The Accumulated Misbehaviors in Punxatawney

sermo by Carrie Eikler
John 12:1-8, Philippians 3:4b-14
March 17, 2013 (Lent 5)

In this month’s edition of the magazine The Atlantic, I was alerted to the fact that it is the twentieth anniversary of the movie “Groundhog Day” with Bill Murray.   True to its nature, Groundhog Day was a movie that I watched over and over as a teenager.  It must have, in some way, spoken to the existential angst that many teenagers feel, but don’t quite know how to express.

So let’s retell the central plot of Groundhog Day one more time.  The Atlantic article did a great job of summing it up, so I’ll use their synopsis:   Groundhog Day is a “bizarre romantic comedy about a grumpy, middle-aged weatherman who must relive the same day over and over until at last he bursts the spirit’s sleep….Weatherman Phil Connors, of Channel 9, Pittsburgh, is dispatched one freezing February to the town of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. His assignment: to cover the Groundhog Festival, a strange bit of real-life pagan whimsy involving a groundhog, its shadow, and the possibility of six more weeks of winter. Phil ([played by Bill] Murray) is bored and hostile; he flirts spikily with his producer, Rita ([played by Andie] MacDowell), and bullies his cameraman; he disdains the cheery locals and their festivities ([calling them ]“hicks … morons …”); he spurns a dozen occasions to chat/connect/relate; he can’t wait to wrap up this piddling gig and get back to Pittsburgh. But a huge snowstorm—which he had predicted, with meteorological hubris, would pass by harmlessly—blocks his way home. Trapped in Punxsutawney for the night, comprehensively disaffected, he signs off and crashes out. When he wakes up the next morning, it’s Groundhog Day. Again.  Same conditions, same people, same ritual. So it goes the morning after, and the morning after that, and on and on ad (apparently) infinitum. Phil is in a loop, a temporal locked groove. He’s stuck.”

Quite a heady bit of entertainment.  Apparently, when the writers, Harold Ramis and Danny Rubin, were creating the film they talked about what should cause Phil’s problem-they considered using an external cause such as a magical clockmaker, or a gypsy’s curse.  In the end, as we know, it is left unexplained why it happens.  There is no reason given why Phil is reliving this day over and over.  It begins quickly and its and how exactly it is resolved is unknown to us the viewer.  But, as the Atlantic article explains, it does seem like “Phil’s stopped clock is all about his Phil-ness, his unrecognized  despair…We accept Phil’s never-ending Groundhog Day as a sentence passed upon his character, the net result of his accumulated misbehaviors in Punxsutawney.”

Stuck.
Stuckness
Imprisoned in time
Imprisoned in a loop of our own despair.
Stuck, stuck, stuck.
Groundhog’s Day…all over again.

Do you feel, or have you ever felt…stuck?
So, maybe you are stuck by feeling your job is unfulfilling, but in these times,
can you really follow your heart’s desire?

Maybe you feel stuck in negative thoughts
maybe negative thoughts about a certain person that no matter what happens
you will always think that person is a jerk.

May you feel stuck in a family system
where no one takes you seriously,
or everyone expects everything from you,
or no one seems to care about your opinion
and no matter how much things seem to change,
they will always stay the same.

Maybe you feel stuck in a tradition
like, you were raised Mennonite but wonder if you are really Catholic
or you were raised Catholic and you are flirting with us Anabaptists.
but could you really do anything about that?
what would they say.

And here, I am an expert about “they”
“have loads of “they’s” in my head.
What will “they” say about me wearing boots when I preach?
What will “they” say about our need for a sabbatical?
What are “they” saying about x, y, or z.

Oh yeah.  Church, home, family, friends.
I have a whole chorus of “theys” in my head.
But that’s part of my stuckness.

I’d wager that in some way,
big or small,
insignificant or debilitating
you may have your own feeling of being stuck

and you wonder what caused it.

What clockmaker’s magic or gypsy’s curse
or bit of divine karma has brought you to this
place?

What did you do wrong—what is your “philness”
that brought this about?

When Paul wrote to the Philippians,
he was in a physical prison,
but speaking of a spiritual release.
He was saying how everything in past should have led him to
a certain path--
and for a while, it did.

He had the perfect resume so to speak
physically, spiritually, intellectually, genetically
he had it locked in—a future that was bright
and secure
with status and acknowledgement.

But once he met Christ
it shifted.

I don’t know if Paul is expressing remorse
or regret for his past.
But I think he does recognize that it shaped him
The past shaped him,
but his future is now a different goal.
He’s not locked into his previous notions
anymore.

--

So, we sit somewhat
in the prisons of our lives:
mental prisons, emotional prisons, spiritual prisons.
Even if it is simply a prison of a routine that feels dry,
there are things in our lives we feel unable to break free of
escape.

During Lent we are invited to turn inward and look
at what needs released in our lives.
So we give things up or take things on and hope
that seven weeks is enough to start us
on the path of liberation.

But then Lent will end, and
who knows?
Maybe things will be the same as before.
Maybe things will start to turn a corner.
Maybe we will start to unstick from the stuck parts of our lives
and it won’t be…finally…Groundhog Day anymore.

--

The artist Jan Richardson reflects in her book Sanctuary of Women: “ I sometimes have a keen sense of the shadows of other lives — fleeting impressions of what might have happened if I had made a different choice or if another path had opened to me at a crucial juncture or a seemingly ordinary one. I am not meant to inhabit or linger too long amid these glimpses of other lives, yet they visit nonetheless. They come as reminders of how it matters what we choose.

They come too as a reminder of grace:
that God can work within every choice, even the ones we made long ago. “

I find that to be an amazingly comforting thought,
that God can work within every choice,
even the ones we made long ago.
Isn’t that an amazing definition of grace?
One I think even Paul, who was big on grace
could approve of, as he sat in his
own prison cell.

 And I imagine if that is the case,
that God can work within every choice,
even the ones we made long ago,
God can work within any prison walls we create for ourselves,
or stuck-ness that our circumstances have put us in
that have nothing to do with what we’ve done or not done.
But the things that happen just because life happens
and life isn’t fair.

I’d like to take a few minutes and have you reflect, silently,
your place of “stuck-ness.”
It might be a huge barrier to happiness for you. 
It might be small roadbump, something you wouldn’t have thought
of calling “stuck” unless I invited you think about it.

What is do you feel prisoner to in your life?
How are you feeling stuck?

[silence]

Remember Groundhog’s Day?
Well, as anyone could guess, Phil figures it out.  
He learns contentment, and he learns forgiveness, and he learns kindness.  
And he gets unstuck.
Could we learn from that?
Contentment, forgiveness, kindness?

Christ has come to promise us new life
no longer bound in prison,
stuck in a loop,
pulls us from the perpetual Groundhog Day
into the Resurrection Day.

Holy God,
there are many ways we are feeling stuck
show us what we can learn to
move forward
what extravagance of spirit or action
will help us break free.

Teach us contentment, forgiveness, and kindness
But also while we wonder and work
teach us patience.  Teach us faith.
New life is ahead of us
and we reach for it.

Root us in your mysterious love
as we press towards you.