AT CHRIST CHURCH we are in our "Summer mode" with services every other week, in the evening. Here is a summary of Bishop Catherine's sermon, and an invitation to those of our readers who are able to take advantage of it. If you're not able to come in person, why not try to find the movies Bishop Catherine mentions, and watch them yourself.
As most of you know, I usually preach from the Gospel but our last Eucharist was on the 14th of July, the Independence Day of France, which was at that moment suspended between two elections, with great anxiety about the possible success of the far right pending.
The United States, France’s older sibling in independence, celebrated the 4th of July just ten days before with a similar level of turmoil and anxiety about our 81 year old president’s running for re-election in November and its relation to the rise of the far right in the U.S as well.
A lot was hanging in the balance for both countries. The text of the first lesson, from the Book of the Prophet Amos (7:7-15) seemed to me to be spot on, with Amos’s vision of the plumb line and words of God through the mouth of the prophet: “See, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel.” A plumb line. A simple weight on a cord to measure the verticality and centeredness of a building to see if it will stand. According to Amos, God found Israel wanting when measured against that plumb line and prophesied the fall of Israel.
I couldn’t help thinking, “Where is our plumb line?” For us as individual Christians our plumb line is Christ. But collectively, culturally, and in diverse societies like France and the U.S. where our belief systems are of many faiths and our expressions of Christianity range from the extremes of Christian Nationalism to absolute secularism, what is the plumb line that can speak to modern culture?
It’s movies. Not every movie, to be sure! But those that speak to our souls.
I first became aware of this in the late nineties, a time when people were leaving churches in droves, with the release of “American Beauty”, directed by Sam Mendes and written by Alan Ball, which generated an ongoing conversation about its imagery and meaning, especially, but not only, in relation to the main character who believed in God and who was a recorder of life and beauty through the use of a camera, but also sold drugs to support himself. That film and those conversations were in essence theological, although I don’t think a single person I read used that word. Clearly the Holy Spirit can reach people anywhere!
But movies do not stop at theoretical theological discussions. Movies can hold us accountable, not just as individuals but as societies with the plumb line of their visual narratives, whether fiction or non-fiction.
On my return to France a few weeks ago, I watched two movies on the airplane that I would describe as “Plumb Line Movies”, and I saw a another one before that when I was in New York.
We would like to share those movies with you on Tuesday evenings at 5:00 p.m./17h beginning on July 30th. All three movies are less than two hours, which leaves us some time for a little refreshment and conversation afterwards.
Lee and Laurie Williams have kindly opened their home to us for the first movie, which is “One Life”, starring Anthony Hopkins as the real-life Nicky Winton, knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2003 as Sir Nicholas George Winton for “services to humanity, in saving Jewish children from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia”. Nicky was a dedicated and humble man, whose story remained unknown for 50 years. How it came to light is part of the movie, so let me not be a spoiler!
The second is “La Nouvelle Femme”, the personal and professional story of Maria Montessori, the doctor and educator at the turn of the 20th century, whose work and philosophy is still alive in the Montessori schools that exist today.
The third is “Thelma”, a fictional action movie in which the heroine is a 93 year old woman. This is the lightest and funniest of the three movies, but it is also moving and has a plumb line punch to it.
If you would like to attend one or more of these, please reply to this email (bpcatherinecccf@gmail.com) and I will share the address and parking opportunities for attendance. (It also helps in arranging for refreshments.)
In the meantime, God bless your day and may we recognize the plumb lines God sends us by his grace!
Blessings,
+Catherine
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