We are
starting fun new series called “Keeping
it Reel”.
It’s
about living what we believe—living like Christ.
As we move through this series we’re
going to be talking about the different tenants of a life in Christ—forgiveness,
reconciliation, sacrifice, inclusion, and justice. And we’ll
see parts of different movies that help us see what that looks like in real
terms. Today we are starting with
something basic…if we are going to
live like Jesus, we have to put our old sinful ways behind us, and be loving,
kind and forgiving…and that starts
with one another in the church.
Our first movie is
Shawshank Redemption…which is probably
not the movie that would first come to mind for many of us…it’s
about Shawshank prison and a couple of the inmates there. It’s
not a Christian community. They aren’t
committed to following Jesus or living differently. But there is one inmate
Andy Dufraine, who lives in such a way that he stands out among the
others. He lives with kindness,
thoughtfulness, and selflessness, even under the worst circumstances—-false
imprisonment dealing with all of the atrocities one might experience in
prison.
In a lot of ways, the thrust of this passage is pretty
straight forward. It seems like it might hardly be worth our time—I
mean, it’s
not like there’s a hidden secret meaning or
something. It’s direct—be
good to each other and leave any of your bad habits or sinful ways in the
past.
We can all
be on board with that, right? So then
why is it worth our time? Well, for
these simple reasons:
1) People
are people—no matter the country or the
century.
2) Living
the life of Christ doesn’t come naturally.
What I mean
is this: the book of Ephesians was written as a letter to the church in Ephesus
in the first century. And even nearly
2000 years later, we in the church still struggle with the same kind of
issues. People are people. We are sinful
and broken and even when we want to be like Jesus it can be hard. And we need to remember to love, be kind, and
forgive.
And yes,
even Christians need those reminders. We
aren’t
here because we are perfect. We’re here because we
know we need help getting it right. And
it matters that we get it right together.
Our relationships serve as our witness.
Other people hear the words of Christ, the rules we are supposed to live
by, and they look to us to see if we do it, to see if it matters, to see if it
changes anything to follow this Jesus guy. And if what they see is hypocrisy,
judgment, anger, and sin, then they’re
probably going to doubt Jesus and his power to do something good in our world.
It matters
how we live our lives. We have to live
what we believe. And if we believe in
Jesus as our Lord and Savior and if we believe that we are called to be like
him, then we have to practice that in our daily living. Now, we aren’t
perfect. We’ve said that. We know that.
We are going to fall short. We are going to get it wrong. We will have
our days when we don’t look a whole lot
like Jesus. BUT, that doesn’t
mean we should give up on trying. Living
our faith matters.
If we think
about the movie, we think about the guys at Shawshank prison, and what might we
expect?—each
man for himself. We’ve heard about the
violence, the corruption, the insider rings that happen in prisons, and
certainly when you watch the movie, you’ll
see there’s a healthy dose of that. And yet, we also see something distinctively
different in Andy Dufraine. Andy wants good things for the other guys in the
prison. He spent 6 years writing letters to get money to fund a library. He
helped 6 guys pass their high school equivalency test. He helped the guards do their taxes and set
up trusts for their kids. His heart
could have been hardened by prison or the abuses he endured, and yet generosity
and kindness won out in Andy’s heart. So, it hardly came as a surprise when Tommy
Williams came and Andy offered to help him change from a life of crime, to
something better. Andy took the time to
not just help Tommy pass his tests, but to teach him to reach starting with
learning his letters. He taught him to
read. And he taught him his high school basics.
Tommy passed the test with a C+ average.
He’d been in and out of prison since he
was 13, probably because he was illiterate and could’t
hang with a school crowd, but Andy gave him the opportunity to change that, to
have something different, to live a life worthy of his family, of something
more.
In them, I
see our calling—to be like Christ
and care about other people, to help them through hard circumstances, to be
just and fair in our actions, to care and help them, even when we don’t
“have”
to,
and to give of ourselves for the benefit of others. It matters how we live, not just for our
sake, not just because we are “supposed”
to,
but because our actions have the potential to change the world, one person at a
time.
I have
another scene for us to watch, it’s
Andy with his friend Red. They’ve been together at
Shawshank for 10 years and learned to be there for each other. Red had played the harmonica as a kid, but
gave it up and certainly wasn’t playing at Shawshank. When Andy pressed him and asked why, Red said
it wasn’t
worth it. Andy contradicted him and said
this is when it’s worth it the most…because
it tells the prison that it can’t have all of you,
that there is a life beyond those walls—it
gives you hope.
Let’s
watch.
These two
men learned to share hope and life with each other. They marked life’s
moments…even
if it was yet another rejection from the parole board, or a full decade of life
in prison, but even if those aren’t
milestones you might want, they were part of life inside and they learned to
roll with it.
Andy
Dufraine lived what he believed and in some ways it rubbed off on the other
guys. Now, he wasn’t
under the best of circumstances, things weren’t
exactly going his way…his wife cheated on
him and was then murdered and he was convicted for it….he
could have been consumed with anger and bitterness, but he chose not to
be. He chose something different. That may not be our story, in fact it’s
probably not, but we all have stuff that could harden and poison our
hearts. We have things that happen that
spoil what we strive for and what we think we should have and we would be
justified to be bitter about it, or we could leave the bitterness and keep
focusing on who Jesus invites us to be.
We could be hope and life in our world, with each other.
It matters
what we believe, but even more than that, it matters that we live what we
believe. If we believe in hope, we have
to live hope. If we believe in forgiveness, we have to forgive. If we believe
in second chances, we have to offer them, not just expect them for
ourselves. If we believe that following
Jesus matters, then we have to act like it, we have to follow him and do what
he asks, not just when it’s easy, not just
when life is going our way, but as wholly and fully and often as we can.
