Have you seen this movie? Here's a quick synopsis:
Nicole Kidman is Grace, an emphatically religious woman, devoted to her two creepy children, who appear to be afflicted with a severe sensitivity to light, so much so that they can not handle anything more than candlelight. They live in a huge, cavernous Victorian mansion off the coast of England, and every door must be closed and locked before the next can be opened, in order to prevent any light from leaking into a room where her children may be. Grace's husband is off fighting the war (WWII). Out of nowhere enter three domestic servants, apparently arriving to replace the previous three domestic servants who have abruptly and mysteriously disappeared one week earlier. Grace and her kids (mostly the daughter) start hearing weird noises that seem to indicate the presence of others in the house.
[from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0230600/]
You get the idea. As this movie goes on, there is a very clear distinction between Grace and her family and "the others" that are intruding on their home. ***Spoiler warning*** if you haven't seen the movie, and want to be surprised, PLEASE don't read the rest***
Seriously - you won't hurt my feelings...
You sure? Okay, but don't say I didn't warn you...
As the movie goes on, it becomes clear to Grace and all of her family that they are seeing are ghosts. (Scary, creepy, you know the kind.) However, you eventually find out that the "ghosts" they are seeing are the "real" people - Grace and her family have, in fact died, and THEY are ghosts.
I'm writing about this today because I heard a devotion recently that made me think of this movie. Rob Bell (
Mars Hill) is going through the book of Philippians, and I am listening to it on my iPod. He is in chapter 2, and said they intend to finish sometime right after the Winter Olympics. :)
Anyway, in chapter two, Paul tells the church:
Philippians 2:3-4 (King James Version)
3Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than themselves.
4Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others
As Rob was defining the word "others", he explained that it literally meant "the others" (shocking, eh?). What caught me, and what he was emphasizing, is that Paul was exhorting the Philippians to minister to the "them", not the "us" in the "us and them". He says it much better than I, but often when I think of "esteeming others better than myself", I think of that in terms of the church, and the people that I enjoy being around, have common interests with, and who I naturally would gravitate towards. Paul seems to be saying just the opposite. Rob says it this way:
"...The strange, the different, the unintelligible...do any of you know somebody who fits that first category? Strange? Do you have somebody who, when you hear 'the strange', you think: They have a name. The Different: Yup. Three cubicles down, look up different in the dictionary, there they are. The unintelligible: Man, there is this person in my life - I don't understand why they do what they do - they drive me barking mad...'
...'The subject aspect of my neighbor...' Do you know what 'subject aspect' is? My world is objective. We're all terribly objective, aren't we? We know how the world is supposed to work. You do A, then you do B, then you don't do D, you do C - it's very clear, I've laid it out ahead of time, see page three of my book! That's how we operate, correct? We know how the world is supposed to work. But THIS person - this person in cubicle 9 - this person - the parent of THAT kid - they don't know how I've set things up to operate. They don't function objectively the way the universe is supposed to go. They keep messing up my world. It's driving me insane. That is the 'subjective aspect of my neighbor' - anybody know what I'm talking about? They don't fit into how the world is supposed to work...
...The strange, the unintelligible, the different, the subjective aspect of my neighbor is the garment in which the 'one thing' meets me. The 'one thing' he is referring to is God's grace. Here's what he says: You want to understand God's love? Do you want to understand God's grace? Do you want to understand - truly understand - what it means for God to have enveloped you in God's grace, peace, forgiveness, hope & light? Orient yourself around the strange, the different, the unintelligible, the co-worker, the embarrassing relative, the person who absolutely sends you out of your gourd - circle around them, and in your frustration of pain of trying to serve and love them well, you will be face to face with what it means for God to have embraced and loved you in all of your strangeness, difference, and unintelligibility. Are you with me...
That person who MOST gets under your skin, they may in fact be the garment of God's grace that is coming to you to bring you more fully into the love of God. If I could actually learn to even take one step to circle the interests of that person, it would be a step into understanding more fully what it means for God to love and accept me. If I could learn to NOT hold THEIR PAST against them, maybe in not always holding them accountable for their past, maybe I would come to understand what it means for God to not hold my past against me. Maybe, if I could take one lap around them with all of their flaws, I would better understand the God who embraces and loves me in spite of all of my flaws.
The Other" - the one in your midst who most rubs you the wrong way, The Strange, The Different, The Unintelligible, the Subjective One who doesn't fit into how you think the world should operate - may in fact be the grace of God coming to you, saying, "I drive you nuts! and I am an invitation for you to understand the trinitarian nature of the universe all the more fully, my friend."
We discover respect for each other, not on this ground or that...Paul is not saying, "Respect somebody because of how good they are"..."find your peers"...not on this ground or that, but perhaps without ANY grounds, counter to every ground, there is no reason for me to actually go out of the way to love this person. COUNTER to every ground, simply because we are bidden when looking at our neighbor to think of the ONE THING - of grace.
It is the most frustrating, maddening dimension of this person that is God's invitation to enter more fully into the grace and peace that God has extended to me...
The claim my neighbor makes on me - on my patience [is he preaching yet?], on my attention [OH, not again!], on my consideration ["I would prefer to ignore this"], on my love - is the claim of the ONE THING. The degree to which this person draws out of me and demands things of me that absolutely infuriate me, may in fact be the claim of the "one thing", it may be God's grace."
I had to listen to this entire thing twice to even begin to grasp the significance of what he is saying here. We are not the "us" - in fact, to God, we are The Other. He extended His grace to us even when we were completely unaware, intentionally ignorant, and frighteningly antagonistic towards Him and His love. He entered our lives instead, in spite of, because of, all of our sin, in order to draw us close to Him.
So when I point a finger at "them", I SHOULD be reminded of myself. When, I choose to follow Him, and love those who irritate the crap out of me, I am seeing God Himself at work, and understanding more fully His love for me, as well as His love for "the world".
So, I'm not living with all these "dead people" intruding into my life - messing up my world. In reality, I am the ghost that is messing up other people's lives - most of all Jesus Christ's.
That's humbling.
Sorry for the long post. I don't know if I have explained the concept very well, and I'm sure I can't articulate the impact that this has made on me. But I hope it will give you something to think about, and if you want to hear Rob's whole message, you can
download it here. It is the teaching called "Others."
