Contemplation Corner: It’s a wonderful life. . .

“Remember, no man is a failure who has friends.” – Clarence Odbody (It’s a Wonderful Life, Paramount)

by Pastor Donnie Brooks
Marcellus United Methodist Church
pastordonnieb@outlook.com

  It’s a Wonderful Life is one of my favorite “Christmas” or “Winter Holiday” movies. Sure, there’s not particularly religious about it. Maybe there’s angels. A supernatural happening or two. Jesus isn’t really mentioned. But much like A Christmas Carol, the more secular nature of it, doesn’t track but perhaps even enhances universality of the message. The Christmas message, the incarnation of, the embodiment of, the will of God in a humble baby, in a humble family, of a humble village, and from a humble people, is in both. One doesn’t need lengthy treatises or diatribes of theological discussion. Doesn’t need to meet the criteria of Advent liturgy and polity. It just is what the embodiment of God was meant to portray and meant to be. They focus on things like loving your neighbor. Of the true things that matter. Now the revolutionary minded would think that both of these stories didn’t go to far, they didn’t really change the world or change society, the hearts and minds of a few people. I am one, however much I will acknowledge those larger elements, that still maintains it starts with the heart and with the few before it ever really shapes the many (if it ever really does).

   But George’s guardian angel, Clarence Odbody in the film, has wisdom for us here. He exemplified this wisdom by trying something out, by taking a gamble that George would benefit from a chance. George, who sought to love his neighbor all of his life, who had adventure of his mind but also went with the venture guided by his heart and the necessities of the situation, had met the end of his rope. He was between a rock and a hard place. The vagaries of life were against him. The rich miser, not too different than the many corrupt leaders and billionaire moguls of today, a Mr. Potter, exploited an advantage that came upon him and sought to crush good ole George. He was ready to commit suicide, to cash in his life insurance by his death to save his family and business.

   Clarence, however, had an idea. To jump in the water off a bridge in the middle of a winter storm. George, being who he was, of course, would jump into save him. This would bring about the “I wish I hadn’t been born.” George got to see what the world was like without himself for even a short while. That world was certainly not the same. It wasn’t just as if the world was the same…just one man short. Each thing this good person had done in his life had not, because of this supernatural experiment, been done. And so, the world was changed for the worse.

   The world with George, of course, once he came to that realization that he wanted to live again and see those he loved and see things turn around through nothing but the reciprocity and just distribution from his community and the love of his friends, was full of blessing and was quite replete. A happy ending, to be sure, almost seems too unreal today. It’s a truth that should give us pause. It’s not the billionaires who live a good life. It might be more a failure that you end up with that money and that you haven’t done anything with it, than a man with little money and many friends. George was not rich and never would be rich. He narrowly escaped ruin. But he was not a failure. In fact, because of his friends he was, as his brother Harry stated at the end of the movie, “the richest man in town”!

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