They toil not, neither do they spin

Why does God try to alleviate fear of destitution with lilies? "Oh, you have no money for clothes? Here are some lilies. They toil not." Of course not, they're lilies. We're men. We must toil. The curse--remember? Perhaps the answer is that lilies are one of those parables in which Jesus speaks, a parable unto themselves. Why this beauty? Why this grace? If you see God when you look at lilies, then you'll be okay. God will provide for your needs.

This makes me remember a Monty Python skit where an effeminate prince begins uncontrollably to break into romantic songs in front of his father--I don't think he was clutching lilies, but he could have been. The father shouts him down and proceeds to arrange the sons marriage in order to gain more land, even though the son doesn't want to get married. Python makes caricatures of them both, probably a contrast between hippies and their parents. And the son is totally ridiculous. Yet hippies did have some legitimate concerns, didn't they? It is essential to maintain a sense of wonder at the world, not just wonder at Heaven to come, but at the world, including flowers.

My own mother is quite a gardener. She loves lilacs best. In fact, tomorrow is her birthday. So, happy birthday, Mom! It would be a better world if their were more people like you, people who gape at scenery and see God in all of it! When we've been on vacations together, Mom will plead to have us stop the car so she can carefully frame a picture. And she frequently has to contort herself or sit in the dirt in order to get in some bit of foreground. She has the sense that God just tossed up the canvas before we rounded the turn and it is contagious.

A movie, a simple story, which has that same quality of God being just behind the set, that numinous quality, is Lilies of the Field, with Sidney Poitier (1963). Poitier plays Homer Smith, a Vietnam veteran, a former sergeant, who's heading to California looking for work. And as he's driving across Arizona, he stops in at a run-down place looking for water for his radiator. He's met by five nuns, one of whom believes Smith has been sent by God to build them and the villagers a chapel. She begins to give him orders and to his own consternation, he begins to follow them. He helps them out and stays a little longer and a little longer until, along with the help of other inspired people, the little chapel is built and then the sergeant goes on his way. And that's it, that's the whole movie. Sorry to spoil it for you. I didn't really though. There are many twists and turns and subtleties. In the book it is said that someone paints a picture of the black sergeant, which hangs in the chapel and a bit of a legend springs up about him in the valley. When people ask what saint he was, the nuns will lower their heads and say that he was not a Catholic, but a good man, a Baptist, who was the contractor of the church. He was just a man who stopped long enough to do something truly wonderful, inspired by the mother superior with her harsh exterior, yet tender faith. You leave the movie with the strong feeling, "If only more things like this would happen. If only more people would just listen to God."

Here also is a story about an ethnically and racially diverse community coming together to build something in the face of economic hardships without the involvement of government. In fact, Obama needs to take some time out to learn from Homer Smith and to learn about this phenomenon of Christian volunteerism. Nothing worthwhile can be built without faith in Christ and His Kingdom. And when that faith is exercised, government does not get bigger. There are truly great needs in America at this time. And most people will look to government to meet them, government being to them the only conceivable center of collective action. But there are still a million ways for those with faith to seize this moment as well. It can be our moment just as easily as theirs to build the Kingdom.

Now, this is a sixties movie. Their are some points where you can see the actors trying to act. It's also paced differently than newer movies, but Poitier's performance makes up for all that. He won an academy award for best actor. And as a whole the movie is just refreshing. I've seen a ton of movies, but few will stick in my mind like this one. It succeeds in being truthful without being preachy, sort of like lilies themselves.

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Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. If then God so clothe the grass, which is to day in the field, and to morrow is cast into the oven; how much more will he clothe you, O ye of little faith? And seek not ye what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, neither be ye of doubtful mind. For all these things do the nations of the world seek after: and your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things. But rather seek ye the kingdom of God; and all these things shall be added unto you (Luke 12:27-31).