Are You Thirsty for More?
I admit it, even though it's been thirty years since it was released, Home Alone is still among
my top 5 Christmas Movies. The other four are White Christmas, A Christmas Carol, -I'm
partial to the George C. Scott portrayal of Ebenezer Scrooge as opposed to Patrick Stewart's-
The Nativity Story, and It's a Wonderful Life. A pretty unsurprising and traditional list, I
suppose.
Rounding out my Top Ten would be some movies most people would not place on their lists
especially for Christmastime. Ben Hur which, before cable TV and now streaming TV was even
possible, played on television either at Christmas or Easter because the tale begins and ends
with those holidays. And of course, Lethal Weapon and Die Hard, -yes, yes, they are
Christmas movies; at least I think so; Trading Places, an early '80's Eddie Murphy/Dan
Ackroyd/Jamie Lee Curtis film that is best served edited for language but is an hysterically
funny holiday romp, and lastly I'll Be Home for Christmas with Jonathan Taylor Thomas of the
old Home Improvement sitcom that starred Tim Allen. Those last five will have you giving me
raspberries, but they generate great holiday spirit in me.
For some reason I never really connected with Miracle on 34th Street, or Christmas Vacation, or
Elf which makes a lot of people's top 10 list. Not my kind of humor, maybe, or perhaps I never
watched them with the right people. They just never clicked with me the way the other movies
do.
There's something eminently relatable about Home Alone, though. Perhaps it's because I'm a
middle kid. Poor Kevin McAlister is kicked and cuffed between busy parents, rude relatives,
older siblings who push him around, and younger siblings who get all the attention. Uncle
Frank, the cheapskape, called him a little jerk. His sister says he's "les incompetents." Another
brother says, "Kevin, you are such a disease." Yikes. And then he's overlooked in the count for
the airport. Talk about feeling invisible!
I like the parallel story, too. Old Man Marley, who lives next door, is estranged from his son,
and Buzz tells gullible Kevin that the old man is a murderer. One of the sweetest scenes is when
Kevin finds Mr. Marley at church. His surprise is palpable. And Mr. Marley tells Kevin, "You
can be too old for a lot of things, but you're never too old to be afraid." Their talk gives Kevin
the courage to defend his home against the Wet Bandits, and it gives Mr. Marley the courage to
reach out to his son.
Home Alone is wonderfully quotable...maybe even up there with The Princess Bride. "Keep the
change, ya filthy animal" is a classic (in Home Alone 2 it becomes, "Happy Birthday, ya filthy
animal."), and "Buzz, your girlfriend. Woof!" I totally relate sometimes to Kevin's outburst,
"When I grow up and get married, I'm living alone!"
My personal favorite is when Kevin is sitting at the top of the stairs, looking down on the Wet
Bandits, Harry and Marv, and he says, "You guys give up? Or are you thirsty for more?" Turns
out, Harry and Marv are thirsty for more, until they catch up with Kevin only to be knocked out
by old Mr. Marley and arrested for all the local burglaries because they left their signature Wet
Bandit calling card-running water-at all the houses they robbed.
So many good themes in the movie... how we often feel invisible, overlooked, underestimated,
misunderstood. The power of kindness and kind words. The love of family, even when they're
not always loveable. The value of a conversation, of really listening to someone not to respond
but to understand, and how to be courageous in the face of adversity.
I identify with Kevin, partly because of the middle child syndrome, and that feeling of
invisibility. But I think his question to the Bandits also resonates with me. Am I thirsty for
more?
Kevin tries lots of things in the absence of his family. All the things he thinks he's missed out
on... Buzz's treasure trove trunk (with the picture of the Woof girl), scary movies, all the ice
cream he can eat, a cheese pizza all for himself. Aren't we like that? The modern world calls it
"FOMO" -fear of missing out-and our culture seems to have a sense that the next big thing
will be the IT we've been waiting for.
A bigger home, a better business or job, a more exciting romance, that travel experience, or
anticipated vacation. In an era of cancel culture, it's not just FOMO, but an underlying,
fundamental belief that someone else is keeping us from having the things we deserve.
Have you had enough? Or are you thirsty for more?
Jesus encountered a woman who was thirsty for more. According to John chapter 4, He met her
at a well in the middle of the day, long after the other village women had come and gone. Her
shame and ignominy, with her five ex-husbands and living with a man she wasn't married to,
had forced her to draw water where she could remain invisible. Jesus approaches her not with
accusation or interrogation, but with a request, a conversation starter. "Will you give me a
drink?"
"You are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" she says.
Rather than accentuate their differences as she does, Jesus responds with an invitation to come
closer, to find out more. "If you only knew the gift God has for you and who you are speaking
to, you would ask me, and I would give you living water."
She counters with arguments; experience has taught her that the status quo isn't likely to
change. Jesus assures her that more IS available to her... that the religious observances of the
past won't bring satisfaction. "The time is coming-indeed it's here now-when true
worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. The Father is looking for those who
will worship him that way."
The woman says, "I know the Messiah is coming, and when he comes, he will explain
everything to us." Then Jesus tells her, "I AM the Messiah!" And she leaves her water jar at the
well to return to the village with the news. "Come see a man who told me everything I ever
did." She encountered Truth, and she no longer needed to be invisible. She'd been seen and
accepted by the Savior of the World.
Blaise Pascal, 17th century mathematician, physicist, and philosopher is credited with saying,
"There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created
thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus."
Nick Nowalk quoted more of Pascal's thoughts in The Harvard Ichthus journal of Christian
thought. Pascal writes:
"The sovereign good. Man without faith can know neither true good nor justice. All men
seek happiness. There are no exceptions. However different the means they may
employ, they all strive towards this goal. The reason why some go to war and some do
not is the same desire in both, but interpreted in two different ways. The will never takes
the least step except to that end. This is the motive of every act of every man, including
those who go and hang themselves.
Yet for very many years no one without faith has ever reached the goal at which everyone
is continually aiming. All men complain: princes, subjects, nobles, commoners, old,
young, strong, weak, learned, ignorant, healthy, sick, in every country, at every time, of
all ages, and all conditions.
A test which has gone on so long, without pause or change, really ought to convince us
that we are incapable of attaining the good by our own efforts. But example teaches us
very little. No two examples are so exactly alike that there is not some subtle difference,
and that is what makes us expect that our expectations will not be disappointed this time
as they were last time. So, while the present never satisfies us, experience deceives us,
and leads us on from one misfortune to another until death comes as the ultimate and
eternal climax.
What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in
man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he
tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the
help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can
be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself.
..." (Full quote/article is linked in the show notes.)
We haven't changed at all since Pascal's observations in the 1600's. Four hundred years, and
still we seek happiness if places that it cannot be found.
Are you thirsty for more?
As Home Alone moves toward its ultimate happy ending, we find Kevin's mother, Kate,
overcoming impossible obstacles to get home. "This is Christmas," she says, "the season of
perpetual hope. I don't care if I have to get out on your runway and hitchhike, if it cost me
everything I own, if I have to sell my soul to the devil himself. I am going to get home to my
son."
Kevin, likewise, tells an elf, "Will you please tell Santa that instead of presents this year, I just
want my family back." All the other experiences have been found lacking. Time to return to
what's most important. He is reunited with the ones who love him. He peeks out his window to
see Mr. Marley reunited with the son that was far from him.
I hear in my head Kevin's question to the Bandits: "You guys give up? Or are you thirsty for
more?" In this season of perpetual hope, my answer is, "Yes!" I give up striving for temporary
things, for things that cannot satisfy. I am thirsty for more. With the Psalmist, I pray,
"You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for
you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water.
I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory.
Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you.
I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands.
I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will
praise you."
Psalm 63:1-5
Father,
It is so easy to be lulled into the frenetic activity of a world desperate for satisfaction and
looking for it in all the wrong places. Help us be mindful that You are a breath away. You are
Living Water, and the water you give becomes in us a spring welling up to eternal life.
Thank you for satisfying our souls. Thank you for becoming flesh and showing us the Way.
In Jesus' name,
Amen
