Free Lemonade Stand: God's Crazy Love Film Festival

The Gospel for Sunday in many churches is a festival of shorts, little vignettes that feature crazy people. Luke wrote the screenplay from a story told by Jesus when he was asked by some holy rollers why he hung out with riffraff. They figured, you see, that he ought to hang out with holy people, being as he was saying he was the Son of God and all. So he kind of smiles at them, and he starts telling stories, in hopes that they’ll understand why he cares about imperfect people, people with flaws – like us.

First he tells the story of a mad shepherd. He counts his sheep and realizes that one is missing. A shepherd in his right mind would keep his eyes open, not to lose any more. He might consider what price he will get for the 99, maybe fatten them up a bit more and raise the price to cut his losses for the one that got lost in the process. But noooooo, not this guy

. He leaves all that he has felt and goes off into the darkness to find the one that is lost. He risks everything. The first film comes to a close fading to black as the vision of the shepherd leaves the light if the fire behind, and walks into the night.

The second story is a single scene, a mad woman outside her door, laughing until tears stream down her face, dancing like a kid on her old knobby legs, stopping people to tell them. My coin! My coin! When they come up, she stops dancing, looks into their faces, into their eyes, her eyebrows raised so high that her forehead is like the furrow of a field, her smile so broad that she has a hard time pronouncing the m that starts her simple two word phrase. The passers-by pull themselves away from her and step quickly out of her reach, but their walk is slowed as they look back, wondering what has gotten into her. They begin to accumulate into a kind of huddle, quietly but animatedly asking each other what’s happened with the woman. One woman, her next door neighbor, tells them that she had seen her earlier in the day, distraught over a coin that she had lost in the house. It was just a dime, or maybe a quarter, but she was putting all of her furniture outside and turning the place upside down looking for it. The neighbor had just shaken her head and gone about her own business. All that for a dime, or maybe a quarter. The film comes to a close panning out until the whole town is in the frame, until in the center is a tiny, dancing figure with passers-by walking wide around her, slowing to look at her from a safe distance, and joining the little gaggle of people just beyond her, then learning the story and continuing on their way.

The third story opens with an old man walking uphill with a kind of strained joy on his face, looking up as if he might miss it, whatever it was. You get the idea that he is eager to get to wherever he is going up there, and you begin to realize that his old legs are really working hard, driven by whatever he is anticipating. You begin to wonder if he’s going to make it. He finally gets to the top of a hill and breathes a sigh of relief that you realize creates in you an involuntary cleansing breath – that deep breath your lungs do for you every few minutes. At the top, his face is turned softly golden as the setting sun begins to slip diagonally into the darkening plain to the west. As his face changes almost imperceptibly from golden to earthy ochre to dusky shadow, the anticipation on his face turns from hope to patience to disappointment. In near darkness, a hand grabs the crook of his elbow from behind and pulls him around. A male figure, younger in body movement but unrecognizable in the darkness, hustles him brusquely back down the path, muttering words that you cannot decipher, except for one, because it’s spoken again and again. Crazy”.

You’re waiting for this movie to end like the others, to leave you wondering what the heck it’s about. But this time the fade to black is followed by a fade in to the next morning, the old man being fed breakfast by the younger one, the one whose voice you recognize as the one pulling him down the hill the night before. This morning he is not calling him crazy, but as the camera begins to move to a close-up of him as he cooks, we learn the story that unfolds, of his foolish walks every evening to the top of that hill to look for a sign of that foolish brother, the one who is not her taking care of him and helping him run the farm, the one who demanded his inheritance before the old man died, who shamed the old man in the eyes of the people of the village, and left him with only this other son to care for him in his shame and keep the business going. In the lower left corner of the scene is the placid face of the old man, eating his breakfast in silence as his son goes on in his complaint.

A flashback introduces the younger son, smiles exchanged between himself and the old man, an affection that you can feel in your chest. And just as the bond seems to be reaching its fullness, the young one takes advantage of the old man’s love. “Give me my inheritance now, while I am young and can enjoy myself.” You remember the taste of salt on the corners of your mouth as you see the old man weep, watching his son walk off, down the hill that they had climbed together, his son and half his heart.

It is only a few moments into scene four when you realize that it seems like a repeat of scene one, the old man walking up the hill. But you notice that the figs are in full fruit, the path worn now, and worn now too his face. As you watch for additional subtle changes, you notice his face begin to change there at the top, his eyes come out of the fog of his dream and begin to focus, his face begin to sharpen and his worn body come to attention. The camera pans to the trail in the distance, then back to the old man as he begins to run recklessly down the hill; the camera remains as he becomes smaller on the path, and you notice from the distance that there is another figure approaching him, coming slowly up from the west. As the two figures approach each other, the camera zooms in, with the setting sun creating sun creating a proscenium arch, a stage for the closing scene. The silhouette of the old man stops for a moment, the one of the stranger on the path falling to his knees, his head bowing in shame and humility. The old man reaches down to the kneeling one, and as the sun sets, we discover that it is the young son, stinking and thin and in rags. The old man, the crazy old man, is beaming with joy. Tears cut shiny trails on their dusty cheeks.

The lost sheep. The lost coin. The lost kid. All so precious to the shepherd, the woman, the old man that they cared about nothing else. God’s mad love defies our sense of limits. God’s mad math lets God be fully in love with us, with each of us, every moment. The God in whom we dare to hope comes after you in the dark, and after me too; She turns the whole world upside down to excavate us, and climbs the hill every night watching for us, to meet us on our way, before we lose heart and turn back.

Forget about complex theology. It’s simple. Kathy reminds me of this again and again, by example and. occasionally, by word. “Six words. It’s just about love, that’s all.” But for those of us who don’t quite get it, there are these great stories.

Image: Rodin?