an elusive virtue. Think you have acquired it and you lose it. But when we are before the mighty hand of God, humility is the natural posture we take, and we are lifted up because of it (James 4.10, I Peter 5.6). Psalm 23 reminds us that provision, well-being, confidence, and direction are all benefits of being in the presence of God.
What makes this all so encouraging is that we are always in the presence of God - we can go nowhere God is not. He is everywhere. Psalm 139 says:
Where Can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in the grave, behold, You are there (vv.7-8).
But do we recognize this. “Surely YAHWEH is in this place and I didn’t know it,” Jacob says in Genesis 28.16. Are we ever aware? Christina Rossetti observed in a poem once that “every bush is aflame with God,” but few of us remove our shoes, most of us just pick berries.
We are in the presence of He who generates everything good within us. But we must be aware of His presence, respectful of it, for that good to grow.
There is a line from the play “All the Way Home,” (James Agee’s A Death in the Family adapted for the stage - I don’t remember if the line is in the book), which I shall never forget. A family is visiting relatives, especially a grandma severely debilitated by strokes. She has lost the ability to walk, talk, or feed herself. She is holding a little girl’s doll, and when the little girl gets the doll back the grandma cries out in protest. “All she knows is that something’s been taken from her,” her caretaker explains. Indeed.
I probably remember that line so clearly because the first time I saw the play the grandmother was portrayed by Ellen Corby (Grandma Walton), who looked like MY grandma. My grandma also suffered a series of strokes and bit by bit her abilities were taken from her. Worse than losing the use of limbs, though, was the loss of identity. With every stroke layers of her personality were sheared away until all that remained of the feisty, intelligent, accomplished woman she was, was a little girl whose father didn’t want her. The one memory that remained clear, and sharply focused was the moment she overheard her father saying to someone that he despised her. Was that the most deeply imprinted event of her life?
The one story I often heard from my grandfather’s childhood was the night when, as a four year old, he was taken in the middle of the night to hug his mother goodbye. She was dying from childbirth. But – in his little diary of memories that he wrote for me, the seminal story he tells is of a time when he had to clean out the cistern on the farm. He was just a boy, and they didn’t have a ladder long enough so his father cut down a tree with plenty of branches to hold him, tied a rope around him, and sent him down. He was terrified at first, but his father kept reminding him that he was holding on to the rope. He writes:
Once again Poppa showed me his wisdom. The lesson I learned that day helped me to remember something about God and the importance of holding on to Him. When Poppa gave me the rope it connected me and Poppa together – the one that I depended on and trusted to get me out of the cistern. We must remember to hold on to God, and not let go, and He will pull us home to heaven.
I can’t imagine tying a rope around a boy and sending him to the bottom of a cistern – the thought horrifies me. But three generations separate me from my great-grandfather. Nor can I imagine sending a boy out alone to shepherd and defend a flock of sheep when there are bears and lions about to threaten the flock. But that is exactly what Jesse did with his son David. When Samuel came to anoint one of Jesse’s sons king, David was the unlikeliest of the bunch because he was the baby – still “pink” and “beautiful” (I Samuel 16). And yet he had to be called in from the countryside where he was watching the flock alone. While there, alone with his sheep, the boy David did have to face a lion and a bear (I Samuel 17.35-36). But the thing that remained with him, that which imprinted itself on him most deeply, was not fear, or abandonment, but the sense that he was not alone. What remained most deeply imprinted on David was the sure feeling that God is always present – that He cares, He provides, He directs, He protects. David writes:
The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the path of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil: for Thou art with me, Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me. Thou prepareth a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou annointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever. Psalm 23 KJV
This was the memory most deeply imprinted on David – knowing, in the face of so many fears, that he was not alone. It can be that which leaves the deepest mark on us as well.
