Phony

Recently, I have been watching a new show on Hulu called Phony.

It is the story of a high school boy named Sonny who survives a horrible car accident only to wake up in the hospital, convinced the woman at his bedside is not his mom, that she’s an imposter.  But he’s the only one who thinks this.

His mother, Ellen, is played by actress Connie Britton, who might be familiar to you from shows like Friday Night Lights and Nashville.  She plays Sonny’s mom both before Sonny’s accident and after, and the show uses digital effects to alter her “after” appearance just enough to be unsettling. 

The central mystery of the story being is Ellen actually an imposter or is her son suffering from face blindness or something called Capgras syndrome, both neurological disorders that might explain Sonny’s confusion?

We are only three episodes into the season and while I have no idea how the season will end, I am fairly confident that whatever we think is going on right now as of episode three is probably not how things will turn out.

In fact, the title of the show implicitly makes us think Ellen, the mother, is the “Phony,” but over and over we are shown how Sonny behaves around his peers, adapting in seconds to be a people pleaser, agreeing with opinions he doesn’t share out of what seems like an earnest need to make people happy.

Is Sonny the “Phony” in the title?

But perhaps the show is making an even bigger, more broader statement about the state of the world these days, about how real we are with each other, how real people are on social media, and—as election day approaches—how real are the people we’re getting ready to vote for.

But I feel that maybe because what we are shown throughout the day on whatever screen it is we happen to be looking at is the very worst of human behavior that that may be a direct cause of the angst we feel in our hearts today, the pessimism or cynicism.  The world looks like the worst it has ever been.

Perhaps the reason the world feels so wrong today is that our expectations are too high. 

I don’t think they’re too high. 

I think it’s reasonable to want each new generation not only to be better off than the generation before, but to simply be—better.

But I think if we narrow our focus, if we concentrate on our immediate circles, our families, our friend circle, our church, our jobs—the people we come in contact with every day in real life—also known as IRL—we can see that there is goodness in the world.

There is sadness of course and suffering.  These things Jesus told us will always be with us, but there is goodness too, when we behave in a way that shows what our souls are truly capable of, when we live up to our soul’s potential.

Today’s reading from Ephesians brings so much comfort to my soul.

Let me share again the last part of that reading, “But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body's growth in building itself up in love.”

What an awesome gift we have been given.

What an awesome responsibility we have to that gift—to build ourselves up in love.

Paul speaks of Jesus ascending and points out that Jesus could not ascend if He hadn’t already descended.

Jesus came down from heaven not to debase Himself, but so He could lift us up.  Paul writes therefore that “we must grow up in every way into him.” 

We must grow up into him.

Almost like a plant stretching itself toward the sun.  The plant never comes close, but that doesn’t stop it from trying.

Our souls stretch themselves toward the light and love of God. 

And we must do nothing to hamper that movement.  We must allow our souls to orient themselves to God.

Recently, someone (who asked me to keep them anonymous) cleaned the windows in the chapel.  She cleaned both the windows and the stained glass, and we both stood there with jaws open as what was once filmy and foggy became crystal clear.

Monday, as she cleaned, I told her about the rose bush on the other side of the window, how a couple of months ago, a single rose, in full bloom, began climbing toward the sky and light like no rose I had ever seen before.  It was a Jack and the Beanstalk rose.

When it first began its climb, I noticed it during Morning Prayer.  I always face those stained-glass windows, and I could see the red blur of the rose bloom as it grew up, at one point settling on a spot just above a stained-glass rose.

My dad would call that, I think, synchronicity.  I call it the divine artist at work. 

But we must be like that rose and grow up into Jesus.  It is not easy.  It makes us, in fact, pretty vulnerable.  But the journey, the effort, is so worth the price.

When I look at the world around me these days, the world that appears on our screens, I don’t see people growing up into Christ.  I see a lot of people content to remain right where they are, the place that Jesus descended to, rather than striving upward and toward the place Jesus ascended to.

Paul writes, “We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people's trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming.”

This is the world we see in social media, in the news … we are children, unmoored and vulnerable to trickery and scheming.

It is a world that screams at us that what we see is reality.

Even when the reality directly surrounding us in our home, our church may show us something different, a hurt and wounded people, yes, but a people surrounded by and embraced by the light and love of Jesus.

If you want to know what’s real and what’s phony in the world, listen for Jesus.

Our Jesus is rooted in love.  This is His language.  This is how we know Him.

Through love.

Orient yourself to that love and grow up and into Christ.

Amen.