OLD MOVIES
NEW TAKES
INTRODUCTION
The title of my homily for this 3rd Sunday of Easter, Year A, is, “Old Movies, New Takes.”
In many homes there is a shelf or two that holds old
movies. There is also Netflix and the TCM – the Turner Classic Movies channel.
I like old movies – old favorites.
Question: Is that
a sign of old age?
Listening to some younger people who love to go to new
movies – I think not going to movies is a sign of old age. How many times
have we heard old folks say, “The last time I went out to a movie, it was The Sound of Music or The Passion of the Christ or Gone With the Wind.”
And the other person says, “Oh my God, you’re old. You’re
out of touch.”
I was visiting my sister Mary at Easter and I spotted a cabinet
next to the TV with 4 shelves – 4 shelves of old movies. She doesn’t have
cable, so I suggested, “How about watching a movie?” She said, “Good. Pick
one.”
So I had my pick of the liter – and there they were lots of
old John Wayne westerns –as well as Casablanca
– Moonstruck – and The Fugitive.
I said, “Did you ever see The Fugitive with Harrison Ford?”
“Nope,” she said.
So for the 10th time at least, I watched The Fugitive. For the first time she
watched The Fugitive.
Father Joe Krastel loves baseball games on TV. If he’s
not there and I get the clicker, I love to catch old movies – no commercials –
and if he walks in - he often says, “How many times have you seen this movie?”
And I say, “I love to see movies I like, because every
time I watch one, I see something new.”
I do.
Question: How about you?
OWNING A BIBLE
To me the Bible is like that cabinet with its shelves of
old movies.
I used to go to a Jesuit priest, Father Frank Miles, for
Spiritual Direction in my life. I made a
few directed 8 day silent retreats with him – and each day we’d meet for a one to one session of chatting. At the end he’d
give me – as well as each person making the directed retreat – a Bible text or
story – to ponder – and be with – and pray with. The retreat house he was at - was
in Wernersville, Pa. and then he ended up down in the Jesuit Retreat House in Faulkner, Maryland - on the Potomoc River. Both have great green grounds to walk on.
I once asked him out of the blue – how many scripture
stories – did he own? How many scripture stories or texts – were his own?”
And he paused and thought about my question and then
said, “Oh! …. Maybe about 75.”
He didn’t ask me, “How many do you own?”
In time I asked myself that question and my answer today
would be, “Oh! …. About 40.”
Question: how many old scripture texts and stories do you
own?
By this Bible question, I'm asking, how many scripture texts and stories - do you have written within yourself - you might not go by chapter and verse - but you go by the theme - the message - like you find yourself saying about one of your kids, "Father, forgive her because she doesn't know what she's doing!" Or, "Relax, some people get into the vineyard the last hour."
By this Bible question, I'm asking, how many scripture texts and stories - do you have written within yourself - you might not go by chapter and verse - but you go by the theme - the message - like you find yourself saying about one of your kids, "Father, forgive her because she doesn't know what she's doing!" Or, "Relax, some people get into the vineyard the last hour."
Question: how many old movies do you own?
By this movie question, I’m asking, how many movies do
you know the plot so well - that it’s part of your life? How many movies do you
think about from time to time – without watching them on a screen – but they
are re-reruns in your mind – and someone says something or something clicks –
and on goes the movie or a key scene or line from the movie in your mind.
If you watch NCIS – you know that the character, Anthony DiNozzo, is doing this over and over and over again. He
frames what happens to him and others – with scenes and lines from movies he has seen.
So once more the question: what movies – what scenes from
what movies – do you watch over and over and over again in your mind?
I often think of
the movie Mr. Holland’s Opus - starring Richard Dreyfus – as Glenn
Holland. How many of us think – we could be somewhere else – doing the real
thing – that we want to be doing – but in the meanwhile here we are right here,
right now, doing what we’re doing in the everyday of our life – and sometimes
we feel an “uh”- that is, a feeling of the uneasy – when it comes to life’s duties. Surprise, Mr. Holland
discovers: "This was my life! My life work was teaching high school music. This was my opus. It was a lowly job compared to being a football coach. It was a job I took in the meanwhile - while always hoping to write a great symphony - yet teaching music to all these kids for all these years: that was my life. That is my meaning."
How many people are like Marlon Brando, playing the part
of Terry Malloy, in the movie, On The Waterfront?
And we find ourselves saying in our own words, his words to others in our
life: “You don’t understand. I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I
coulda been somebody instead of a bum, which is what I am.” It’s some of the same feelings of Mr.
Holland.
How many people get through the day, because like Ingrid
Bergman and Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca,
“We always have Paris.” And they play that line, that scene over and over
again. “Play it. Sam. Play, ‘As Time Goes By.’”
People own Bibles. They are on some shelf in their home.
But we have to take it off the shelf – hear the readings at Mass – watch the
movie – over and over again.
If you get this, you get what I mean by owning not the
whole Bible, but certain stories and texts from the Bible.
LIKE TODAY’S
GOSPEL
Today’s gospel, the story of the disciples, on their way
from Jerusalem to Emmaus – a seven mile walk – is a movie, a story, that is
worth knowing and owning.
It’s the story of every Christian – it’s the story of
every person.
We need time – distance – talking to strangers, talking to each other, talking and walking
with ourselves, breaking bread, living lots of life, so as to figure out from a distance – so as to
get in touch with what really happened in the here and now of our life.
And in that walking, and in that talking, and in that
questioning, they and we can discover
Jesus – a stranger – walking, talking and listening to us, someone, whom we finally realize, “He is the Lord.”
I remember giving a high school retreat once and the kids
called one of the nuns in their school, “Sister Mary Emmaus.” That wasn’t really her name, but she referred
to the Emmaus story, so many times, like every other day, that the kids called
her that. That nun owned the Emmaus story.
It was her movie.
WEDDINGS, WAKES
AND FUNERALS
As priest, I get to a lot of weddings, wakes and
funerals.
I like to ask about the deceased, “Did they have a
favorite Bible text?”
I like it that families are asked to pick the readings
for a funeral – because they try to match scripture texts to a person’s life –
or to what they think people will be thinking and praying about at the funeral.
Couples about to be married are asked to do the same
thing. For the second reading, they often pick, Paul’s words from First Corinthians,
“Love is patient, love is kind, love is not inflated, etc. etc. etc. Love never
ends.” But not always. I’ve noticed
changes in these readings. They answer
favorite movie with more ease and answers that favorite Bible text.
At weddings, wakes, funerals, and baptisms, I see people
living out the Emmaus Gospel text. Luke’s story is pointing out that it takes
distance – to really see.
And so on a wedding day, or a funeral or a baptism, sometimes it’s a very clear day and people can see forever. At the baptism of a new baby, it’s the grandparents and great grandparents whom I assume are seeing the most, because they have lived the most. They sit there looking at the whole scene and the whole scene makes sense. They sit there looking at the movie of their life – their parents – and being parents themselves – seeing their life going on in their kids – and it all makes sense.
They sit there and they are feeling the same words we
heard in today’s gospel, “Their hearts were burning within” as they were
watching the scene in front of them – and the movies of their lives going on
within them.
So too the parents and grandparents at every wedding.
There is no popcorn in church – but there are tears and tissues – as people
watch re-runs of the lives of the couple being married.
So too funerals – at the wake – and at the funeral – with the eulogy - and at the grave – and in the days that follow.
Isn’t that why we have the slide shows now at funerals –
along with pictures of the person who died on tables around the room?
CONCLUSION
The title of my homily is, “Old Movies, New Takes.”
In the Emmaus story, Jesus the stranger shows the two
disciples scenes from the whole Bible – and the two disciples begin to see –
not only who Jesus really was, but who they really are – and they recognize
Jesus in the breaking of the bread – and they have to run back to Jerusalem to
share what they experienced with the community they had been with – whom they
had walked away from.
A good movie, a good story, has to be experienced over
and over and over again – and with each watching – we get new takes and retakes
on our life, each other’s lives and the life of Jesus within us. Amen.
