Text: John 12:1-8 (Jesus anointed for burial) * Video of complete service * Bulletin (PDF)
Today, I start with a discussion of “The Slap.”
Last Sunday evening, Kim and I, like so many others, were shocked when Will Smith slapped Chris Rock during the Oscars telecast. This occurred after Rock made a joke about the shaved head of Jada Pinkett Smith, Will Smith’s wife.
This physical assault was captured live in front of the millions of people who were watching the annual awards show, and by many millions more who saw it on news broadcasts and social media feeds.
I was upset both by the violence and by how news of it now dominates what seemed in many other ways to be an inspiring Oscar telecast.
The show began with the tennis stars Serena and Venus Williams introducing Beyonce, who, along with other musicians and dancers, performed her Oscar-nominated song “Be Alive” from the film “King Richard.” The film focuses on the two Williams’ sisters and their father, Richard Williams, who was played by Will Smith, as he struggles to help his daughters become tennis champions.
Beyonce’s performance occurred in a tennis court in Compton, the poverty-stricken Black neighbourhood of Los Angeles where the Williams family lived before the two sisters became tennis stars in their teens, and we loved it. It led me to a happy thought that in the face of world’s troubles, there is wonderful resistance, including cultural offerings like Beyonce’s song, and the film “King Richard.”
We had liked the movie, including Will Smith’s performance, and we had hoped he might win Best Actor for it, which he eventually did – but not before “The Slap.”
I enjoyed the acceptance speeches of Ariane Debose who won Best Supporting Actress for her work in “West Side Story” in which she noted she was the first queer woman of colour to win an award; of Troy Kostur who won Best Supporting Actor for his work in “Coda,” which was just the second time a deaf actor had won an Academy Award; and of Jessica Chastain who won Best Actress for her work on “The Eyes of Tammy Faye,” and in which she focused on the need for LGBTQ rights and inclusion. The latter was a reference to a moment in the movie in which disgraced televangelist Tammy Faye Baker partially redeemed herself with her acceptance of an AIDS patient in the 1980s
I was also pleased by the win of “Summer of Soul” for Best Documentary, which is a film about the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, and which had astonished and delighted us; and the Best Original Screenplay, which was won by Kenneth Branagh for this autobiographical story about “The Troubles” in Northern Ireland in 1969.
The broadcast had a post-pandemic feel. It was held in a packed Dolby Theatre in downtown Los Angeles with a nary a mask in sight. This contrasted sharply to the 2021 Academy Awards, which had been filmed in a Los Angeles train station.
There is a lot that could and has been said about The Slap: how it might have been influenced by Will Smith’s trauma, who wrote in a memoir last year that he felt helpless as a nine-year-old when his father beat his mother; about how Chris Rock’s humour was out of place, especially in light of Jada Pinkett-Smith’s alopecia, which is a medical condition causing hair loss; and about the challenging tangles of racism and sexism into which The Slap seemed to be trapped.
Thinking about the event also brought to my mind two years of COVID-19 pandemic losses and restrictions and the challenges they have created for so many. All of us, and not just actor Will Smith, may be going at least a bit mad, I fear.
COVID’s difficulties continue; and I am sorry that Canada is now entering a sixth wave of infection, at least in part because my final service here at Mill Woods United is now only four Sundays away. Ordinarily that would not be much time. But during a pandemic, four weeks can seem very long indeed. I hope we will have a large in-person gathering here on May 1 and that many people will stay afterward for a luncheon, which a group in the church is planning. But who knows what shape Edmonton will be in four weeks from today?
The incident also made me think of my own role as a public presenter. In the nearly 11 years since I was ordained, I have presided at approximately 500 Sunday services, at worship experiences like Christmas Eve and Good Friday, and at weddings and funerals. I haven’t always pleased everyone; but I’ve never been physically assaulted for my offerings, for which I am grateful!
One of the criticisms during my more than eight years as the minister of Mill Woods United has been the frequency with which I use movies as sources of reflection. If you do a search for “movie” on my sermon blog, you get more than 20 results, with movies from “Heaven is for Real” to “Agora” being referenced.
So, that criticism is based on the reality that I gain a lot of inspiration from books, TV shows, and movies.
But regardless, what might The Slap have to do with Alberta, or with today’s readings? Well, first Alberta.
On Monday, Premier Jason Kenny circulated a meme of The Slap on Twitter. It showed a photo of Chris Rock and Will Smith with the headings “Green Energy Policies” over Rock’s stunned body and “Reality” over Smith’s. I disliked this tweet because it amplifies racism and violence, and because it suggests that attempts to create a survivable climate – “Green Energy Policies” – run headlong into “Reality.” It implies there is no way out of the world’s current practice of burning 100 million barrels a day of oil.
This thought leads me back to another movie reference I have used twice in the past few months — “Mad Max,” which refers to a series of Australian movies released in 1979, 1981, 1984, and 2015. They show a post-apocalyptic world in which social cohesion has broken down. Alberta’s Premier has joined with many others to embrace a Mad Max future in which concerns for anything beyond the power of leaders like himself — including attempts to curb climate disaster — are scorned. It is a stance where sexism, racism, and disdain for science are used to keep an elite in power – and the future be damned.
Stopping climate disaster does often seem impossible. But so do many other things . . . until they happen. The latter include things we like – such as the Pope’s apology on Friday to Canada’s First Nations for their oppression in church-run residential schools – and things we don’t like, such as five million Ukrainians fleeing their country to live as refugees. We live in times of immense and seemingly unimaginable change; and this helps to fuel both my fears and my resolve to advocate for the social changes required to make life both more sustainable and loving.
In today’s Gospel reading, Mary anoints Jesus for burial. This shows she understands what no one else among Jesus’ friends do – that he is telling the truth when he says his entrance into Jerusalem will lead to betrayal, arrest, and execution. These are stories we will revisit next week with Palm and Pasion Sunday, and on Good Friday on April 15.
Then, on Easter Sunday April 17, we will celebrate the surprising Good News that Love has been resurrected and our ability to love God and neighbour lives on despite the death of Jesus . . . or the burning of Jerusalem . . . or the destruction of cities like Aleppo in Syria 10 years ago and of Mariupol in Ukraine today . . . or climate disaster here and everywhere . . . or whatever other terrors might visit the world and our individual lives.
When Mary anoints Jesus for burial, she enacts a ritual that represents the Grace that is accessible to us all. Like Jesus, we too are God’s anointed; like Jesus, we too bear the crosses of the world; and like Jesus, we too are recipients of God’s new life.
In my final Sunday here on May 1, I will focus on last rites. I hope this will help us to feel blessed as we end our covenant. After May 1st, we will die to old ways of being a community of faith and rise to new ones that will be different from what we’ve known in the past, but which, I trust, will continue to be enfolded in God’s Love.
In too many ways, our world seems to be collapsing; and powerful cultural forces are telling us that there is no way to avoid climate disaster; no way to stop a deadly pandemic; and no way to gather with other artists other than through insult and violence.
But then we might remember how we have marked Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and Easter before and how our spirits have grown. We can also give thanks that movies are being made, songs are being sung, books are being written, parents are embracing their children, and children are embracing their parents.
This is a challenging moment for many of us. But it is the only moment in which we can love and be loved; and because this is true, I pray that we will embrace the Grace to move forward in love.
Lent is nearly over. May we both appreciate the fearful news that we are being anointed as if for burial, and rejoice that new life is headed our way, even if we don’t know what precisely it will look like.
May it be so. Amen.