"I Will Be With You"
One of the most memorable movies of my childhood is E.T. The Extraterrestrial. E.T. was released in 1982 and was wildly successful. E.T. with his big blue eyes and neck that could move up and down—E.T. is so ugly, he’s cute! In case you haven’t watched E.T. in a few years—or ever—here’s a synopsis.
The film opens in a California forest as a group of alien botanists collect flora samples. U.S. government agents appear and the aliens flee in their spaceship, leaving one of their own behind. The scene shifts to a suburban home, where a boy named Elliott is trying to fit in with his older brother, Michael, and his friends. As he fetches pizza, Elliott discovers the stranded alien, who promptly flees. Despite his family's disbelief, Elliott leaves Reese's Pieces candy in the forest to lure the creature into his bedroom. Before he goes to bed, Elliott notices the alien imitating his movements.
Elliott feigns illness the next morning to avoid school so he can play with the alien. That afternoon, Michael and their younger sister, Gertie, meet the alien. They decide to keep him and hide him from their mother, Mary. When the children ask it about its origin, it answers by levitating balls to represent its solar system and further demonstrates its powers by reviving a dead plant.
The alien learns to speak English by repeating what Gertie says as she watches Sesame Street and, at Elliott's urging, dubs itself "E.T." E.T. reads a comic strip where Buck Rogers, stranded, calls for help by building a makeshift communication device, and is inspired to duplicate the effort. It enlists Elliott's help in building a device to "phone home" by using a Speak & Spell toy. Michael starts to notice that E.T.'s health is declining and that Elliott is referring to himself as "we". On Halloween, Elliott and E.T. ride a bicycle to the forest, where E.T. makes a successful call home. The next morning, Elliott wakes up to find E.T. gone, and returns home to his distressed family. Michael finds E.T. dying, and takes him to Elliott, who is also dying. Mary becomes frightened when she discovers her son's illness and the dying alien, before government agents invade the house.
Scientists set up a medical facility in the house, quarantining Elliott and E.T. Their link disappears, and E.T. then appears to die while Elliott recovers. A grief-stricken Elliott is left alone with the motionless alien when he notices a dead flower, the plant E.T. had previously revived, coming back to life. E.T. reanimates and reveals that his people are returning. Elliott and Michael steal a van that E.T. had been loaded into and a chase ensues, with Michael's friends joining them as they attempt to evade the authorities by bicycle. Suddenly facing a dead end, they escape as E.T. uses telekinesis to lift them into the air and toward the forest. Standing near the spaceship, E.T.'s heart glows as he prepares to return home. E.T. says goodbye, and before entering the spaceship, tells Elliott "I'll be right here", pointing his glowing finger to Elliott's heart. E.T. then picks up the flower pot Gertie gave him, walks into the spaceship, and takes off, leaving a rainbow in the sky as Elliott watches the ship leave.
This summer, Logan and I decided that Nathan was old enough to watch E.T. We talked about the movie for a couple of weeks, and when we finally showed it to Nathan, he was mesmerized. We watched it several times that weekend! Maybe it’s because I just watched E.T. again last weekend, but I couldn’t help but think of that famous line, “I’ll be right here” uttered by Henry and E.T. both during the movie when I read the lectionary texts for today—in particular the text from Exodus. What I like about these three lectionary passages for today is that they really seem to build on each other—some weeks this is less obvious, but this week’s connection stands out to me more than in other lectionary groupings. The passage in Exodus is foundational. God reveals who God is: “I am who I am,” and God makes the promise that God will be with God’s people now and in the future, “I will be with you.” In the gospel text, Jesus reveals further that he is that one who will be with us if we follow him. In Paul’s epistle to the Romans, we see how this promise of God’s plays out after Jesus’ death and resurrection—how we are to respond to God’s promise. “I will be with you,” God says in Exodus. “I will be with you.” God’s revelation is both mysterious and comforting. We know that God is with us, for us, and that is incredibly powerful, but what is our response to God? What does God expect of us? I’m certain that our response is to have faith. How can our response be anything but faith? This God of ours who appeared to Moses from out of a burning bush, this God of ours who sent Jesus to live among us, this God of ours who asks that we love one another. But in this age of ipads, iphones, and instant gratification, it seems to me at times, that God is not relevant to people anymore. And that breaks my heart. People are reluctant to identify with denominations anymore. We prefer to call ourselves “Christian” and then fail to live out what that really means. “Then Jesus told his disciples, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”
It is because of God’s faith in us, the “I will be with you” in Exodus that we are even able to call ourselves Christians and have faith of our own. And what is our response? It seems we do the opposite of what Paul writes in his letter to the Romans—we don’t let love be genuine; we don’t hate what is evil or hold fast to what is good; we don’t love one another with mutual affection; we don’t outdo one another in showing honor…Instead, we expect faith to happen to us, or worse, we expect the church or the pastors or our community of faith to give us faith, to inspire us to live out our lives of faith, to make us good and faithful Christians—if they do what we want. And if the church doesn’t or if the pastor does something that we don’t like then we withhold our faith from God and one another. Again, I find this heartbreaking. Again Jesus’ words from Matthew’s gospel, “Then Jesus told his disciples, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”
“I will be with you” says God to Moses at the burning bush after asking Moses to do something Moses considers impossible, “I will be with you.” And God is with us even still. God is with us. One of the funniest lines in E.T. is towards the end of the film, after E.T. has come back to life and Elliott and his brother have escaped with him in a government van. They pull into a playground and the back end of the van breaks open, a cloud of fog billows from the back doors, and Elliott emerges. Elliott’s brother’s friends have followed the van to the park and brought the boys’ bicycles, but they have no idea what has been going on with the family. Elliott tries to explain what it is they have in the back of the van. As an explanation he says, “He's a man from outer space, and we're taking him to his spaceship.” The older boy asks, “Well, can't he just beam up?” To which Elliott replies, “This is *reality*, Greg.” This is reality, friends. And unlike the movie E.T., in which an endearing little alien points to your heart, and says, “I’ll be right here,” and then disappears into outer space leaving a rainbow trail, the God of Israel does not leave us alone. When we confess Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, and we are cognizant of the significance of this confession, we respond with faith. But what does that really mean? Theologian and reformer John Calvin calls faith “a firm and certain knowledge of God’s benevolence toward us, founded upon the truth of the freely given promise in Christ, both revealed to our minds and sealed upon our hearts by the Holy Spirit” (Institutes, 551). Faith is complicated, and being faithful is hard. It is our struggle as human beings who believe in God to wrestle with the implications of God’s gift of faith to us. We have faith because God has faith in us—as sinful and broken as we are. When we distance ourselves from God, when we don’t let love be genuine; when we don’t hate what is evil or hold fast to what is good; when we don’t love one another with mutual affection; when we don’t outdo one another in showing honor—when we don’t do these things, we fail to honor God. Let me be more specific, when we gossip, when we withhold our resources, when our community of faith becomes a clique, when we exclude someone, when we fire off a nasty email—all those things and more break down faith, they break down the community of believers. Fortunately, providentially, our God is a gracious God. Our God is a God of relationship who wants to be in relationship with us, in spite of our disappointing behavior or attitude. The way God restores this relationship between God and us is to send Jesus Christ. It is through Jesus Christ that we experience forgiveness and reconciliation with God. Our response to this amazing gift is faith. God’s faith in us is transformational. Transformation comes as we reach out to friends and neighbors. Transformation comes as we strive to understand our enemies and strangers. Part of our calling as God’s faithful, faith-filled people is to be compassionate, caring and loving to everyone. As we help those who are in need, as we minister to those who are troubled, as we support those who cannot stand on their own, as we bring hope, and as we extend grace even when we do not want to do it, we reflect our own faith to God and to other people. Helen Keller once said, “The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched…but are felt in the heart.” Brothers and Sisters in Christ, may you face each and every day filled with God’s love and filled with faith in the knowledge that God is with you this day and every day. Amen.
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Bibliography
The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha, New Revised Standard Version.
