Every Pearl Has Its Price

Vengeance is mine, and recompense, for the time when their foot shall slip; for the day of their calamity is at hand, and their doom comes swiftly.’ … See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god beside me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand. – Deuteronomy 32:35,39 (ESV)

Do not say, “I will repay evil”; wait for the Lord, and he will deliver you. – Proverbs 20:22

John Wayne movies are practically a genre unto themselves. From Stagecoach to The Shootist, Wayne looms over the history of American cinema as few other figures have. Almost all his films are entertaining, even if, like me, a person has seen them multiple times. A few are really bad. Many are classics: Liberty Valance, Stagecoach, The Searchers, The Sands of Iwo Jima, Red River, and the list could go on. Some of the flaws in a typical John Wayne movie are really flaws in a typical John Ford movie, but even the flaws can be enjoyable. Someday, perhaps, I will do an entire post on what John Wayne and John Ford mean to me. But I really want to talk about today is True Grit, the 1969 film for which John Wayne won an Oscar and which was remade by the Coen brothers last year.

I did not go see the new True Grit in the theaters as Joan recommended, but I did pick it up last week on Blu-Ray. Directed by Henry Hathaway in 1969, the first iteration of True Grit is very much a John Wayne vehicle. It is the tale of an adventure seasoned with masculine comedy absent any vulgarity, slightly over-the-top, and positive. Adapting from Portis’ 1968 novel rather than the first movie, the Coen brothers created a film that is, in many ways, superior, with better performances by several of the cast embedded in a narrative that is both richer and more satisfying but also more troubling.

At the very beginning we hear the voice of Mattie Ross telling us, “You must pay for everything in this world, one way and another. There is nothing free except the grace of God.” In the context of the flight to escape by the murderer of Mattie’s father, we naturally think that Tom Chaney is the one who must pay for his crime, and that is true. Chaney does pay, but so do all those who live in this world. Mattie must pay her way. She pays for the help she needs to track down her father’s killer with money, but she also pays with a loss of her childhood innocence. Though she is by nature extremely intelligent, serious and sober, she possesses noble, if slightly unrealistic, notions of justice and righteous action. Her view, at least initially, is Old Testament-based in that she believes the justice of her cause alone will enable her to prevail. This is a naïve view, not so much with regard to prevailing but with regard to the cost of prevailing.

The climatic confrontation takes place in the significantly name Winding Stair Mountains. Our ascent through this life, though the old King James calls it ‘strait’, is hardly straight. The path to life and to grace has many strange twists and turns. All actions in this fallen world have reactions. Our best efforts often recoil back upon us in ways we could not anticipate. Even when we possess the wisdom to foresee, we sometimes feel constrained to carry through despite the consequences. Most of us know or will learn a “secret” which is that a person can have and do about what he or she wants -- only one must accept the cost. Like Mattie, God is a flawless bookkeeper. The books will balance in the end, and they will balance on every individual account regardless of how we may justify our actions.

If the law of action and reaction, of karma or whatever one chooses to call it were all then we would be trapped in a deterministic universe, hopeless in the face of infinite chain reactions and falling dominoes. But one thing is truly and truthfully free, and that is the grace of God through Christ Jesus. Christ alone is able to write, from His infinite store of righteous obedience, Paid In Full upon the account of each and every one of us. He is able to break the chain of consequence and release us from the bondage of ricocheting reactions.

Whether a person chooses to call Mattie’s actions vengeance or justice makes little difference. Externally the results can be indistinguishable. It is our internal balance that determines whether we keep our footing or are cast down into a pit of death. The toxin of vengeance is deadly indeed. Unchecked it will destroy us completely. Even when dealt with quickly, the damage is often extensive and the losses heartrending. But the grace of God does not abandon us.

Our journey, like Mattie’s, can become nightmarish, surreal in its horrors, flooded with fear, pain, and dread. Yet it is here most of all that we find ourselves in the “Everlasting Arms” of God’s grace, carried by Him, the karmic chain sundered. We are the Cross of Christ, and He bore us in it from death to life. “There is nothing free except the grace of God.”

And the Mule He Rode In On

And Absalom met the servants of David. And Absalom rode upon a mule, and the mule went under the thick boughs of a great oak, and his head caught hold of the oak, and he was taken up between the heaven and the earth; and the mule that was under him went away. – 2 Samuel 18:9 (KJV)

This may be confusing verse if you don’t know much about Absalom who was one of the sons of David. The context is that Absalom had rebelled against his father as king and was well on his way to taking over the kingdom until he ran into this particular oak tree. Having driven David and his followers out of Jerusalem, the rebellious prince paused to gather a greater army before pursuing his father’s group of loyalists. This gave David enough respite to organize resistance and send out his personal bodyguard along with a determined group of hardened fighters to meet Absalom’s forces. The battle took place in rough terrain, and the advantage fell to David’s men. When Absalom became entangled in the thicket and was killed subsequently, the rebellion was ended.

Absalom had pursued a political strategy contrary to his father’s reign for a number of years. The seeds were sown when an older half-brother, Amnon, raped his half-sister, Tamar. Tamar was apparently a full sister to Absalom who was angered that their father did not punish Amnon for his incestuous atrocity. To this point, we find Absalom a sympathetic character. Even when he deceptively carries out the vengeful murder of Amnon, we remain understanding, but Absalom was not content with the blood of his half-brother. After returning from exile, Absalom plots and plays a clever political game to enhance his own popularity while fueling discontent with his father’s rule among the people of Israel.

In addition to exposing Absalom’s vengefulness and political ambitions, the Bible says that he was quite a handsome man with a great deal of very thick, beautiful hair. His physical appearance seems to have played a part in furthering his popularity as well. One might suspect that Absalom was at least a bit of a narcissist, possibly somewhat vain, having a high opinion of himself. Though David was deeply flawed, he remained always a man after God’s own heart. Where David was God-centered, Absalom was self-centered. Despite all the advantages of his position in life, of his intelligence, and of his good looks, Absalom’s life is marked by an absence of trust in the Lord, and, as a consequence, by an absence of peace and fulfillment.

Some of us have a hard time with the idea that justice can embrace mercy. For some things it seems there should be no mercy. Like Absalom, I often see particularly heinous crimes perpetrated and think that there isn’t anything cruel or unusual enough to even it up. The arguments of those who reject God are rife with this sense that God should not allow suffering or injustice. The rejection of Christ is often fueled by the same indignation that led Absalom to rebel against and reject the authority of his father, David, the man who loved him most in the world, who would have extended mercy, compassion, and forgiveness even to him – for his own crimes.

Absalom represents the good man who thinks that usurping the place of God is no big deal. He sees the mercy and grace of God but misunderstands, misinterprets it as indifference and injustice. It is up to man, he thinks, to take matters into his own hands and set this right, based on his own opinions, his own standards, and his own ideals of righteousness and good. This may work for a period of time, but there always comes a reckoning – not necessarily in an overt or direct judgment of God, but quite commonly in a loss of control over one’s life.

Having denied God and acted toward the Lord in rebellion and indifference, man is able to rise no higher. He cannot reach heaven, but he also finds the material mule that he depended on is now indifferent to him. Narcissistic self-regard has tangled him up, tied him to the circumstances of a limited human life. The mule moves on. Man hangs in painful helplessness, ensnared by the very thing in which he gloried -- the strength and power of the human mind with its many thoughts.

Unable to break free to return to the thoughtless animal life of earth, and even less able to rise above circumstances and draw close to God, the rebel becomes easy prey for Satan’s deadly schemes just as Absalom was an easy mark for Joab’s spear as he hung suspended from the oak. In the end the exaltation of man concludes in the death of all that is truly and uniquely human. The glory of man is cast into a nameless pit and buried in ignominy.