From the Pulpit

In the movie Groundhog Day, the protagonist, a man named Phil Conner, is caught having to relive the same day over and over and over.

Each morning he wakes up in the same bed and breakfast, in the same small rural Pennsylvania town, where he has been sent to cover an annual Groundhog Day event. And at first, since Phil Conner is sort of a royal you know what, he uses the fact that he is stuck in the same day again and again to fulfill his hedonistic desires.

He drives like a drunk man, steals money from an armored car, stuffs his face with way too much bad food, and even learns how to chat up various women one day so he can return the next to woo them to bed. But there’s one woman named Rita that Phil, despite all the inside knowledge he gains about her each day, simply can’t get to sleep with him. You see, even though Phil knows what makes Rita tick, she still knows he is a self-absorbed jerk.

Well, unable to have his way with Rita and being stuck in the same day over and over eventually drives Phil to despair. He repeatedly kills himself in assorted ways only to wake up in the same day yet one more time. But eventually, with nowhere else to go and nothing else to do, Phil is forced to start taking a good look at himself. And realizing he’s not a very nice person, Phil actually begins to make better use of his time by helping others and even improving himself.

So by the time the movie comes to a close, Phil Conner is demonstrating very different behavior than he was when it first started. When he’s not learning how to play the piano, he’s changing a flat tire for a car full of little old woman; and when he’s not learning how to sculpt a block of ice, he’s finally being kind to an old high school classmate he has repeatedly mistreated. Even though Phil knows everyday is going to be the same day the next morning, he chooses to make the most of each one with acts of grace, kindness, and charity.

Of course, there’s another reason why making good use of our time is such an important thing to do. In our broken and tattered world, there’s a lot in need of being fixed and none of us gets to claim we have unlimited time to help with the needed repairs.

Yep, as one of my favorite seminary professors liked to joke, last time anyone of us checked the mortality rate still seems to be running right around a 100 percent. We die, pure and simple, and because of that we all live with a limited number of days — days that can run out on us at any moment.

Sure, we can and should give thanks that because of God’s goodness in Jesus Christ, death is hardly the final word for us. But just because death isn’t the final word, that hardly means we get to skip it! So time is hardly an unlimited resource for any of us. Since we all live with a set amount, it’s important that we use it wisely.
Walt Whitman, the great American poet, also knew something about the limited number of hours we have on this earth to make a difference in the world. During the Civil War, Whitman left New York City in order to tend to his brother in Washington, D.C. who had been injured fighting for the Union.   

Overcome by the suffering and loss of life he saw in the hospital, Whitman ended up staying in Washington for the next 11 years to serve as a nurse for the wounded and dying.

In his poem O Me! O Life!, Whitman, gives expression to the struggles and hardships that come with life and the need, therefore, to make the most of our time. Or as he writes in a portion of the poem: “O me! O life! ... of the questions of these recurring; Of the endless trains of the faithless — of cities fill’d with the foolish …Of the poor results of all — of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me; Of the empty and useless years of rest — with the rest me intertwined; The question O me! so sad, recurring — What good amid these, O me, O life?”
Whitman then closes the poem by answering his own question. He wonders what good his life is amid the troubles and trials of the world and he answers with these words: “That you are here — that life exists, and identity; That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.” 

Well, what is true for Whitman is, of course, true for us as well. Yes, life is a mess and sometimes full of more troubles and trials than we care to even ponder. But here we are, nonetheless. Life exists anyway giving each and everyone of us the chance to contribute our own verse to the powerful play as it goes on before us.

The Rev. Stephen Yates is pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Destin.