When Hollywood gets it right, the church should applaud, even when it means admitting or confessing we’ve missed the mark.
The 1984 movie, Places in the Heart, was an Oscar winning picture with a star studded cast staring Sally Fields, Ed Harris, and Danny Glover. The setting is the Dustbowl, Depression Era of 1935 in Central Texas. The movie opens on a Sunday afternoon with Sheriff Royce Spalding at the railyards. Whylie, a cheerful black teen, accidentally shoots and kills Royce. Spalding’s body is gently and respectfully returned to his wife, Edna. Wylie is dragged behind a truck and then hanged.
The movie unfolds with Edna, a widow with two kids, trying to navigate life and to save the farm. Mr. Will, her blind brother-in-law boards with her as well as Moze, a black man who works for Edna and offers wisdom (he’ll be run out of town by the local KKK). Wayne Lomax has an affair with the school teacher, Viola.
The final scene of the movie bookends the opening scene as it occurs on a Sunday, this time at a church worship service. Viola and her husband, in an attempt to start afresh drive away, passing the church. As the camera moves past the doors of the hallowed building you see it open as if inviting Viola to come back, as if the answers to their marital problems lie here and not there on the road. Inside the building the choir can be heard singing, “This Is My Story.”
As the scene shifts to inside the church itself, the preacher reads from 1 Corinthians 13:1-8 during which Mrs. Lomax reaches for her husband’s hand. The choir begins singing In the Garden with the preacher reading the communion passage from 1 Corinthians 11. As the camera pans the spars congregation, we the pews suddenly filled with their faces coming into focus.
We see Moze. Moze? “Wait! Wasn’t Moze run out of town? How and when did he come back?” As he takes communion he passes the tray to Enda’s children, who passes it to their mother, Edna. Edna takes the tray and passes it to her husband, Royce. “Hold!” Royce cannot be present because he was shot and murdered in the opening scene of the movie, wasn’t he? Then he takes the plate and passes it to Wylie as the camera holds its gaze on the boy until it begins to fade with Royce’s final words, “Peace of God.”
Trying to make sense of the ending is part of the journey. Is this scene a dream? Is this scene an alternative reality? Or maybe, just maybe what we find is a peek behind the curtain where everything gets reconciled at the Table.
Soli Deo Gloria!
(i.e., only God is glorified!)