Was Jesus a “yes man”?
Two weekends ago two friends said they would watch our children while my wife and I went out for the evening. We chose to see “Yes Man” with Jim Carrey and Zooey Deschanel at a nearby movie theater.
In a nutshell it is the story of Carl (played by Jim Carrey) who almost never goes anywhere, does anything, or say “yes” to a new opportunity. Although he has a job, a place to live, and friends – his life is more or less going nowhere.
Until he attends a motivational seminar about the power of saying yes - to just about anything life throws your way.
That is when the weirdness and ultimately the joy begins.
Homeless man asks for a ride to the park at night? Yes.
For some money? Yes – in fact everything he has.
Use your cell phone? Well… I do not want to give away too much of the film.
It is precisely because of his intially discouraging experience(s) with saying yes that ultimately (through a domino series of apparently improbable decisions-and-consequences) he meets and forms a deep relationship with a woman he just might want to spend the rest of his life with (played by Zooey Deschanel – whose eyes could melt icebergs).
Even his crazy/impulsive decisions to learn Korean and to learn to play the guitar ultimately bear fruit – saving a life and bringing two lonely people together.
I think of all the plans I had and desires that never were fulfilled. (In this case it was the no’s in life that led to where I am.) Almost never applied to Cornell. Ended up not entering the Catholic priesthood. One day walked several miles to a tiny Baptist church outside town. Normally people do not attend graduate school at the same university where they earn their undergraduate degree and my plans to enter seminary were postponed. That one woman… then another… and another… were not interested. Which is how I was available when Armetta Fields came to town (and she almost never moved to Ithaca to do campus ministry because of that skinny/obnoxious/arrogant graduate student she met up there – and I am no longer skinny). She threw out that envelope from Louisiana but I decided it was so big I should at least open it…
And here we are.
My life is a long chain of grace and God is present in every link thereof.
Although the movie barely mentions God – perhaps we can see a theology of providence in this film. Not that God controls everthing – I do not believe that. But that God is working for the best for each person (and all people) in even the smallest most seemingly trivial details of our lives.
Consider just this – that one of the ancestors of Jesus is a foreign woman whose husband died and whose mother-in-law urged her not to emigrate to Israel/Canaan with her. If her husband had not died, if she had not gone with her mother-in-law, if she had not gleaned in that particular field on that particular day, and so on.
“And if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you” (Matthew 5:40-42 and yes I know this is rather out-of-context).
And concerning all the relationships Carl forms because he says “yes” to anyone…
“Send out your bread upon the waters, for after many days you will get it back. Divide your means seven ways, or even eight, for you do not know what disaster* may happen on earth” (Qohelet aka Ecclesiastes 11:1-2).
*Like forgetting all about that bachelorette party he was supposed to organize…
