"I sent you two big boats, you dummy"
So goes the punch line to Chris Gardner's son's joke about the man who drowned after praying to God to save him from the flooding waters.
Cher and I watched The Pursuit of Happyness last night. Twelve or fifteen years ago this movie would have really encouraged and inspired me. The Pursuit of Happyness is a classic "rags to riches" story in which one man's will to succeed and overcome push him to attain the "American Dream."
In The Pursuit of Happyness Chris Gardner (played by Will Smith) is a genius of a man (he finished a Rubik Cube in one single taxi ride) who, based on some bad financial decisions, is just "down on his luck." Chris spent his family's life savings on some High Density Bone Scanners which he tries to resale for profit. Only trouble is that no doctors or hospitals seem to want them.
Chris's life is in a nose dive from the outset of the movie. The dilemmas of his financial situation begin to compound. The stress and frustration of not being able to pay the bills lead to his wife leaving him. Eventually he is evicted from his home, locked out of a motel because he can't pay for it either, and jailed for not paying his parking tickets. Chris finds himself on the streets of San Francisco with his five year old son.
The deepest part of the pit of Chris's circumstances is shown in a scene where Chris locks himself and his son in a public bathroom overnight just to have a place for them to sleep. As he's sitting there on the bathroom floor, holding his son in his lap, there is a pull on the locked door, followed by knocking…then pounding. Chris covers his son's ears and tears begin to roll down his face. The misery of that situation is unmeasurable.
In another scene, as Chris and Christopher (his son) are walking down the street, Christopher looks to his dad and tells him the joke about a man who prayed to God to save him from flooding waters. Christopher explains that the man didn't accept the help of two boats that came by to help him, explaining that "I prayed to God to save me – I'm waiting for him." Eventually of course, the man drowns and arrives in heaven. "Why didn't you save me?" the man asks God.
"I sent you two big boats, you dummy."
Chris's reaction to his son's joke parallels the movie's own sense of spiritual redemption…there isn't one.
I'll admit here that The Pursuit of Happyness is of course a Hollywood movie and I do not know the spiritual life of the real Chris Gardner. Maybe he had a "God moment" through his ordeal – maybe not. Either way, this movie didn't.
Every story from Hollywood blockbusters to Old Testament Narratives is a story of redemption. For Cinderella it was getting her glass slipper back, and of course the prince that went with it. For Dorothy it was realizing that "there is no place like home."
For Chris Gardner (according to this movie) it was the "self made man."
Chris Gardner did it all, all by himself. He worked hard and overcame every circumstance to become a successful multi-millionaire. His message to us (according to this movie) is "don't let anyone tell you that you can't do something."
The main idea of this movie: The pursuit of happiness, no, the acquiring of happiness is available if you just work hard enough for it.
As the credits rolled up our TV screen I wondered, "Did Chris Gardner ever find true happiness?"
I thought of this from James chapter 4:
Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit"— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that." As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.
A decade and a half ago I would have loved this movie. I would have walked out of the movie theatre inspired to turn over a new leaf…for the hundredth or so time. I would have said, "I can do all things…through myself." I would have emerged as a new man, again…for a few days, maybe weeks, until I was back doing the same things over and over and over again. Eventually I would be right back to where I always was, living a mediocre existence, wondering (again) what the point of it all was.
The happiness that I found in money and possessions was always fleeting. Even today, as a Christian, as a Pastor, I sometimes try to find happiness in money and possessions. But that happiness just does not last.
The redemption of joy and happiness is not the "self made man" – it's the God-Man.
Jesus said, "I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing." (John 15.5).
The point of this Monday Movie Minute is that you can pull yourself up from your own bootstraps, you can work hard and overcome every situation, you can acquire it all…and still have absolutely nothing.
Don't let the world fool you (John 14.27), don't let the American Dream be a stumbling block that prohibits you from finding real joy.
I used to ask myself what the point of life is…so many people are still searching for that answer.
Consider this answer: "To glorify God…and enjoy Him forever."
