There’s a surprising New Year’s Eve message in the movie, Bruce Almighty. Jim Carey plays news reporter, Bruce Nolen, who complains – like so many people – that God is unfair, that his life is crappy and meaningless, and that he could do a better job running the world than God does. God, played by Morgan Freeman, takes Nolen up on his challenge by giving him all the power he needs and then waits and watches to see how he uses it.
For a while, Nolen wastes his newly-bestowed powers on himself – parting soup in his bowl like Moses at the Red Sea, creating news scoops for himself, and making his competitor talk absolute gibberish while delivering the nightly news report. Gradually, however, Nolen’s self-centred world descends into chaos and he confesses to God that things are not going well. “I can’t get people to love me of their own free will,” Nolen laments. “Welcome to my world,” God replies.
Nolen gradually begins to understand that seeking to use one’s blessings and opportunities only for oneself leads not to, but away from, true happiness. So Nolen begins again, only to this time end up being killed in a car accident. But God meets him in the afterlife and listens to a prayer in which Nolen finally asks only for things which benefit others, especially the girl he had loved. “Now that’s a prayer!” God replies, and sends Bruce back to earth for a second chance; this time to serve others, which in the end brings with it a sense of fulfilment he had not known before.
It’s a great story and it has a special meaning for us on New Year’s Eve. Firstly, with respect to personal responsibility. Sooner or later most of us realise that egotistic, self-centred living, though it may bring short-term pleasure, in the end leads to deep alienation and even despair. And at the end of another year, if we are honest, we have to admit that, like Bruce, we have often used the enormous blessings and powers we have been given in trivial and self-serving ways. We have missed many God-given opportunities to serve our neighbours, and to be peacemakers, and to show compassion, and do justice and, yes, even to forgive those who sin against us. To such unfruitfulness, the parable of the unfruitful fig tree speaks severe judgement: “Chop it down! Why waste good ground with it any longer?”
This parable is first and foremost a warning intended to induce repentance. It is to wake us up from the slumber of our self-centredness and to make us realise that though we live in a time of God’s grace, there will be a time when grace will run out. And God forbid that we be found fruitless when that time comes.
At the same time, it is also a reminder that there is still time for all of us, that each and everyone of us still lives in the time of God’s favour, and that even in the midst of judgement God’s grace continues to shine through. Thus the vinedresser of the parable pleads with the owner: “Sir, let [the tree] alone this year also, until I dig around it and fertilise it. And if it bears fruit, well and good. But if not, after that you can cut it down.”
This is the other thing that the movie Bruce Almighty teaches us; namely dealing with our God-given opportunities while there is still time. For God wants all the “Bruce Almighties” of the world to know that the love which was born in humility in straw and stable continues to seek and find its way in the commonplaces and common relationships of our world, and he wants you and I to be a part of that.
In Lima, the capital of Peru, there are two classes of people – the very rich and the dirt poor. The Lutheran Church had started a mission among the poor in the bariados (or slums), and a certain LCA pastor was invited, along with many others from around the world, to witness the work that has been done there.
When the LCA pastor arrived there in 1995 they had just finished a new church building – a square box made out of besser blocks, no bigger than a standard church hall kitchen, with a tin roof. The locals were very proud of the fact that they had raised the money and built it themselves. While the international guests were being shown the sanctuary, the LCA pastor smelled food cooking from a back room. They were all ushered into a kitchen built on the back of the church, where huge pots of soup were cooking. The LCA pastor asked what the food was for, and these beautiful people, who had next-to-nothing themselves, said that they were cooking food of the poor of the neighbourhood to eat. The pastor remembers feeling very small and very humble as he thought about how often he had complained (to God and to others) how hard up he was as a poor pastor. He abruptly realised that these people were not poor at all, but very rich.
So as we stand on the cusp of another year, the lessons Bruce Nolen learned in the movie through the school of hard knocks teach us as well that we don’t have to be wealthy to be generous, that we don’t have to have our own needs met before we can meet those of others, and that it is often through our own sacrifices and sufferings that other people are blessed. And we are reminded that we are the fig tree in the parable, and that on the cross Jesus met all our needs by becoming sin for us, and being cast out of the Vineyard for us, and being relegated to the dump to become the garbage and the compost, the offal and the manure for our ongoing cultivation and growth.
And even now he continues to dig around the roots of our being, fertilising our hearts, cutting off the dead branches and pruning the live ones so that we will produce even more fruit. “As the Father loves me so I love you,” Jesus says. Therefore, “Abide in my love.” As long as we remain in him and he is us, we shall always bear good fruit. As you step across the threshold into 2024, may you live your moments and your days, your years and your lives, in the abiding love of Jesus.
And remember that somewhere there is a parent, a spouse, a child, a friend, a colleague – or perhaps someone completely unknown to us – who waits for a word of hope, a word of forgiveness, an act of concern or kindness from us. No matter that some of them have made their bed and are now lying in it. No matter that some have deceived donors about their desperation. As the saying goes: “There but for the grace of God go I.” The continually surprising thing is that God’s love at Christmas has claimed each of us despite our failures this past year, and that that very love has once again caught us and blessed us and empowered us to make new beginnings for another new year.
And so let us begin again, by the grace of our merciful God, so that we may be blessed to be a blessing for another new year. In the name of Jesus. Amen.
