Dr. Dale Miller, December 24, 2006

It's a Wonderful Life

Fourth in a four-part series "The Spirits of Christmas"

Luke 1:39-55

The last three weeks we have performed theological surgery on Charles Dickens's story, A Christmas Carol. The Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future communicate to Ebenezer Scrooge in such a dramatic way that he sees the errors of his ways. He has led a life riddled with lost chances and bad decisions. The Ghosts literally force him to take a long look at his life, such a long look that Scrooge is finally able to see all the things he has done wrong. Given an opportunity for redemption, he seizes the grace afforded to him and he changes his life so completely that he becomes known for keeping Christmas in his heart.

This morning I invite us to tackle an Americanized version of A Christmas Carol, known as The Greatest Story written by Philip Van Doren Stern. Discouraged that no magazine would publish his story, Stern decided to publish it himself. He printed two hundred copies and mailed them to his friends as Christmas cards. One went to his Hollywood agent who asked permission to sell the story to the "movies." In 1945 Liberty Films Corporation, a movie company started by Frank Capra after World War II, bought the film rights to Stern's story. The name was changed to It's a Wonderful life.

The movie takes place in a little town called Bedford Falls, and it depicts the life of George Bailey, played by Jimmy Stewart. It begins with George as a young boy, working in a drugstore, and playing with his brother and friends. The movie then jumps to later years, when George is a young man, falls in love and marries Mary, played by Donna Reed. George's father was in the loan business. After his father's sudden death it falls to George to continue the business. It is a struggle, but he is able to give loans to many citizens in the town to help them build their homes and businesses. George raises a family, struggles with his loan business, and is always competing with the "richest and meanest man in the county," Mr. Potter, played by Lionel Barrymore.

On Christmas Eve day, George's uncle inadvertently loses a large $8,000 deposit of George's loan business that was to be placed in the bank. With a bank examiner auditing the books that day, this loss threatens to ruin George's loan business, and may in fact even cause him to go to jail. In desperation, George humbles himself and asks Mr. Potter for a loan. Potter turns him down. George becomes so frantic that he yells at his wife and children and runs off into the night.

Standing by a bridge over a river, George contemplates jumping off, wanting to end it all. A guardian angel, Clarence, saves George's life by jumping in the river first, causing George to have to rescue him. Although he has rescued someone's life, George is still despondent and says to Clarence, "I wish I had never been born." The guardian angel grants George his wish in order to teach him a lesson in life.

George is forced by Clarence to take a long look at his life, such a long look that George is finally able to see all of the things he has done right. Aha! There's the twist! He doesn't have to be convinced how wrongly he has lived his life. No, he has to be convinced that he has led a wonderful life and that it would be wrong to take it for granted, or to end it early. The guardian angel does this by showing George what life would be like if he had never existed.

George returns to town, but it is a town that he can barely recognize. The world is now one in which he has never been born. George is in total disbelief. Where are the homes and businesses that he knew? They aren't there because George wasn't around to give people loans to help build them. Mary did not marry, because George never came into her life. Many of the lives of friends and neighbors turned out badly, because George wasn't there to help them. Even his own brother was not alive, because George wasn't there to save him from a near drowning when they were children.

This is an eye-opening experience for George Bailey. His life did make a difference in this world. All he wanted was to have his life back. "Please give me my life back!" he pleads to Clarence.

Suddenly George is brought back into the world as before, only now his view, his attitude, his whole perspective on life is totally changed. It is a wonderful life! He returns to discover anew, his wife, his family, his friends and neighbors, his business, with the deepest feeling of joy and gratitude.

This movie speaks to all of us. We are all George Baileys. We go through life, struggling with our work, trying to be a good husband or wife, father or mother, son or daughter, and it is never easy. Sometimes it is frustrating, sometimes we fail, sometimes we might even feel as if we've reached our wit's end and we don't know if we can continue one more day. Why was I ever born, anyway? Just to struggle like this? It's not fair. Why can't I have a wonderful life?

When Frank Capra was asked about the central message of this film, he responded, "I believe the real message of It's a Wonderful Life is this: that under the sun, nothing is insignificant to God."

Upon the 50th anniversary of the making of this movie, a news reporter asked Jimmy Stewart to comment on the film. Stewart said: The character I played was George Bailey, an ordinary kind of fella who thinks he's never accomplished anything in life. When faced with a crisis in which he feels he has failed everyone, he breaks under the strain and flees to the bridge. That's when his guardian angel, Clarence, comes down on Christmas Eve to show him what his community would be like without him. The angel takes him back through his life to show how our ordinary everyday efforts are really big achievements. Clarence reveals how George Bailey's loyalty to his job at the building and loan office has saved families and homes, how his little kindnesses have changed the lives of others, and how the ripples of his love will spread through the world, helping make it a better place. Today, after fifty years, I've heard the film called "an American cultural phenomenon." Well, maybe so, but it seems to me there is nothing phenomenal about the movie itself. It's simply about an ordinary man who discovers that living each ordinary day honorably, with faith in God and a selfless concern for others, can make for a truly wonderful life.

What is a wonderful life? If we were to imagine what a wonderful life would be for us, where would our imagination take us? Peter Gomes, Minister of Memorial Church at Harvard University, speaks of the Bible as "A book of the imagination." If we think of Holy Scripture primarily as a record of rules and a list of regulations, we lose the ability of the Bible to speak and to fuel the imagination of our minds and hearts. If we are limited to only the realities of everyday life, then it might be quite possible for us to find our way to the river bridge to take our place alongside George Bailey.

What if we were to use our imagination to discover the wonderful life? Is there another George Bailey story in the Gospel of Luke that speaks of extraordinary events and unexpected things? Or are we suspicious of the claims of Christmas angels and songs in the night because we are rational and analytical people? I am wondering if it's more truthful to say that we are limited by our lack of imagination.

Growing up in Indiana I was indoctrinated with a fanaticism for basketball. We also knew a little about football, golf and tennis. "Playing round ball" and "shooting hoops," meant only one thing: lace up your sneakers and get ready to fight for a rebound. As one basketball coach declared, "God gave you those elbows; use them!" When we had a daughter join a soccer team, I was totally lost. I didn't know the rules. When I read the rules, I still didn't understand the rules. I saw a lot of running and no scoring. For me, a score was 86-84. A score was not 1-0, or a 1-1 tie! I found myself saying, "Sorry, I just can't see it."

There is a lot of truth in not seeing. Apparently, I can only live in a world that I can see. Seeing precedes believing. But something inside me says, "That isn't right!" There is mystery in this world. Imagination is imperative to understand the fullness of reality, not just that tiny bit of reality that comes from seeing only.

In our story of Mary this morning, we can see how God's imagination takes us out of our worldly reality and replaces it with a divine mystery. The words she sang, "The Magnificat," is the charter, the document, the constitution of God's revelation that totally changes the order of reality and challenges us to use our imagination to live into a kingdom that is not of this world. God takes that which is on the bottom; and God turns everything upside down. God revolutionizes the way we think, the way we act, and the way we live.

In the world in which we normally make our way, the poor face bleak prospects. The December heavens stay dark and silent. Christmas carols arrive via FM radio, not by angels. God stays safely aloof from the world. But here, in this scripture, in this church, our imaginations get assaulted, poetically pushed by a divine reality. Imagination means having the sort of mind that is open to facts that are usually ignored. Imagination is a willingness to take risks that the world may be more than it seems. Imagination helps us to rise above the mere storing of facts, and invites us to a wonderful life of adventure.

If we live as if our lives do not count, then we are experiencing a poverty of our soul. Just as the angel Clarence points out the value of George's life, God points out the value of our lives.

In "The Magnificat" there are five verbs that are used by God to tell us that God respects the poor, exalts the poor, feeds the poor, helps the poor, and remembers the poor. God chose a servant girl, Mary, to be the mother of Jesus. God did not choose a beauty queen. God did not choose a millionaire. God chose a fifteen year old girl from a third world country, with dark skin, dark brown eyes and dark brown hair to be the mother of Jesus.

Sometimes the Greek word "doulos" is translated as handmaiden, probably because it sounds so pretty. But "doulos" means slave or servant. Mary was a servant girl. God chose a servant girl to be exalted and lifted. The Song of Mary is a revolutionary bombshell because it turns the values of this world upside down. Are we willing to allow our imagination to run wild with this God-given reality?

Like George Bailey we need to recover the expectation that the world is packed with all kinds of possibilities. At what age does the world cease being thick with potential? At what age does the world become fossilized and reduced to a level of the expected and the explained? God uses the common place to declare that it's a wonderful life, where we can surrender our certainty and expect to be surprised.

A poor woman named Mary breaks into song. A baby cries in the barn out back. King Herod gets nervous. Imagine a whole new world. Imagine, tomorrow not closed, but open to a living and active God. Imagine our lives caught up in something bigger than we are. Our ordinary lives are filled with incredible meaning. Imagine.

Anita Wheatcroft composed a story entitled "How Far to Bethlehem. She writes:

It happened in a large church in New York City where I grew up. During an annual Nativity pageant, the church was especially full. Hushed in darkness, the congregation watched the lighting of the candles. Toward the back, I sat, one timid little girl, with my family. Newly moved to the city after a family separation and trauma, my life had settled down, but I was still overwhelmed and homesick for my grandparents and familiar friends. That night, however, caught up in awe as organ music rolled out from balcony to rafters, I heard a familiar story I loved, and was transported to another time and place.

Down the aisle swept a colorful procession as the lights went up, revealing the magnificent manger scene. Travelers, bearded shepherds and finally the three kings bearing gifts advanced majestically. Before anyone knew it, I found myself following them.

The journey down that long aisle was an early spiritual pilgrimage for me, yet it felt like a kind of homecoming. When I reached the manger scene, there were a sleepy donkey, real sheep, and Mary and Joseph beneath an angel with outstretched wings. Above all, there was a light in the manger, enfolding us in its glow. Kneeling in front of it, I had a sense of exaltation, of self-offering as real as any I have ever known since. This was real to me, and I was there.

Of course, it didn't last long. I was lifted to my feet by an usher and carried down the aisle, back to my embarrassed family, and the pageant swept on. I was vaguely aware of subdued smiles, and my parents' whispered scolding didn't matter. My discovery was my own, and I had something now that no one could ever take from me. I had been to Bethlehem. I had seen it all for the first time and I would never forget it.