Here is my message from Sunday. The text was
Colossians 3:12-17:
One of my favorite movies is Groundhog Day, and I watch it at least once a year on February 2,
Groundhog Day, a moment where television really fails to capture the true
excitement of a large squirrel predicting the weather. And of course it’s sort
of ironic that I do the same thing every year on Groundhog Day, because what
the movie is about is Phil Connors, a weatherman, played brilliantly by Bill
Murray who has to relive the same day over and over and over again. Every day is
Groundhog Day. And when he starts out realizing that there is not tomorrow,
Phil gives into a hedonistic lifestyle. But what he finds out is that this
lifestyle doesn’t bring him satisfaction or true joy. In fact, it leads to him
being miserable, which is probably best summed up by an exchange with his
producer, played by Andie McDowell, whom he thinks he loves, or at least lusts
for, and she says “I could never love you, because you’ll never love anyone but
yourself,” to which Phil responds, “I don’t even like myself.” Not being
satisfied, he then tries to end the endless cycle of being in the same day, which
also doesn’t work, and finally there is a change and he begins to improve
himself, not to impress others, but to make himself better, which also leads
him start helping others.
At the beginning of the film he keeps walking past a
homeless man asking for money, and he pretends that he doesn’t have anything,
until eventually he is buying him meals and trying to help him survive through
the night. Every day he goes to the same spot to save a young boy falling out
of a tree, and performing the Heimlich maneuver, so that he endless repeat of
the same day is helping people all day long. In many ways, the movie is a
metaphor for Christian conversion. Moving from the ways of the world, to the
ways of God. Moving from being self-centered and thinking only about ourselves,
to becoming caring and compassionate towards the world, giving of ourselves for
the needs of others. I think it’s a great metaphor for the core value that we
look at today that we have identified as a congregation, and that is being
compassionate and caring.
