Pure Grace: Reflections on Les Mis

I don't often go to see movies at the theater. It's not that I don't enjoy them, it's more a matter of carving out the time and spending the money to go. This vacation time I have seen more movies than the rest of the year. I have seen some good ones! My oldest daughter and I went to the midnight premiere of The Hobbit. I have loved that story since high school, when before graduation I had read the entire Lord of the Rings (LOTR) trilogy 9 times and the preface (The Hobbit) many more. But the movie I anticipated more than any in a long time premiered on Christmas Day - Les Miserables. My wife and I had seen the most recent stage production this past summer at the Fox in Atlanta. The theatrical production was wonderful! My family planned to go to the movie for the earliest possible local showing - 12:45pm - even though Christmas is a sacred day for us. My in-laws agreed to spend the afternoon at our house playing with Karlie so we could take the older kids to the show. 

Like the LOTR, I first encountered Hugo's massive narrative in High School. The novel is over 1200 pages. I devoured the book. If you have not read it I challenge you to give it a shot. The tragic story of Jean Valjean's imprisonment for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his starving nephew, the following 19 years of hard labor, and the struggles of "freedom" as a former convict, forced to show his papers everywhere he traveled seems so unjust. After his encounter with a bishop who shows Valjean remarkable grace and challenges him to begin his life anew, the former convict experiences an identity crisis. In the novel the first 100+ pages are given to the Bishop before we ever meet Valjean! After he encounters this loving priest, Valjean takes up the challenge, moving to a new city, buying a factory with money given to him by the priest, and eventually becoming the mayor of the town. Without giving away the main plot of the story, Valjean has numerous chances to offer grace to others without concern for his own life. In a sense he becomes the Bishop. Through encountering God through the Bishop's actions and challenge, Valjean seeks to be an instrument of God's grace and divine, loving justice for the rest of his life. The anti hero in the book is Javert, a former guard from Valjean's prison days who later becomes the Chief of police in the town where Valjean lives and later in Paris. He is a lawman who holds to the letter of the law and who follows the philosophy that criminals cannot change. He has the view that people are either good or evil, light or dark, there is no grey, there is no chance for change, there is no such thing as reform or the miscarriage if justice. Sinners are always sinners and criminals will always be criminals. 

The movie is masterfully made. It is a musical, but the focus is not so much on blockbuster musical performances, but on the drama of the story. There is much foreshadowing through music and action. Similarly, themes are repeated later in the movie through music, action and characters. My family laughs because I cried from the first musical number until the last note. Because I had a cold I took a stack of tissues with me into the show. I used all of them! 

I found the movie to be more than entertainment, it was worshipful and even sermonic. It seems more and more in popular culture are echoing the result of Valjean's lesson of treating others with grace and respect. However the reason for such actions demonstrated in commercials and efforts such as the local 11 Alive Morning News "pay it forward" is to do for others because someone has done something nice for you and if enough people pay it forward it will eventually come back to benefit yourself. I suppose some can come away from Les Mis with such a message, but if they do they have missed Hugo's essential point. 

Hugo sought to improve society through Christian's understanding that God's grace is to be incarnated in each person and recognized in each other. He writes, 

So long as there shall exist, by reason of law and custom, a social condemnation, which, in the face of civilisation, artificially creates hells on earth, and complicates a destiny that is divine, with human fatality; so long as the three problems of the age — the degradation of man by poverty, the ruin of woman by starvation, and the dwarfing of childhood by physical and spiritual night — are not solved; so long as, in certain regions, social asphyxia shall be possible; in other words, and from a yet more extended point of view, so long as ignorance and misery remain on earth, books like this cannot be useless.

Hugo believed that we are to be instruments of God's unconditional love to our friends, our family, and even to those who would normally be considered enemies. We should be loving to all and grace-ful to all without concern as to whether that grace will be returned or not thrown back into our faces. 

For me the movie was a permanent reminder that grace is to be lived constantly and consistently. Like most folks it is easy for me to give grace to others when I'm wearing my "minister" hat. It's easy for me to do when I pass someone less fortunate who is begging for money. It's easy to be generous with my finances when a need is expressed. But where it becomes difficult for me is in two areas, with those I disagree philosophically/politically and with my teenage kids. I find with both I often behave more like Javert instead of Valjean. My goal is to begin acting more graceful at home, to listen and seek to understand my kids instead of assuming I understand, to be more patent when they get distracted, to be more of a teacher when they don't really know how to do what we have asked them to do, to allow them more time to be a kid while granting them more responsibilities and trusting them to accomplish what we ask. The same goes with those with whom I differ philosophically/politically - though I think that will be the more difficult of the two!

In the final scene the chorus cast declares, "To love another person is to see the face of God." May this year be one full of love for others and may that love be demonstrated through acts of pure grace - large and small - to everyone I meet (but beginning with my family)!

If you can't tell, I really enjoyed watching Les Mis the movie! I am actually trying to carve out time to go see it again very soon.