True Grit

My post this week is tied to a film I'm behind the curve in discovering:  True Grit.    God's Gonna Cut You Down (lyrics) and Leaning On The Everlasting Arms (lyrics) are the songs whose lyrics frame this film, the former through the film's website, the latter as the credits roll.  God's Gonna... can be played at the right.  Leaning can be heard on YouTube.

          The wicked flee when none pursueth... 


So begins the film with a half quote of Proverbs 28:1.  So begins the story of Mattie Ross and her pursuit of justice for her innocently slain father.  Mattie Ross stands for all those who seek justice and right relationship, indeed:  for all of us.  Sometimes our desire for justice becomes so strong, we pursue it as if we were God.  As Maggie does.  If the wicked flee, then we pursue.  With determination and grit we give notice to those who cheat, lie, steal, oppress, and victimize that sooner or later, God will cut you down.  Of course, by God we mean us.  God sometimes takes too long. God appears too willing to let the wicked prosper.  Some find that the lyrics of God's Gonna Cut You Down give a literal echo to their pursuit of justice.  Others might find the lyrics distasteful, a limping metaphor at best.  Both seek justice and a restoration of right relationship:  here and now.



Mattie Ross - Production Still

Author Unknown

The lyrics framing True Grit are challenging.  When Mattie finally reaches the end of her pursuit of justice:  she is knocked off her feet into a pit and bitten by a snake.  (A biblical image if there ever was one!)  It is easy to apply this toward the violent pursuit of justice.  The hangings and multiple shootings in the film suggest this.  (View a commentary here.)  But, could it be that the very pursuit of justice and the good returns us to Eden?  That the pursuit of justice and right relationship is by itself biting off more from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil than we can chew?

   

The full quote from Proverbs is:  The wicked flee when none pursueth, but the righteous are bold as a lion.  This is not a call to pursue the wicked and enforce justice.  It is a piece of wisdom saying that the wicked are forever looking over their shoulder, even when there is nothing there, but that the just can stand before God and others confident and sure. 



Leaning On The Everlasting Arms

True Grit Production Still - Author Unknown

True Grit suggests that no one can stand firm when good and evil are concerned.  No one can make a claim to be righteous.  Every character in this film finds themselves pulled down, dismounted, or knocked off their feet.  Every character falls, even in the very pursuit of justice.  The only innocent "character", the only one who finds Eden's fruit to be a treat, is Maggie's horse:  prone in the end, sacrificed to restore her to life.

The final lyrics framing this film are filled with mystery.  Leaning on the everlasting arms is all that even the righteous can hope for.  This is a challenging message for one whose vocation seeks justice and peace.  I do not find this vocation challenged, but the message is that God's peace is only found when we are carried, wounded.  Are we all Maggie?  Could it be that the best justice we can hope to find is when we are wounded, and in need of healing and redemption?  In need of mercy?

I consider the Sacred Heart.  The only one of us who could rightly claim innocence in the pursuit of goodness, justice, and right relationship found himself wounded.  How can it be different for those of us who, like Maggie, are children of Eve?