The New England Church Pulpit New England Congregational Church UCC Aurora Illinois

There is a need for story, story with or without a happy ending; story with or without a moral teaching; story with or without heroes. Every story has some nugget of Truth in it somewhere, if only to confirm that our own story is valid. Our lives are predicated on the powerful myths of story, and our understanding of Truth is known best in story. As people of faith, we are a story people. Our faith was founded upon, and continues to be, rooted in story.

So when we see a movie such as ‘American Beauty’ with all of its rough language and its raw sexuality, we may chafe at its lack of upright heroes with high moral standards. Yet as story, it is a powerful work of art that points to a certain Truth in life, even if by negative example. We chafe at the story of David & Bathsheeba, the stuff of trashy paperback novels, but it is our scripture precisely because the bible doesn’t try to gloss over the raw parts of life, precisely because the earthiness of humanity is part of God’s creation and in it is a kernel of Truth that germinates deep in our souls for good purpose.

In our modern story, Lester Burnham is a man trapped in a life he can’t seem to escape. We realize from the beginning that Lester will be dead within a year’s time, and that knowledge keeps us engaged in the story to see how it happens and who is responsible. Everyone in his life is a possible suspect because he’s not well-liked by anyone: he’s despised at work, his daughter says she wishes someone would kill him and put him out of his misery; his wife finds little joy and a lot of anger in their marriage, and to cope, takes up shooting a pistol as emotional therapy.

Lester himself is dissatisfied with his ‘stupid little life’ as he calls it. He doesn’t like work; he doesn’t know how to relate at any level to his daughter Jane, nor she to him; and it is a gross understatement to say that he and his wife Carolyn have not been friends for many years.

As the movie begins, Lester is narrating the story from the great beyond. Now that he has passed over to the other side, he gains a perspective on his life he didn’t have before, so his life’s story is told with some hindsight that helps us see things even he didn’t see when he was alive. He comments that though he would be dead within a year, he was dead for many years prior to that final event; there’s no life in his soul, just routine and facade, until he meets the new neighbor next door, a young man his daughter Jane eventually knows as a boyfriend.

Ricky Fitz is a good-looking, bright if bazaar young man whose ubiquitous video camera records life as he sees it. He puts little positive or negative value on his choice of objects to video–whether a dead bird or his girlfriend Jane; he simply records what he sees and finds beauty in the life around him. He is abused both mentally and physically by his father, a retired army colonel and has learned out of necessity to go deep within himself to find meaning in life. He comments, even in the midst of his drug-addicted, regimented, abused life that there is so much beauty around him he can’t even take it all in sometimes. It is a powerful moment when one realizes that this young man, with all of his bazaar behavior, finds beauty amid a life lived in his father’s control and his own mental difficulties. The camera that records life as it is becomes a paradigm for the movie–and even for the bible–to record life as it is, in all its beauty and in all its raw, earthy expressions. Ricky attempts to see the extraordinary in the ordinary, and he takes us along with him.

In one of the most beautiful sequences in this beautifully filmed movie, we are privy to see through Ricky’s lens a plastic bag dancing in the wind. It is a wonderful juxtaposition to all of the rigid lives that the movie portrays, most of them beholding to some social convention or their own obsession with succeeding. Ricky–and we–are transfixed by the dancing duo of wind and bag against a cement and brick stage; it is a moment of sheer ecstasy and worth the watch of the movie just to see this one vignette. It becomes a paradigm for an elusive Truth that the characters strive for but few engage. From Ricky, Lester learns to take life on his own terms as he witnesses Ricky quit his job when he gets hassled by the boss. It gives Lester courage to stand up to those he has let control him for many years.

Throughout the movie, we realize things are not as they seem. Lester, Carolyn, and Jane seem to have it all together on the outside: a beautiful home, lucrative professions, good looks, etc. etc. But we learn early on that the Burnham family wrote the book on family dysfunction. Carolyn is a totally frustrated realtor, obsessed with image as a successful professional, but whose tears betray the lonely, insecure woman inside. The new neighbors next to the Burnhams, the Fitzs comprised of Ricky the video recorder, his regimented and angry retired colonel father and his browbeaten and complying mother are not as they seem either.

Then there’s Jane’s best friend, Angela, who conceals her extreme insecurities behind make up and an arrogant facade of having been ‘around the block’ a few times, who brags about all the men she’s had but who we find out later in the movie is still a virgin. Angela sums up her life with the line ‘nothing is more boring than being ordinary.’ We see very clearly that she feels ordinary and would ultimately like to enjoy being ordinary, but she can’t quite accept life on those terms. The only family that has it put together are the two men who live on the other side of the Burnhams, Jim & Jim, partners in life, and all-around nice, helpful, and congenial neighbors.

Throughout the movie, Lester is cast in scenes that depict the prison he’s in. We see him behind ‘bars’ as it were, whether they are reflection in his computer at work, or shadows as he’s lying in bed, or standing behind the panes in glass windows, always looking out, longingly, on a world of happiness that continually eludes him. Lester becomes the quintessential prisoner in a life that imprisons nearly all of the characters who are slaves to their own greed, their own prejudices, or their own insecurity. The only ones who are free are Jim & Jim.

As the story unfolds, we see the dark characters in this story yielding to temptations that they believe will give them meaning and purpose. We are reminded again that temptations are only the dark side of our best intentions, short cuts to honest endeavors. The story mirrors life, reflecting the worthy pursuits of happiness, joy, meaning, and purpose which we all try to find, but realizing as in this movie the precarious thin ice on which we find ourselves when we take these tempting short cuts to achieve loftier goals that require a lifetime of integrity.

It is at times a difficult movie to watch. But as a ‘slice of life’ it reminds us of the difficult lives many people are living, and that even those who seem to have it all together are not necessarily happy. If Jesus were to see this movie, he would not censor it but rather see it as a sad story of lives searching for the abundant life. What Jesus would see, I think, is a story of lives striving to be connected, to be loved and accepted, to find meaning but who have missed the mark for one reason or another, some of their own doing and some of fate.

If we turn the camera back a few millennia, we see a slice of the life of the great King David who lusted after the married Bathsheeba, had a sexual liaison with her which resulted in a pregnancy, and to make matters worse, he ordered her military husband to the front line where he would be killed so David could marry the widowed Bathsheeba. The biblical story stands in all its raw earthiness without attempt to gloss over it or moralize it, but letting it stand as part of the larger story of life. And yet, in spite of all of this, David is still revered as Israel’s greatest king whose lineage ultimately yielded Jesus.

In both stories we learn that there are consequences for behaviors that violate the integrity of others and a society. No one is an island; everyone is connected in some way, so every action has its rippling effects on the waters of the social and familial fabric in which we live. It is a lesson difficult to hear because we are intent upon our own obsessions with succeeding and achieving. We also learn that good things happen to people even in their mixed-up, dysfunctional, silly little lives. It is a word of encouragement for the beauty that is ours in spite of the dark side of our souls.

The title of this movie, American Beauty, points to the irony of life. American Beauty, of course, is the name of the red rose given to the new Miss America at her crowning. The rose is a symbol of purity and beauty, or serenity and all that is good in life. Red rose petals play an important role in this film, delineating the dream/fantasy sequences from reality. That which represents life in all its goodness becomes the indicator of behavior that leads one down the wrong track. Fantasy plays a good and vital role in the drama of life, yet fantasy that is pursued and perceived as reality becomes the devil’s playground.

The movie ends on a surprising and sad note. The retired army colonel neighbor, whose blatant homophobia defines his stern macho image, beats his son Ricky terribly and kicks him out of the house when the father wrongfully accuses Ricky of being gay and cavorting with Lester Burnham. And in a most poignant scene at the end of the movie, as rain symbolically drenches the stern army colonel, we see a face of anguish and vulnerability in a man who is usually stern and determined. It is confusing. Obviously distraught, he cautiously approaches Lester Burnham inside the garage. A new, more tender Lester reaches out to him emotionally and physically, to comfort the obviously pained man before him. After a moment’s hesitation the army colonel embraces Lester passionately and kisses him full on the lips. In a moment of revelation, we see for the first time a tender and gentle colonel whose harsh discipline and anger is the result of a deep secret that has fashioned a mask behind which he has hidden all of his life. But because he chose not to live truthfully, he has damaged those closest to him for life, and ultimately to keep his own secret, he is the one who kills Lester.

So what can be said about the viewing value of such a movie? The same that can be said about reading the sordid details of David’s life in the bible. It is best not to moralize in a judgmental way about either story, but to observe each as a slice of life that has merit simply in the observing. Such stories can lead us to thoughts of life’s paradox of pain and beauty, all rolled into one big story. We realize that things aren’t what they always seem in life, our own or anyone else’s. Temptations to take the short cut aren’t intrinsically bad but by yielding to the short cut to avoid the more difficult journey to worthy pursuits we avoid building a foundation that will serve the future. The edifice ultimately topples because it can’t sustain itself for the long haul.

Jesus speaks a word of truth and hope through the words of the now-dead Lester Burnham as the movie pans out to see the street where he has lived: If you think I’m angry about what happened to me, you’d be wrong. There is so much beauty in the world it is hard to take it all in. My heart fills up like a balloon ready to burst. What I’ve learned is to relax and take it all in. I have nothing but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life.

From the Bhagavad-Gita (12.13-17) we hear these words of wisdom:

[The one] who has let go of hatred,
who treats all beings with kindness
and compassion, who is always serene,
unmoved by pain or pleasure,

free of the “I” and “mine,”
self-controlled, firm and patient,
his whole mind focused on me–
that...is the one I love best.

[The one] who neither disturbs
the world nor is disturbed by it,
who is free of all joy, fear, envy–
that...is the one I love best.

[The one] who is pure, impartial,
skilled, unworried, calm,
selfless in all undertakings–
that...is the one I love best.

[The one] who, devoted to me,
is beyond joy and hatred, grief
and desire, good and bad fortune–
that...is the one I love best.

Amen.

–Gary L. McCann

2 Sam 11.1-15
In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king’s men to destroy the enemy. David remained in Jerusalem.

One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a beautiful woman bathing, and David sent someone to find out about her. This is Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah, a member of your army, he was told. David sent a messenger to bring her to see David. She came to him and he slept with her. From this union, Bathsheba conceived and sent word to David to tell him the news.

David then ordered Uriah home on leave, hoping he would be intimate with his wife and the child would be assumed to be his. But Uriah was a loyal soldier and would not leave the palace entrance, and stayed the night with all David’s servants. David invited him three times to go home, and even got him drunk one night, hoping to persuade him. But Uriah was faithful to his mission as soldier and service to David.

Ultimately, David sent word that Uriah should be placed on the front line where the fighting was fiercest so Uriah would be killed in battle. So Uriah was placed at the front line the next day and was killed in the battle. Bathsheba mourned her husband’s death, and after the time of mourning was ended, David then took Bathsheba as his wife and she bore him a son. But the thing David had done displeased God.

Copyright © 2003 by Gary L. McCann. All rights reserved.

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