The Unfinished Story:  About a Boy

To catch the beginning of the unfinished story, you’ll have to back track a bit to the previous weeks sermons!!

We leave the film before the end of the story, the final scene that we are left with begins where we left the story last time, with Will sat on the sofa in despair.  As the camera pans out we realise however that this time he is not alone.  Around him are people he has picked up on the way.  Marcus of course and his somewhat ‘alternative’ girlfriend and Marcus’ ‘hippy’ mother.  Rachel who has decided that Will is worth trying with again with, after all he did rescue Marcus from the stage singing disaster, and her son Ali the trendy young Hip-hop star and and old friend of Will’s who he has called up out of the blue. They are meeting together, sharing as it happens, Christmas Lunch.

Why have I been telling the story of this film during Lent?  Because it is a story of sacrificial love, a story about denying oneself and giving up ones own life.  It is about living a life resurrected.  When all was thought to be lost life continues more gloriously than before.

We have come to a variety of endings,
Some more welcome than others, giving up chocolate in lent, me here in this parish, Holy Week, and the end of our film About a Boy.

Yet it is not the end of the story.

We leave the film with the main characters sharing a meal together.  Knowing the story which has gone before, this is no ending, it is a point of departure.

From here we have a choice to live in the risen life of Christ, a life in communion with one another, a life which is epitomised by sharing table together and if we are not willing to share this table with those who are represented by the gathering at Will Freeman’s table then we are not living the life of the risen Christ, for all are welcome to gather at the table.

From here on in we have a choice summed up in a phrase from another film, one worthy of its own lent sermon series, but not for now!  One of my all time favourite films The Shawshank Redemption:  Andy Dufrense, a convicted Murderer, innocent, but doing a life sentence, sits against the prison wall.  He says to ‘Red’ his friend,
‘I guess it comes down to a choice, Get busy living, or get busy dying.’
You’ll have to watch the rest of the film to see what happens.  Happy Easter!!