While the movies we have looked at so far in our Christmas in July series are on their way to becoming beloved Christmas classics, today’s film, Miracle on 34th Street, has long been there, and is probably only surpassed by just one other film, It’s a Wonderful Life, which we will cover next week. It’s also one of the oldest films we will cover, having come out in 1947, and again is only surpassed by It’s a Wonderful Life, which came out in 1946. Surprisingly, Miracle on 34th Street did not come out at Christmas, but instead was released in June of that year, and went on to receive five academy award nominations, including best picture, and winning three awards for writing and for best supporting actor for Edmund Gwenn, who plays Kris Kringle and had been a principal actor for the playwright George Bernard Shaw. As most of you are probably aware, the movie takes place in New York City, and begins at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, and seeing that in person should be added to your bucket list of things to do, as it’s a lot of fun, and New York at Christmas time is a magic place to be. But, anyways, the main character, Doris Walker, played by Maureen O’Hara, oversees the parade, when it is brought to her attention that the man playing Santa Claus is drunk, but fortunately for her, the man who tells her is Kris Kringle, believes himself to be the real Santa. After quickly firing the drunk Santa, she hires Kris not only to be Santa in the parade, but also in the store, another thing that you should add to your bucket list because you haven’t seen Santa until you’ve seen Santa at the original Macy’s in Herald Square.
Meanwhile, Doris Walker’s daughter, Suzie, played by a young Natalie Wood, is watching the parade in the apartment of their neighbor, Fred Gailey, who is an attorney, which becomes important as the movie progresses. And as they are watching the parade, Fred, and we the audience, begin to learn something important both about Suzie and her … As we hear in that, Doris’ husband left her after Suzy was born, leaving her embittered and closed off to the world, wanting to be a realist because as she says about Suzy she wants a prince charming to come to her, but when he does, she’ll find out that’s not who he really is, which is, of course, not about Suzy at all, but about Doris. And so, both Fred, in trying to woo Doris, and Kris set out to try and change their outlooks on the world, to help them to again, or for the first time, to experience magic, and majesty and awe, let alone trust and love and kindness. Doris’ wants to keep everything to be about rationality and common sense, and yet, as she finds out, that’s not the way the world works. It also turns out that it’s not the way that Kris Kringle works either. He has told Doris that he is taking her and Suzie on as a test case, because if he can’t convince them that he is real, then he’s lost, he’s through. But it’s not just them that he must win over, to move away from just thinking about rationality, or themselves, it’s also changing the culture of Macy’s, as when Kris starts he’s given a list of toys that the store has overstocked, and so he’s supposed to push to kids who don’t know what they want. But, instead of doing that, he does something radically different…
Macy’s decides to go along with Kris, to become the store with a heart, and something to keep in mind is that notice that even in 1947 people were complaining that Christmas had become too commercial, and I can tell you those complaints are even much older than that, so don’t think this is anything new. Its also a reminder of the struggle between the reality of Christmas and the expectation that it’s going to be more than that. Fred says that Christmas isn’t just a day, that Christmas is a frame of mind. That matches back to our first film, Elf, where one of the rules was to treat everyday like’s its Christmas, which was to live into the joy and excitement of the season, to live without fear, every single day, which means we have to move beyond just “facts” and “reality” and into a different way of living and of being.
That’s what Jesus calls for the disciples and for us. What happens immediately before the passage we heard from Mark this morning is the story of the transfiguration, an event in which at least Peter, James and John come not to just see Jesus glow, but hear God’s voice speaking to them, and then they come down and encounter this father looking for help for his son, who appears to at least have epilepsy, but the disciples have been unable to help him. And Jesus’ anger is about more than just what the disciples cannot do, but about the entire crowd, or as he says the whole generation. Prior to this Jesus has said that they are wicked and adulterous, but this time he calls them faithless. And this seems to be exemplified by the father who says, “if you are able to do anything, have pity on us and help us.” Not a lot of faith in that statement is there? And so, Jesus responds, “If you are able! All things can be done for the one who believes.” And the father than cries out “I believe; help my unbelief.” That is, there is a battle that takes place within us about what we are willing to believe, what we are willing to accept as being true, and the ability to believe in something beyond that, in something that it’s hard to believe in, or to even request. But, at least the man is willing to ask for a big dream. He doesn’t just ask that his boy no longer fall into fires, but that he receive healing. That’s a pretty big request. God doesn’t call us to make small requests, because if it doesn’t require God to help bring it about, or if it’s something we can do solely by ourselves, then there is no reason to even ask God to help. That’s often one of the problems we have with prayer is that our prayers are too small, and sometimes we need just something small, but more often what we need from God is something big, and yet we don’t have the faith enough, or we don’t think we do, to truly make the big ask. We believe Lord, help our unbelief.
Suzie has the same problem. When Kris originally asks what she wants for Christmas, first she makes him aware that she doesn’t believe in Santa Claus and that her mother will get her anything she wants as long as its practical and affordable. But when pressed, she reveals that she does in fact have a deep desire for something, and that’s for a new house, of which she provides a picture of to Kris, but then expresses that she knows she won’t get it and the fact that other children don’t get what they ask from Santa just proves that he doesn’t exist. To this, Kris says, “just because every child doesn’t get what they wish doesn’t mean there isn’t a Santa Claus. Some children wish for things they can’t use like a real locomotive or a B-29.” We might also say that they might wish for things that are destructive to themselves or to others. The same is true in prayer. Prayers are often unanswered because we’ve already dictated what the answer to the prayer is in advance, and in that, as one commentator on this passage said, “we become like children at Christmas who have a definite idea of what we are going to get, what we have asked for, and we cannot appreciate the other presents until our desired item makes its appearance.” That is, we overlook everything else, all the other gifts in our lives, because we are so focused on just one thing. That is certainly what Doris has been doing in trying to be rational and realistic. After Kris is put into an insane asylum and is going to be committed there because he believes he’s Santa Claus, Fred takes up his case and sets out not to prove that Kris isn’t insane, but that instead to prove that he is Santa, which doesn’t make some others very happy…
There is a common line found in many Christmas films that says, seeing isn’t believing, believing is seeing. Or as Paul said in his letter to the Romans, “Hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen?” or even better, as the writer of the letter to the Hebrews says, “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Has anyone here ever seen love? I don’t mean what love looks like, or how it’s lived out, but the idea of love? Can scientists find love? Well they can measure blood flow, and the flushing of the face, and the excretion of certain hormones, and things that happen in the body, the bio-chemical process of the thing we call love, but is that love? Of course not, and so while we can talk about feelings about love, love is really demonstrated in the actions that people show towards those they say they love. The same is true with kindness, or joy or all those other intangibles, the way that we live and act in the world. And that’s what finally begins to convince Suzie that perhaps Kris is in fact Santa Claus…
In 1897, a young girl wrote to the New York Sun asking if there was really a Santa Claus, because her friends were telling her there wasn’t. The paper’s response has become the most reprinted newspaper editorial in history, and it says, in part, “VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except what they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia,… are little. In this great universe of ours [we are] a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge. Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith … no poetry, no romance … The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished….The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see.” What Doris and Suzie find is that Santa, Kris, is a symbol of all that is good and kind and selfless in the world.
But the catch to all of this, the catch to Miracle on 34th Street, is to realize that it’s not up to Santa, but that it is up to us. Because it turns out there is no miracle in the traditional sense. Kris doesn’t just magically provide the things that people are looking for. The doctor in the home where he lives needs an x-ray machine, and so Kris uses the bonus check he receives from Mr. Macy to buy it. Fred, in order to prove that Kris is Santa Claus uses the post office, who delivers all their letters to Santa Claus to him. And what about Suzie’s request?...
Notice that the house is not given to them, they have to buy it. Kris is like a really good real estate agent. We are called to be engaged in our faith. We can’t ask for peace, unless we work for peace. We can’t ask for everyone to be fed, or housed or clothed, unless we work for everyone to be fed and housed and clothed. God can and does bring about miracles, but God calls us to be involved in that process. It first starts with dreaming big enough to accomplish tasks that we cannot do by ourselves, that God has to be involved in, and then working with God to bring that about. Secondly, it’s about having faith enough to step out and believe it can happen, as impossible as it seems. As most of you have heard me say before, no one ever talks about taking leaps of safety, instead we take leaps of faith. Stepping beyond the facts and common sense, moving beyond what people say can actually happen, to get it done. It’s not believing in alternative facts, but instead holding onto and discovering capital T truths, like the truth of God’s love for us and the fact that miracles big and small occur around us every day, and that we worship a savior who was crucified, which Paul says is foolishness to the world, but whose life and resurrection acts to save us, to save the world, because Christmas is not just a day, but a way of life, a way of living the good news, of way of living into God’s love, and accepting God’s grace, and then acting on that, so may we too say, as the boy’s father does, I believe, help my unbelief. I pray that it will be so my brothers and sisters. Amen.
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