Monday, May 5, 2025
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Green pastures
Men came forward and debated with Stephen, but they could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which he spoke. All those who sat in the Sanhedrin looked intently at him and saw that his face was like the face of an angel.
This weekend on TCM we watched Green Pastures, 1936 with its all-black cast, set at first in heaven with its angel choir and heavenly children, 10 cent cigars for the men, a fish fry for everyone and Sunday School for the cherubs. Then the story moves to earth. De Lawd is refreshingly uncertain about the sassy adults the kids grew up into, not sure what to do about that. Even the Flood had little effect. But faithful prophets and warriors ask for his help.
“Even being God ain’t no bed of roses,” he says, with a puzzled look on his face.
“Why don’t he answer me a little?” God asks, talking to himself. Then one of the men he created, in the midst of a battle, tells him that the folks on earth have learned about a God of mercy. God was puzzled. “But God is a god of wrath,” he said.
“Not anymore,” the soldier said. “We have a new God now. And we found him through suffering.”
“Does that mean that even God has to suffer?” Jehovah asks himself. In heaven again the angels describe what they see looking down on earth, the sight of a man carrying his cross up a high hill. “They’re going to nail him to it. Oh, what a terrible burden for one man to carry.”
Jehovah’s face relaxes into a big smile. “Yes!” he says, and the angels sing, “God of mercy, God of love.” (The link is a clear print of the last 2 minutes of the film.) Not that we understood all of the film’s theology, but we sure did enjoy it. The film followed a six-year run on Broadway of the play, and a Pulitzer Prize for author, Roark Bradford. When the film opened in New York’s Radio City Music Hall, 6000 people bought tickets the first day.
We have heard Stephen speaking blasphemous words against Moses and God! This man never stops saying things against this holy place and the law. We have heard him claim that Jesus will destroy this place and change the customs that Moses handed down to us!
Battles over religion fill every history book. It doesn’t matter which century, which millenium. We kill each other for power, and we kill each other for truth – that is to say, our truth, which of course must be God’s truth too. No wonder Jehovah looks so depressed in the movie. His efforts to change how we respond to our “knowledge of good and evil” go nowhere until the coming of the God of Mercy, that is to say, Jesus, and his willingness to suffer death for all of us.
That’s on Friday. And on Sunday he rose up from the grave. This scene is not in the movie, but it’s in the glistening eyes of Jehovah as he relaxes at the end. We can follow along, if we will. 2.3 billion Christians follow as best they can, making Christianity the largest religion in the world.
Problems abound, but the Solution breaks through over and over again. The source for Green Pastures was Roark Bradford’s 1928 book, Ol Man Adam an’ His Chillun, which begins simply: “Well, they was some mighty men in them days and times. And the Lord was beyond them all.”
Though princes meet and talk against me, your servant meditates on your statutes. Remove from me the way of falsehood, favor me with your law. I have chosen the way of truth, I will set my heart on your law.
Our pastor said a few weeks ago, “The earth can provide everything you want … but almost nothing that you need.”
The power of Jesus’ words to Satan in the desert prove themselves over and over as we live our lives, looking here and there for something to believe, something to live for.
One does not live by bread alone, but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.
(Acts 6, Psalm 119, Matthew 4, John 6)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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