The Soloist: a theological movie review.

Something strange happened in the Jones household last night. My wife and I sat down and watched a movie together…and we both actually enjoyed it. That might possibly be one of the signs that herald the beginning of the Apocalypse. The only way she would like one of my movies would be for James Bond’s mother to be diagnosed with cancer so that 007 moves home and everyone in his family learns to love each other again. The only way I could ever watch Julia and Julia with her would have to involve at least one Julia wearing an Iron Man suit, lots of explosions, car chases and an evil plot to take over the world with her recipes. You get the picture. My wife liked the long, first part of Titanic and I could only tolerate the last 40 minutes where something interesting actually started to take place.

Last night we watched The Soloist with Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr. It is based on the true story of journalist Steve Lopez’s interaction with Nathaniel Ayers, a cello prodigy whose schizophrenia drives him into homelessness on the streets of the infamous Skid Row of Los Angeles. I admit that I have no idea what makes a film a critical success or if director Joe Wright should receive an award, but I do know that this film surprised me.

I am hesitant to watch any media portrayal of homelessness because the depictions are usually hurtful stereotypes that only serve to push the homeless further into the margins of society’s consciousness. The other reason that I was initially reluctant to watch a movie about homelessness is the fact that it is the meat and potatoes of my everyday existence and it has been for more years than most people last in this business. When I am not at work, I am usually hiking to a remote waterfall somewhere as far away from crime, drugs, prostitution and mental illness as possible. In other words, I cope by intentionally getting away from the overwhelming crush of the masses when I am not at work. However, so many people have asked for my feedback on this film that I could not ignore it. It obviously touched something within many of its viewers.

Several people have asked me about the accuracy of the film. I have never been to Los Angeles, but I have met people who work there in homeless shelters. I also know people who have toured the areas just outside of those shelters. They describe a horrifying place of human misery like a permanent encampment of an army of severely mentally ill people. In short, their descriptions match what the movie portrayed of those who live on and under the pallets and skids of Skid Row. I know it is the place where this first became known. “Skid Row Staph” strikes terror into the hearts of homeless shelter workers everywhere and drives up our own operational budget for Lysol.

I can say that the portrayal of some of the homeless people in the movie was so realistic that a couple of times I was tapping my wife on the shoulder while shouting, “That’s so spot on!” The depiction of Nathaniel Ayers as a chronically homeless man who is suffering from schizophrenia, but is also beyond the reach of the any sort of required medical treatment because he is neither homicidal nor overtly suicidal was painfully similar to my experiences with many chronically homeless people. Over 90, 000 people are homeless in Los Angeles County every night and 35,000 of them are chronically homeless precisely because they are in the same sort of shape as the character portrayed by Jamie Foxx. My experience has been that many people in that condition tend to migrate to larger urban centers, but sadly their migration is often helped along by one-way “bus ticket therapy” and “patient dumping” by organizations in smaller communities. The tragic reality is that the most troubled souls among us can easily get lost and remain invisible in the bigger cities. It’s no secret that many smaller communities, which survive on tourism revenue, count on that very thing happening.

The thing that I found most appealing about The Soloist was its honesty. It did not try to wrap things up into a neat, “lived happily ever after” fairy tale ending. The movie ends with a sense that everything is unfinished, impermanent and open to revision each day. Making peace with the fact that humans are concrete, complex people and not sterile, abstract cases to be managed or “fixed” is a process that everyone who works with the homeless eventually experiences. That’s because homelessness is ultimately a human issue that is as diverse and unpredictable as humans generally are. Many of my conservative evangelical friends like to believe that once an individual is “healed’ everything just neatly works itself out into tidy resolutions that mimic the narrative patterns found in the stories of the Bible. Many of my left-leaning Christian friends believe that institutions are the key to solving homelessness. More affordable housing and services surely would fix the problem. Both deny the complex reality of human experience by reducing individuals to a two-dimensional, cookie cutter simplicity. Homelessness will not be resolved by conversions or stroking checks. Both approaches miss the fundamental truth that the movie tapped into so well: in the end there is no such thing as an abstract homeless “problem” to be solved from a distance, but only people who are homeless and in need of mutual human nearness. People who rise from the grave of self-absorbed, super busy, rat races and walk the journey of long-term friendship with another human can narrow that distance one person at a time. Everything else is often hubris.

Of course, that sort of thing does not feed our messiah complexes. Whether by evangelism or activism, we want to save the world and quickly move on to the next problem. I find a lot of people very interested in the eternal souls of the homeless. I also find a lot of people very interested in the availability of a roof for the homeless, but I find very few people actually interested in the everyday lives of individuals who are homeless. Heck, I find very few people with time enough to be interested in the everyday lives of individuals who are not homeless. Instead, everyone is so busy rushing to usher in the kingdom that they trip over the homeless fellow and never ask him what he had for breakfast. If they did, they would discover the kingdom is already here, hidden in plain sight by its bare-naked simplicity and grace.

I have repeatedly witnessed the amazing difference that the involvement of just one friend---not a paid service provider or social worker, but a real friend can make in the transformation of the life of someone who is homeless. That’s the true message of The Soloist. It’s also the slow heart of the Gospel that was long ago tossed aside during the McWalmartization of the Church in North America. I am not against more homeless shelters, religious soup kitchens or government housing initiatives. However, those are not the answer. Getting over our 'Constitutional right' to individual self-centeredness will reach deeper than all of those could ever hope to. The Gospel is about incarnation. It’s never about redemption from outside or above, but entrance into the messy world of another. There are over 90, 000 homeless people in Los Angeles County each night. However, there are almost 10 million people in Los Angeles County. Imagine what would happen if just 90,000 of them slowed down long enough to actually get to know just one homeless person and come to care about that person’s life…then, it would truly live up to its name.

The foolishness of preaching

"You can no longer separate Word and Flesh. Once separated, once you refuse the reality of the Incarnation, you are left with a theology that is merely a heap of words." ----Alan Ecclestone

Words, words, words. Without incarnation, that is all they are. Preachers often find themselves wrestling with God and their own demons in the pulpit---nakedly, right in front everyone. That is because the best truths we ever speak are born from the womb of our own struggles---when the words are incarnated into real human experience. The best preachers often tell on themselves by the themes they revisit over and over again with success. We are drawn like moths to the flame by the irresistible urge to subconsciously exorcise our own demons. I say that with some embarrassment because a theme that constantly comes up in my preaching is the acceptance of our own humanity as a gift from God. Deep down, I know that this journey into the world of homelessness has been about more than compassion and justice for those in need. It has been a quest to find my own humanity. My Holy Grail quest has been the search for my own soul among those lost souls who are also trying to find their way home. My best sermons have always been the strongest indictments of the worst of me. Of course, the little old lady who shakes my hand at the back of the church and tells me what a wonderful “message” she just heard has no idea that I just crucified myself again with my own words.

For good or bad, my love affair with preaching has shaped the last twenty years of my life. I love to tell stories. I love to make people laugh, and occasionally cry, but the thing I love most of all is the “aha” moment. I have not found anything more beautiful than watching someone experience an epiphany. The irony is that most of the lasting epiphanies have little or nothing to so with my sermons. What I say and what people hear are quite often two very distinct things. Most of the time when someone tells me the really profound “truth” that she or he heard in my sermon, I realize that I did not say that at all. It was not even close enough to the intent of my homily to count in horseshoes or hand grenades, but there it is, some life-changing truth that I was never even brilliant enough to have come up with in the first place. Deep down, I know that most preachers are given far more credit than they deserve for things like that. I might just get kicked out of the club for admitting that on here because most practitioners of pulpit craft take themselves far too seriously. The most dangerous thing a preacher can ever do is start believing all of the kind things those nice, gray-haired ladies say after the service. I have watched many of my peers over the years begin to not only smoke, but to also inhale that drug. The next thing you know, they are sure that they really are brilliant after all. Watching that happen is often as painful as watching a crack addict slowly melt away over time.

The best sermons are the ones that we preach to ourselves about two minutes into the one that the preacher is giving from the pulpit. We know ourselves better than any preacher could ever begin to know about where we are at in life. Those “ooh” and “aah” moments of epiphany belong to you and God. I do not mind that my hearers go off to their own burning bushes while I am speaking. It beats watching them stare at the windows or count the bulbs in the chandeliers.

Not long ago, I preached at a large church here in town. A lady came up to me after the sermon and said, “You are wasting your talent on those people down there at the shelter.” Whatever kind of bizarre compliment she meant by that, her words broke my heart. They spoke volumes about how little she thinks of the people at the Mission. It is the same attitude that causes people to dump their trash on us as a “donation” in order to save a trip to the land fill dump. I could not help but wonder what made her think that a pretty church somewhere full of aging people who show up to get their heavenly tickets punched each week was more worthy of my very best efforts than the homeless and hungry people who voluntarily wander into my little chapel service each day at noon?

Like our meals, each noon chapel service is open to the public. Anyone may attend. You are welcome to drop by if you are ever in the area at noon. For years now I have offered my very best reflections, homilies, humor and stories to the people I deeply love there in that little chapel (shown in the picture). I had a pulpit speech instructor years ago who rolled his eyes every time I walked in the room. He said that I did not approach the text with enough soberness. I am ashamed to say he was probably correct. He would definitely flunk me out of homiletics now if he visited one of our services at the shelter. Sometimes we have a rowdy, irreverent crowd. Other times we have older folks who come into the warmth and fall asleep. I do not blame them. It is very comfortable in there and I have, on occasion, put myself to sleep.

My prayer is not that people will remember what I say, but that we all encounter something more than a mere heap of words. Together, I hope we are all foolishly touched by a little incarnation of faith, hope and love.