My wife and I watched "The Secret Life of Bees" the other night...this is a powerful movie. If you can watch this movie without getting sucked into the story, I might accuse you of not having a soul. (Okay, not really, but I found it wrenching).
The story centers around a young girl played by Dakota Fanning who at the tender age of 3 or 4 kills her mother accidentally with a handgun her mom was planning on using on her father during a fight. The young girl then grows up with a strained relationship with a father who takes his anger from his wife out on her regularly...so she runs away with one of their peach field workers played by Jennifer Hudson, a black woman, during the days of the Civil Rights Act (appox. 1964).
They eventually find themselves at a honey farm run by three women who are also black, but live in a relatively safe confine of 165 acres, away from the sinful, racist world of the time.
What I couldn't get away from is that Dakota Fanning's character, although she lies a lot to survive, seems to genuinely be a nice, strong person...she seems to be polite and stand up for others, and she seems to be craving something. Even though she accidentally killed her mother, lies a lot, and find herself in all sorts of precarious situations...you can't help but like her character.
But the more interesting thing is that her character hates herself. She doesn't know the truth about her mother and father or her mother's death...or at least won't accept it...and she blames it all on herself. She blames her father's behavior on herself, she blames racist actions that happen to her friends on herself, and at one of the most gut-wrenching moments of the movie she shouts out "I'm unlovable!!!"
As a pastor, and someone who tends to have a perfection complex, I can't totally relate to this character, but no how it feels to let someone down. I have hurt people I love, I have upset people in my congregations, and have fallen short of the glory that God intended for us often. But many times I don't realize that the others don't see it this way. I can't count how many times I've preached a sermon, said something stupid, only to be greeted by people telling me how great of a sermon it was. I know that my wife doesn't care about half of the times I've offended her...but in my own heart I feel the guilt. But I keep on expecting perfection in the eyes of others.
John Wesley preached on human perfection, but not as we think about it. As I was watching "The Secret Life of Bees" I thought about his notions of perfection, that it is not in the eyes of others or ourself that we might attain perfection...but in the eyes of God.
What???!!!!
Most would say it's easier to impress your friends or family than God. God has all these rules, all these things you have to live up to...there's NO way to be perfect in the eyes of God...it's even in scripture.
But in Wesley's mindset it is not our actions that make us perfect, but the grace of God through Jesus Christ. Because Jesus has died in our place, and because he has been resurrected to full and new life...so are we. God no longer sees us as the broken people that we are, but God sees us through a lens of love, forgiveness and longing.
It is when we recognize God's view of us as priceless parts of creation and allow God's influence in our lives that we begin to not live into expectations but live into God's grace, which if we're open enough...at certain moments....we can be perfect in.
After the heart-churning moment of a child yelling out "I'm unlovable" in the film, Queen Latifah's character, August, the wise, motherly woman of the group gives us the reassurance we need. "Child, no one is unlovable." And later on states how much love the child has in this safe house.
It's clear to me that our pasts will never leave us, and that the guilt we sometimes feel will be there lingering. But I believe that God, and by extension the Church, ought to be our safe place where we can know that against all our intuitions, that against all common logic, that God loves us as the people we are. That our sins are not held against us, and that God still wants you today and always.
This seems impossible...but in fact, it's perfect.
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