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straight story

straight story

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Movie poster: the straight storyWhat a great movie!

I previewed David Lynch’s film the straight story last evening. It tells the real-life story of Alvin Straight, an elderly Iowan who rode a lawn mower two hundred and sixty miles from Laurens, Iowa to visit his ailing brother in Mount Zion, Wisconsin.

I will be showing the film as part of our monthly Movie Night at the Ensworths’ series for people from our church. It is a beautifully made film, beautiful in its simplicity and its emotional power and its celebration of human goodness, not a goodness that is artificial or overtly demonstrative, but a goodness that is interwoven into the fabric of stubborness and pride and regret and loss with which we can all identify.

It is a tender and hopeful film, and a funny and playful film. But what makes it special is its refusal to go “over the top” or to indulge in easy sentimentalism or to tie up all the loose ends. It celebrates love and forgiveness and joy and endurance, sterling Christian virtues all, without being preachy. You simply see the virtues in action … and end up believing that you yourself might be capable of such feelings and such kindnesses.

poor in spirit

poor in spirit

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Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven …

In Luke’s version, Jesus says, Blessed are you who are poor. Luke draws attention to Jesus’ offer of grace and favor to those people human society has cast aside. Luke celebrates Jesus’ stirring announcement of good news to the poor — to those who are quite literally poor. But in Matthew’s version, Jesus says, Blessed are the poor in spirit … Meaning those who recognize their own spiritual bankruptcy, who realize their desparate need for God’s grace and forgiveness? Probably …

But what if the word poor in this instance was still understood in its primitive sense as referrring to material poverty? Then what might Jesus mean by poor in spirit? Poor … in spirit. In spirit, laying aside claim to anything we may possess. Acknowledging in our hearts and minds that whether we have much or whether we have little, all that we have we hold in trust. It belongs to someone else. It is ours to use … at the pleasure of our Master.

When we are poor in spirit, our possessions do not control us. We let go. We let go of everything. We are poor … in spirit. We have nothing. And yet, we have everything … because ours is the kingdom of heaven! When we are poor in spirit, our possessions do not get in the way of our relationship with God. And when we are poor in spirit, our possessions do not get in the way of our relationships with each other. There are no “class” differences, because we are poor alike, and since what we have we hold in trust, what we have is readily shared. When we are truly poor in spirit, it may be that no one need be poor in reality! (See Acts 4:32-35!)