Voices In My Head Podcast Episode 314: Calvary Movie Reflection

This is Rick Lee James, and the music you are hearing is from my new album, Thunder. The title track, Thunder, is a never-before-released song by the late Rich Mullins. There are also 12 other tracks made up of original music, hymns, and readings to guide the listener on a journey. You can buy Thunder today on clear vinyl and CD, or stream it on Spotify, Apple Music, and almost every other music streaming service. Thunder. Hear it today at rickleejames.com. Welcome to Voices in My Head, the official podcast of me, Rick Lee James. I'm a recording artist, a singer, a songwriter, an author, a worship leader, and an ordained minister in the Church of the Nazarene. The Voices in My Head podcast is where I discuss music, movies, books, pop culture, theology, and more with friends, colleagues, and sometimes just by myself. Now make sure to let me know what you think of today's episode by leaving me a review on iTunes or by tweeting at me @RickLeeJames on Twitter. And please join my mailing list at RickLeeJames.com where you can receive an email every time a new episode is released. By the way, in case you're interested in a daily dose of kindness and encouragement beyond this podcast, podcast, I also run the Twitter account @MrRogersSay where I post daily quotes from Fred Rogers, one of the voices in my head. Well, I guess that's it for the intro, so sit back, relax, and listen to the latest episode of Voices in My Head.

Welcome back to Voices in My Head. As always, I am your host Rick Lee James, and I'm very glad that you could join me here today on this very special episode. This is gonna be not an interview show and not a show where I talk to another person at all today. It's actually just going to be me, a little bit more free-flowing than I usually like to be. But this is Holy Week at the time of recording this, and I was trying to think about what I wanted to record this week on the podcast, and I thought, well, maybe I could get another interview. And I do have a few people lined up that I would like to interview on the show again. But Holy Week is a very special time of reflection for me, and I think for most Christians. And as I tried to think about what this week means, there's something that I come back to year after year. I'm a person of ritual, and I tend to do things over and over again. Maybe it's something about my sacramental nature of doing things again and again and coming back to things again. The one thing that I always try to do at some point during Holy Week, ever since I first saw in 2014 the film Calvary, is to go back and rewatch the movie Calvary. And I'm going to tell you why in just a few moments here. I'm going to give you some reflections on what is possibly my, my favorite movie of all time. So I'm going to get into some spoilers today about the movie Calvary. I know that when you listen to podcasts, often you're listening to them after Easter, so I didn't want to make this specifically about Holy Week and Easter alone. But I got thinking yesterday when I was at church on Palm Sunday and we were thinking about atonement and what the atonement means and how different denominations and even several different branches within the same denomination sometimes, we hold these different views of what atonement means and things that had to happen in order for atonement to happen. Often we talk about it like it is a long thought-out plan that God had in mind and every single detail had to play out in one way. That is certainly one way that people look at what atonement is and why atonement had to happen in a certain way. But one reason I wanted to talk a little bit about the film Calvary and why I tend to come back to it year after year personally is that it is a film that makes me rethink ideas that I have had in my life for a long time. It makes me rethink things and start to question things, and it helps me to grow and maybe to even have some new insights into things like death and resurrection and what does afterlife mean and what does it mean to live as Jesus here on earth. And all the things that we try to think about during Holy Week when we take this journey with Jesus as believers and as we try to walk the road with Jesus and what it must mean to triumphantly enter the city with him on Palm Sunday, but then so quickly, in a matter of 5 days, to have the people who were shouting "Hosanna!" to be shouting "Crucify him!" There's so much about humanity and so much about who we are and the way that, just as we talked about last week with Rabbi Kosberg, the way that we have such a capacity for good and we also have such a capacity for evil. And as Christians, we believe it is Jesus and the Holy Spirit who is changing our hearts, and God speaking to us through that Holy Spirit, revealing to us who he is in Jesus, that helps us to overcome and helps us to be faithful people. But in the midst of being faithful people, we are a people who desperately struggle. And so I'm just going to get into my, my thoughts about this film Calgary. Again, if you haven't seen the film, I want to warn you first of all, it is a startling film. It's a challenging film. It's, uh, in some ways, if you aren't used to a film like this— and I don't think any of us are because it is a, it's a very unique film It's one that is a moral assault in some ways, and you feel like you're— you really can be uncomfortable at times. And yet it all has this purpose behind it. None of it is, like, salacious. None of it is meant to titillate in any way. It's not a film that is trying to drive you to your baser instincts, even though it portrays some of those baser things on film. It's actually a film that is reminding you of our great need to come out of those things and the way that sin actually destroys the world and it destroys us and the way that redemption happens. And so it's also a wonderful film to me in the sense that it doesn't necessarily provide you with any answers, but it makes you ask really, really good questions and it makes you think deeply. When I first saw this film, which by the way, it came out in 2014, I was doing music at a revival with my friend, Brandon Hancock, friend of this show who's been on before. We've been playing music together for many, many years whenever we have the chance. He's played in my band a few times. He's just a great guy and a brilliant theologian. He works at Wesley Seminary at Indiana Wesleyan University. We went to see this film in the afternoon before we had to go and lead music at a service later that evening. And as we saw this film, and it maybe was a mistake, because all throughout the evening service when the preacher was speaking after we had finished playing music, all I could think about was this film. And if any of you know Brandon Hancock at all, you know He's a talker, and he really has lots of good things to say when he does talk. But both of us, when we watched this film, we were kind of driven to silence as we walked out of this little art theater in Dayton, Ohio, where we watched it together. And we walked across the street, and we just didn't say much. We grabbed a bite to eat, and then we went off to church. And we talked a little bit about it, but I don't think either of us knew what to say. And everyone who's seen this film, I think that is their reaction. There are people who are repulsed by it. There are people who are challenged by it. There are people who are inspired by it. But I don't think any of us know that we are any of those things on first viewing. It's one of those unique films that is so challenging that here I am years later, 5 years later from the time of seeing it,— and I still am thinking new things about it. I love that about this film, and I think it's one of the most deep theological reflections that I've ever seen put up on a screen. So it's not going to be everybody's thing. It is an R-rated movie, and I don't want just anybody to go out and see it. Don't take this as like, "Well, you know, that I have to go see this now because Rick finds it to be something that is helpful. You don't have to see this film, and I understand some people won't want to see it, and you definitely don't want to see it with your children in the room. But for me, it has been a very meaningful part of my journey, and I want to talk to you about why that is today. So let me just do some reflections about the film. It's made by, by John Michael McDonough and It is, to me, a parable-like story. It challenges all of us to reflect on questions that are not about just one aspect of our lives, but it really asks us questions about all of our lives, uh, every aspect of our life. It's a film that talks about God and love and the church and the world sin and redemption and right and wrong and life and death. And I know it's one of my very favorite films of the last 10 years. It might be my favorite film of all time. Just me personally. The premise of the film really goes like this. It's a movie about a good priest in a remote Irish community in a terrible village. Probably the worst village in Ireland. Maybe the worst village in the entire world. World, just as you meet the characters there. This community, as happens even in the first scene of the movie, this is the kind of tone setting for the film. Father James, who is our protagonist, he is in a confession booth, and the man that comes in to confess to him tells him some very startling information about, first of all, that he's going to kill him in 7 days. He's gonna kill Father James. So he's got 7 days to get his affairs in order. And he also tells Father James a terribly difficult story about being molested by a priest again and again and again as he was a child, and the pain that it caused him and the hurt. And he tells Father James that he knows he is a good priest and that he is not one of these men who does these things. In fact, it's because Father James is a good priest that he decides he's going to murder him. Because this antagonist, who we do not know who he is until the film ends—we are left guessing and trying to solve this mystery about who this man is that says he's going to kill Father James. He has been terribly wounded and terribly hurt and is in fact a person who does not physically but metaphorically wears a mask throughout the entire film. He is being a person who he is really not on the inside. And he is so wounded by what this terrible priest has done to him as a child child. And he is so wounded not only by that, but by the way that it seems like the world and the church even has done nothing to set this right. That he is a survivor, but he doesn't want to survive because of the way that he has been so harmed and so sinned against. And so right from the start of the film You understand this is not going to be an easy movie to talk about. It's not going to be an easy movie to watch. And so, just thinking about it today even, it gives me chills. This father, Father James, in the next 7 days, he has so many decisions to make. He is serving at a parish that I think it's safe to say every single person who is in this parish, in this very small village, they have lost their faith long ago. And yet they are still his parishioners. We see them in the beginning receiving the sacrament and coming together, each of them as people in need of the sacrament. And yet we just see in their lives they are not people of faith. They're some of the most troubling, even terrifying people in some ways, because of how awful they are to each other, how awful they are to Father James. And yet Father James is doing his best to be a faithful minister in the community, and he's not a pushover. They do terrible things to him, and he speaks righteous words back at them, and he lives out righteous actions. There's times that he gets frustrated. There's very human sides of him. And so Calvary deals with a moral cynicism that I think has overcome us in many ways in our society, and it deals with the troubled lives of people in communities and in churches and what salvation means in a corrupt and wicked world like ours. And as a pastor and someone who works in a church, it really challenges me because this is, this is the world we live in. I mean, we want to gloss things over, but we really do have people in some, some, uh, some bad places that our call is to bring a light of redemption to. And yet, like Father James, none of us are safe in doing this. So Father James has to confront in these next 7 days, what am I going to do? Am I going to stay? Am I going to just keep doing what I have been doing and minister as faithfully as I can to this faithless community of people and to hold out the gospel as well as I possibly can while they continue to cheat and to lie and to steal and to kill and to do all the things that— just every deadly sin. Their greed, their lust, their gluttony, all of it is there in this film. Sexual immorality, everything is there. And I think each character is supposed to represent a different deadly sin as I think about it. So, we have this good man that has become a priest, Father James, after his wife's tragic death. His daughter has attempted suicide. And even though he is far from a perfect man, he inherently hopes for the best for everyone and he seeks— really, he is, I think, holding out forgiveness for all of them in this community and calling all of them to repentance. So terrible things happen to Father James in this film. Okay? The worst thing is not the thing that happens at the very beginning. Before the film happens, as I already said, his wife has died. His daughter has tried to kill herself, maybe more than once. I don't think we're ever told exactly how many times it's happened. During the film, his dog, who really is his only companion in the film, is killed. Is really very brutally murdered. We never really find out what happens to this dog. Is murder something you can say that happens to a dog? It's killed. And the community turns on him out of frustration with the unhappiness of their own lives. And it seems like every single parishioner in this film just unloads on Father James. This whole movie he is tested There's even a point in the film where he briefly lapses into drinking and starts to— I think he's considering just falling away. But he ultimately does remain true to his Maker, and in the end he gets back in his right mind. There's a point where he decides he's going to get a gun, that if he stays he's going to meet this guy who's threatened his life. Where he says he's gonna meet him at on Sunday morning, and maybe he'll fight back. Is he gonna get a gun? Is he gonna go after this guy? Is he gonna be the first to strike? Is he just going to leave? Is that the easiest thing to do? To just forget his vocation and his calling where he is and let safety dictate what he should do? There's a point he almost gets on a plane in the film. He nearly does. He nearly leaves. But he just can't leave. He comes back. Or is he going to just meet the man and to the very end carry out grace and hold out a call to repentance and a call to not only repentance but a call to healing and to help? There are so many things in this film that I want to mention and things that just come to mind, and the way that I'm doing it today, it's sort of a stream of consciousness. I probably won't think of all of them, but something I was thinking about this weekend— the word Calvary itself, probably obvious to most of us, maybe not to all of us, but it refers to the spot where Jesus died. And this could be a reference to Father James and the outcome of the film and where we're heading with his life being threatened. And I don't know, but I think Calvary is the perfect title for this film because to me it evokes Holy Week. It evokes what faithful ministry looks like. In the midst of a very difficult world. And what it means to not compromise your morality and not compromise yourself and to be, as a man of the cloth, not only a person who represents Jesus but a person who even needs to repent in the film and to come to a quick repentance when sin is enacted on. And that is a very true part of life. It's not that Christianity makes us perfect people without flaw, but there is something about our relationship with God that when there is sin that arises in our lives and when we have fallen, I think there is a quick repentance that must take place and that we are drawn to. And as a part of a sign of our Christian maturity is that we do come to repentance. So there's different characters in the film. I told you I am going to spoil the movie. If you have not seen it in the last 5 years and you want to turn it off now, that is fine. Maybe see the film or do not see the film, whatever you think. But yesterday in Sunday School we started having conversations about the plan and the plan of God. Every year about this time as we are approaching Holy Week and Good Friday and Easter, we start talking about what was going through Jesus' mind as he's in the garden. People started asking questions in class. Well, didn't he know he was going to resurrect again? And some people were asking, you know, why was it so bad? You know, surely he knew what was coming. Isn't, you know, for the joy that set before him he endured the cross? You know, things like that. And all of those are kind of the wrong things, I think, to think about and to reflect on, because Jesus was fully God and he was fully man. And there are times that I think Jesus in Scripture, because he is fully human, he is still finding out this faith as he goes. In the garden, we see him faithfully praying a desperate prayer to get out of this. He's praying, "Lord, please, if there be any other way, let this cup pass from me." Ultimately though, "Not my will but yours be done." That is such a hard prayer to pray. Remember that Jesus, fully God, fully man, Jesus as God— God had never been man. Before. And so as we see Him in this time, this is a man that grew up knowing about crucifixion. Jesus grew up seeing hundreds if not thousands of people crucified down the road that led to the city as examples of what it means if you are a traitor to the Roman government. If you go around saying things like "Caesar is not lord," or that you will not give your allegiance to the government because all allegiance belongs to God, or if you choose to be an enemy to the empire by saying that God alone is God and there is no king other than Him. Things like that tend to get you killed, and make no mistake about it, Jesus was crucified for treason to the government. He wasn't liked by some of the religious rulers of his day, but they were not the ones to put him to death. The way that they got the Romans to kill him was they accused him of treason against the Roman government. So, those of us who are reflecting on what it means to say that this was God's plan all along, that Jesus be crucified and die, I think a better way to look at this might be that salvation has always been God's plan all along. Jesus came and he held out the kingdom of God and he preached the good news— recovery of sight to the blind, that the lame would be made to walk again, that the deaf would hear, that those who could not speak could talk again. That lepers would be clean, that the captives would be set free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, the things that he says he is going to do when he reads that scroll in the temple. And he comes to proclaim the gospel and to live that out and to prophetically embody all of that message, which is the gospel. And to live that out in such a way that he would be faithful even though it meant pain and agony and death and the loss of friends and no chance at having an earthly kingdom, kind of giving up power. And the way that, that Jesus lived, it feels very much like in the way that Father James in this film is living. He is in a world that's rejecting him. He's holding out his hands continually to this world saying, "There is a better way." Saying, "The Kingdom of God is near." "The Kingdom of God is among you." "Repent and turn to God so that your sins can be wiped out." In essence, again, we see it at the table with Jesus. As He is offering that Passover meal, the meal is offered even to Judas. Even to that point, nothing made Judas get up and do this. I know, I think it is in the Gospel of John, it says the devil entered Judas. It is a metaphor that we use. Judas had this will of his own. He was a thief. I think he loved Jesus too, but I think he wanted to enact the change and he wanted the military action to happen and he wanted Jesus to be this earthly king in the way that Caesar is king, in the way that everybody else wanted to see him. So when we talk about God's plan, I get really hesitant when I hear things like, "Well, God had planned all along that Jesus would come and be brutally assassinated and brutally killed by the government and then he'll come back and and rise again so we can all go to heaven. That's a very simplistic way of looking at it. I think God's plan has always been salvation, and God's plan has been that from the beginning the Jews would be the people of God in the world, and they would be the chosen people, and they would go out into the world to spread the kingdom of God and what it means. But they were not chosen just because they were better than anybody else, or that they were more human, or had a a more divine claim than anyone else. I think they were chosen to serve and they were chosen to bring the message to the world. And Jesus, coming from the Jews, brings this faithful message and continues to bring it. And so as I, I think about what Calvary means, not only the movie, but Calvary as the place and, and what salvation is and redemption is, I think it's such a mistake for us to give power to the cross in any way. The cross is simply this: a Roman instrument of death and destruction. It was capital punishment. To give any more credence to the cross and any more glory to the cross than we would to an electric chair or a noose or a firing squad or anything else that we use to kill people, to do that and to lift that up as something special is, I think, to commit idolatry. Because the cross, and we even sang it yesterday in church, I had to change some of the lyrics to a song. There's a song I really like called "Shout Hosanna," but there's a line in the song that says, "The cross has overcome." I had to change it to, "Jesus has overcome." Because God raised Jesus from the dead on the third day, and the power is not in the cross and the fact that Jesus died. The power is in the resurrection in the fact that Jesus came back resurrected and victorious with healing in his hands and mercy with outstretched arms that comes to redeem the world. And that is the power of Easter. It is not the cross. We do not glory in the cross. We do not glorify the cross. We don't say that the cross is some special thing that is worthy of worship or that the cross had any power in itself. In fact, the power of the cross was to destroy to destroy and to kill and to maim and to bring torture. And the fact is, Jesus overcame the cross. So we need to, I think, switch our thinking because God is the one that's worthy of worship, and God in Christ that we see in Jesus is what makes Easter possible. And the way that Jesus lived and the way that Jesus died is the way that we are to live and the way that we are to die in order that, as Paul reminds us, that we may share in his resurrection. And so, getting back to this film, we have Father James who is, I think, living as faithfully as he can, doing his best to trust in the power that is provided to him through the Holy Spirit in the movie. And there are times that he stumbles, there's times he gets back up, But you, if you see the film, you understand the struggle that is there and the struggle that is real. And I think we see Father James living it out to the end. Spoiler of the movie again, sorry. He has a gun that he's gotten to take with him to that beach. He decides not to leave. But he goes to the beach just a little bit before the time he's supposed to meet the man there. Says he's gonna kill him on the beach that morning. He holds the gun in his hand and he stands at the water and he throws the gun in the water. One of his parishioners comes up to talk to him who has been horrible to him throughout the movie while he's there. We see a few of them actually on his way to the beach. We even find at one point one of these people has been so horrible to him, we find out why. That he's lost his family. He's losing his wealth. He's losing everything he has, and he admits that he has treated the priest horribly. And they end up praying together in the film, and because of Father James' faithfulness, he is able to still be the pastor to this man in the community. There are other people that Father James encounters on the way to the beach, and something in their heart seems to have changed a little bit with the people that he's met. There seems to be a little more hope they're there because Father James has not given up on them. And because we know that Jesus, through Father James, has not given up on them. And then ultimately we see the showdown on the beach. Father James is there defenseless and he waits for the man that's going to come and kill him. And they have this powerful conversation and the man confronts Father James and says, "Did you even cry?" Were you even affected when you read about all the little children who had been molested by these priests? And the priest says, "Of course, of course it broke my heart." And he said, Did you cry for any of them? Did you personally cry for these children? Father James says, "No, I didn't." Very ashamedly. And it's right around that point, after they have this long conversation on the beach, The man tells him, I forget exactly the words, but says, "It's time," and he pulls out the gun and he shoots him. And Father James is still reaching out to him at the end, offering him forgiveness. And he is still saying that, you know, I forget his exact words, but he is still offering a chance to go back. That this doesn't have to be the way this ends, that he can still find redemption. And ultimately Father James is assassinated there on the beach by this man. That's really how the film ends, other than Father James's daughter comes to see the killer in the prison, and we have no words, and we're left with a lot more questions than we have answers throughout the course of the film. But what we see is a life faithfully lived. And what it means, I think, one of the interpretations I have of the film and as it pertains to Holy Week is, here's what it looks like in many instances for us to live faithfully for Jesus, especially as ministers in the world. It's not Joel Osteen's crooked gospel of "your best life now" and all of the ways that we like to pretend in America that We're pursuing the gospel if we have the best, and if we have all the money, and if we have all the wealth and power and privilege. That's not the gospel that's portrayed on this film. The gospel that's portrayed in this film, it says, "If the world hated Jesus, it will hate you too." But take heart, as the gospel reminds us. Jesus says, "Take heart, for I have overcome the world." the world. And I just think this movie is about as perfect as you can get. I am challenged by it again and again, and I think new things every time I see this film. I know it's not going to be a film that's for everybody, but for me it is always part of my Holy Week reflection, and at some point, usually Good Friday, if I have the chance, I try to rewatch it again. It challenges me. And I approach it almost sacramentally in that I believe it is an invisible grace that is being shown on the film because the film itself is portrayed in such a sacramental nature, even starting with a quote by Augustine about the thieves on the cross and then going into people receiving the sacraments. And what that must mean in the life.

I find it to be not only—

not now just a disturbing movie, which when I first saw it I didn't know what to think of it. I was really deeply disturbed by the film.

I knew I was—

it was compelling, but I didn't quite know why. I still think it's compelling, but I think now I find it to be one of the most hopeful one of the most hopeful films, um, because of the way that Father James faithfully carries out his hope to the world that he lives in, which seems to be a very hopeless place. And you find that there is one other character in the film who is also, um, sort of being assaulted by life, and she is one of the few characters in the film that is actually decent. To the Father, to Father James throughout the film. I think there's a lot to reflect on in that too. But I think maybe what the film's trying to say even in that is even though it may seem small and even though faith in this world may seem so tiny and insignificant like a mustard seed, the things that can grow out of that tiny seed are the things that can truly transform the world. And that's what I think the message of this film ultimately is. Whether the filmmaker intended it or not, to me it is a film of hope, and it is a film that reminds me of how difficult it is to live like Jesus in this world, and what it must mean to give our everything to follow Christ and to be faithful. And that when we fall, we can pick ourselves back up when we allow God to restore us and to keep living faithfully and holding out that gospel and the hope that is in Jesus. So those are my reflections on the movie Calvary. You can take them or leave them. If you chose to listen to these, uh, 34 minutes of talk today, I hope it gives you some insight. I hope if you've seen the film, they've been helpful in your reflection. I would love to hear from you. Maybe if you have seen this film and it's affected you you in a similar or maybe in a completely different way. Maybe it completely repulsed you and you never wanted to see it again. That's totally understandable as well. But for whatever reason, this film has become a very important part of my personal faith journey. So it's been interesting to, to reflect on it today as we are in the middle of Holy Week 2019. I pray you will have a blessed Holy Week, and I pray that that you will be able to celebrate in the coming 7 weeks of Easter in a greater way than you've ever celebrated before, and that the grace of God will be revealed to you in newer ways than you have ever experienced. I sure do wish you well, and I wish the very best for you in your life as you follow God. May we be faithful people to the end. And if this film does anything, or that helps us to be faithful, then it's worth the reflection that it takes to watch it. So thank you for being here and listening to Voices in My Head this week. I'll be back to talk to you again soon, hopefully with a guest next time. God bless. This episode of Voices in My Head is brought to you by Podbean.

With Podbean, you can create professional podcasts in minutes without any programming knowledge. Best of all, everything is mobile-ready right from the start. Visit podbean.com/voices to find out more. That's podbean.com/voices. Thank you for joining me here this week on Voices in My Head. I hope you'll visit me on my website at rickleejames.com where you can find out more about me, get my music on vinyl vinyl and CD, follow my blog, and even schedule me for a concert or a speaking engagement. Better yet, even a book signing in your neighborhood. You can find all that and more at rickleejames.com. Also, it would mean a great deal to me if you could write a review of this podcast on iTunes. The more positive reviews that we receive, the more visible this podcast will be online. And now, for the May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. God bless you, and thank you for listening to Voices in My Head.