Seabiscuit, Zoolander, and Sonship
Seabiscuit is one of my favorite movies. One of those go-tos that I always enjoy. It’s takes place during the Great Depression and is about an unlikely champion racehorse of the same name. I love movies set in the Great Depression era…probably because they speak to that deep seated, somewhat irrational fear in me of losing everything and ending up on the street. It helps to be reminded that others have actually survived that situation, AND the stories tend to highlight what is most important in life, and it’s not usually financially based. Another little peek into Sean’s psyche. Can I get an amen? Anywho…Seabiscuit was undersized and overlooked and became an inspirational symbol for “the little guy” struggling out there against the big bad world. In Seabiscuit’s case the big bad world was represented by a Triple Crown winner. The movie is based on a true story to boot. Seabiscuit is not the only character in the story that had been chewed up and spit out by life. The movie gives some of the back story for his trainer, his owner, and his jockey and how all of their stories collided with this little horse.
One of my favorite scenes in the film at first seems like a throw away…in fact I’ve read a few reviews of the movie online that have said just that…but it is not. It takes place between Charles Howard, the owner, and Red Pollard, the jockey. Red had learned how to survive on his own after being abandoned by his family. He was tough and lonely and was not very good at asking for help nor receiving it. At one point he needs to borrow some money and approaches Mr. Howard. He begins to tell some lie about needing dental work, but thinks better of it and risks flat-out asking for a loan. Mr. Howard doesn’t want or need an explanation. He looks at Red with a very fatherly smile and tone says, “Sure how much do you need?” Red says $10 telling him that he’ll try to pay him back and expecting some argument, but Mr. Howard simply hands him a $20. Red is clearly taken aback at Mr. Howard’s generosity. Mr. Howard smiles and says, “It’s fine.” We never actually learn what Red really needed the money for…the movie never revisits it, which is why many don’t like this scene. BUT I think it is so poignant because it shows how important this relationship was for Red…how transformative it would be. He was used to surviving…to be rejected…to being cast aside…to having to fight for any consideration…so much so that despite his hardened exterior it was clear he had begun to believe this is what he deserved. He treated himself pretty badly because that’s what he knew, that’s what everyone else did too. That’s all he had ever known. He was desperate to be loved, accepted, wanted. Mr. Howard gave him that and exceeded his expectations.
Mr. Howard played by Jeff Bridges
The film critic might argue that’s a little on the nose and too sentimental, but who cares?! It’s what we’re all desperate for. We’re all used to the feeling of rejection and the nagging fear of it. It’s what makes high school so dang dramatic and often traumatizing! All jockeying (see what I did there?) for acceptance by someone…maybe it was the actual jocks you wanted to be accepted by, or maybe the drama kids, the science kids, or the band, or a particular person…whoever it was there was someone that you cared a great deal about and what they thought about you. You were afraid of being rejected, cast aside, forgotten. Many of us have stories of suffering exactly that. Someone really did reject us, really did hurt us…confirmed that fear in us, and we carry the scars today. Too often it feels like a pattern in life. It doesn’t stop with high school, sadly. So many of the social dynamics of adulthood still come back to this base fear of rejection and need to be loved and accepted. It’s that same desire from my post last week for someone to hold me and tell me everything is gonna be ok.
But I want to take it further. It’s not just a generic need. Mr. Howard meets Red’s need for a father…a loving, caring, protective father. We all carry this parental need, even if we had the best parents in the world! Even in the best of situations there is still a longing for even more connection, more intimacy…to know as we are fully known. This is one of the things that we can relate to our parents about actually because they need it too. It is the amazing truth about the gospel. Jesus came to save us from our sins and to bring us into right relationship with God the Father. Scripture gives us a few ways to think about what that right relationship is: Creator and creation, God and worshipper/believer, Groom and bride, Master and servant, etc. But the one that trumps them all is Father and child and more specifically Father and son. You may think that’s a little one-sided at best and very sexist at worst, but there is a reason for the specific gender.
Let’s consider Paul’s letter to the Galatians. After Paul finishes explaining the purpose of the law…to hold us captive in our sin as a prison guard…he continues, “the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith” (3:24-26). He is telling us the amazing news that we are not just accepted by God to be his servants, even though that would be a higher honor than the greatest earthly title…to be the servant of the God of the universe…no, Paul tells us we are so, so much more. We are God’s sons! We are his own children. Paul calls it the spirit of adoption elsewhere in Romans 8:15. That is what has happened in the cross of Jesus Christ…we have been forgiven, loved, accepted, and adopted as God’s own children.
Jesus is very clear about this in his own ministry teaching the disciples that the kingdom of God belongs to little children (Matthew 19:13-15). The life of faith is a childlike life…one of full dependence on God (of which I have written about here). Like a child to a parent, a life of need and vulnerability and being met there. Jesus brings us into his own family.
As if that weren’t enough it gets better! Paul specifies that we are sons of God. If you are a woman reading this you might be a little challenged by that label and maybe even offended. Well, you are in good company…the gospel offends everyone at some point or another. I know it’s not always easy to imagine myself adorned as a bride waiting for Jesus as my bridegroom, but it’s true about me nonetheless regardless of my feelings about it or my inability to imagine it (ref to Isaiah 61, Song of Songs, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Revelation, etc., etc.). Paul uses “son” to refer to all of God’s children because of where he goes next in Galatians. He says,
“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’ So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God” (4:4-7 emphasis mine).
Sonship mattered a great deal in the Ancient Near East. The firstborn son was heir to the father’s estate. He inherited everything that belonged to the father. Just think of the recently dubbed King Charles III of England. He was Elizabeth’s firstborn son and so rightful heir to the throne. He inherited all that was hers…kingdom, title, and fortune. Prince William is first in line after Charles and so on and so forth. Paul is highlighting the fact that we are God the Father’s heirs! He does not just welcome us into his kingdom, he gives it to us! All that is his is now ours.
You might be asking, “What about Jesus? Isn’t he the heir?” Yes, indeed he is…AND he has made us heirs too. Paul says as much again in Romans 8: “The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory” (16-17). Jesus wanted us to be his equal brothers. Just think about that for a second. The Savior of the world wanted you to be co-heirs with him…to receive all that his Father intended for him. We see this in Mark 3:31-35 and again in Hebrews 2:5-11. You are promised God’s kingdom!
Just to back this up a little more and to drive it home for my sisters in Christ out there. Jesus applies this truth directly to Mary Magdalene and his disciples after he rises from the dead on Easter day. He has conquered the dead and has made good on all of God’s promises. He has guaranteed our sonship. After he opens Mary’s eyes to recognize him, Jesus says, “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God’” (John 20:17). Jesus has made his father our father. All of us. And he has put us in his standing before his and our Father, as the son and heir.
This is a real mind blow. We can hardly fathom what this fully means for us other than it is really, really, really awesome! While this truth is overwhelming in many ways it also gives us solid ground on which to stand in the current zeitgeist of deconstruction. We are still obsessed with questions of identity, but it is so “in” right now to first deconstruct everything about yourself all the way down to your own biology. The question is no longer as simple as Derek Zoolander’s famous existential moment with a puddle…“who am I?” Now we are asking, “What am I?” And we’re pushing our deconstructed confusion onto our children effectively destroying any foundation on which to stand. They have to work on defining themselves completely from the biological level all the way up to the old questions of what you want to be when you grow up. Talk about living by the law! EVERYTHING is up to you! It is the loudest expression of that ancient sinful desire to be our own god. The proof is in the pudding. This is not resulting in more freedom like we so often believe it will. Rather it is more bondage…more depression, more anxiety, more fear, more anger, more suicide. And yet there is a word from outside…a voice that breaks through the insufferable white noise of us desperately trying to define ourselves…a voice that is stronger than our futile efforts to strip mine our personhood as we try to find some kind of hope in ourselves. Our Father in heaven declares, “You are my child! You are my heirs!”
movie poster
God has made us his children through faith in his Son Jesus and has given us the Spirit of sonship…so we are now heirs to the King of kings! That’s who you are and what you are in Jesus Christ. That’s what his forgiveness means in your life. Not only are you set free from condemnation, set free from shame and guilt associated with sin, set free from death itself…all of which is so amazing it calls us all to rejoice…BUT you are set free to walk in your sonship. The guardian of the law is gone and you are now a child of grace and rightful heir of the Most-High God. There is so much more ahead for you! God promises you eternal life as princes and princesses in his kingdom. There’s a reason we all have an affinity for the fairy tale stories we heard as children…the Cinderella story where we are taken from slavery to being royals in the palace…they are echoes of truth and echoes of that longing in us for that right relationship with our Father in heaven.
And lastly, I want to highlight the implication we’ve seen from the beginning of this post. Having the Spirit of sonship in Jesus Christ naturally means you have a Father that loves you…his Father, The Father. One that delights in giving you all that he has (Luke 15:31, Matt. 7:11). One that knows you inside and out (Jer. 1:5, Psalm 139:13). One that beams when he looks upon you with the greatest sense of love and pride. A Father that sings over you (Zeph. 3:17). A Father that does not withhold anything from you (Rom. 8:31-32). One that knows your needs before you even know them let alone ask for them to be met (Matt. 6:8). Your Spirit of sonship means that the King of heaven uses all of his power to protect you and care for you. He has fought and won for you. You are loved, wanted, and accepted. You are his child. Amen.
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