One of the motifs that runs through The Greatest Showman is social status, and a caste-like system that seemed to hold sway. People are born into a certain position, and that’s pretty much where they stay. And different groups within this system don’t mix. Whether the division and positioning is gender-based, wealth- or class-based, ability-based or race-based, people were put in their place and expected to stay put.
We’ve seen a bit of
that in ‘This is me’. The track ‘Rewrite
the Stars’ is a variation on the theme.
This is a duet by Philip Carlyle (Zac Efron) and Anne Wheeler (Zendaya). These “star-cross’d lovers” come from quite
different social locations, from contrasting worlds. Carlyle is from an upper-crust, wealthy
family, an actor in serious productions (at least, he had been). Wheeler was one half of an acrobatic act with
her brother, a star turn in P T Barnum’s show – an oddity, because she was
black. Her place was fixed – no matter
how talented or clever or anything else – society had assigned her a lowly
place, as though it was written in the stars.
Carlyle had much to lose in doing so, but he at least could choose to
cross the many social boundaries between them.
The song ‘Rewrite
the Stars’ comes from a desire to smash the social structures, to break the
barriers to belonging, envisaging an environment that can include everyone equally.
Bafflingly (to me anyway)
this was absolutely scandalous at that time (and this time?). And yet, I think Jesus courted such
controversy with a central value in his presentation of the kingdom of heaven –
God’s will, on earth as is it in heaven.
If we read the New Testament treatment of Jesus’ life in the Gospels, we
find someone who consistently crossed cultural and ‘class’ chasms as though
they weren’t there – perhaps because, where he came from, they weren’t…
I’m only going to
pick out a few examples here, as virtually every page of Matthew, Mark, Luke and
John shows Jesus in this mood and mode.
We’ve already looked at some of his attitudes and behaviours with women –
including foreign women, who ‘counted double’ in that culture. Another serious taboo was leprosy. ‘Lepers’ were fairly common in Jesus’ day, it
seems, although ‘leprosy’ was something of a catch-all term for a variety of
skin conditions. In the old Levitical
law, provision was made for the management of outbreaks. In confirmed cases, the priest could send the
leper outside of ‘the camp’ (into isolation) for a set time, to be reviewed and
eventually re-integrated into society, ideally.
However, by the first century, it seems that a lot of lepers were sent
away and left there. For example, in
Luke 17, on his way into a village, Jesus meets ten lepers at once. This sounds like a ‘leper colony’ – similar to
what we see in the film Ben Hur, set in the same time period. The incident I want to look at here, though,
is perhaps the most striking and controversial encounter between Jesus and a
leper because it’s the first one.
Jesus is ‘on tour’,
doing his stuff, healing and teaching, when a leper comes and kneels in front
of him, begging, “Lord, if you choose, you can make me clean” (Matthew 8:2; Luke
5:12). Jesus reaches out to the man,
touches him, and says, “I do choose. Be made
clean.” And immediately the leprosy is gone
(Matthew 8:3; Luke 5:13). So the man
could be re-integrated into his community; perhaps get some work; worship and
learn at the synagogue; enjoy family life.
But what I love about this story is that Jesus touched him. I get the sense that Jesus didn’t need to
touch the leper to heal him, as we can see in other healings that he only needs
to say the word. But he breaks a barrier
by touching the man. He includes him as
a human being, while most people had excluded him. Jesus rewrote the stars.
In Matthew’s gospel,
the very next thing we read about is a Roman centurion coming to Jesus to
appeal for the healing of his young servant, lying at home paralysed. Apparently without a moment’s hesitation,
Jesus says, “I will come and cure him” (Matthew 8:7). But the centurion stops him, saying, “Lord, I
am not worthy to have you come under my roof…” Why would a Roman centurion say
this to a Jewish man – whose land mighty Rome occupies? Perhaps firstly because the centurion is a
Gentile (non-Jew), and Jesus the Jew was ‘not allowed’ to enter such a person’s
house. That’s probably the real
reason. Another potentially
controversial characteristic here may be that this centurion might have been
gay. The Greek word used for “servant”
in this story is “pais”. This word can
mean servant, although as a slave, he might have been more correctly termed ‘doulos’. A ‘pais’ can also mean a young boy, and sometimes
described a young male lover. I suspect
Jesus would have been aware of all this about the centurion.
The centurion
explains his compromise, that Jesus need “only speak the word” and the servant
will be healed, because as a centurion (a commander of a hundred soldiers), he
knows about authority, and about his words making things happen.
Jesus is so impressed
by this man’s grasp of God’s kingdom – that it’s a reality where what God (Jesus,
in this case) says, happens (on earth as it is in heaven) – that he publicly
commends his faith, telling his followers:
“Truly I tell you, in no one in
Israel have I found such faith. I tell
you, many will come from east and west and will eat with Abraham and Isaac and
Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the heirs of the kingdom will be thrown
into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth…” (Matthew
8:10-12)
That sounds like a rewriting of stars to me. The “heirs” lose their inheritance because
they fail to ‘grasp’ it, when others do.
So those who ‘don’t fit’, who don’t belong, get it, while those ‘born
into it’ are cast out.
Jesus made a very similar
point in an exchange with chief priests and elders at the temple, saying:
“Truly I tell you, the tax-collectors
and sinners are going into the kingdom of heaven ahead of you…” (Matthew 21:31)
He had pretty much
enacted this fairly early in his ministry, when he called a tax-collector named
Matthew to follow him. Matthew did, straight
away. It seems that Matthew may have invited
Jesus, along with some of his (now ex-) colleagues, to dinner because after
that, Jesus and his disciples are at a dinner where a number of tax-collectors
and “sinners” attend. The Pharisees “saw
this” and said to the disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax-collectors
and sinners” (Matthew 9:11). Jesus
answered for himself: “Those are well have no need of a physician, but those
who are sick…”
The Pharisees couldn’t
understand why Jesus would hang out with those sorts of people. Tax-collectors were known cheats, extorting
people out of more than they owed in tax, as well as being collaborators with
the occupying force (Pharisees had a nationalist streak, among everything else). And sinners – these people, the Pharisees
thought, were preventing God’s kingdom from materialising, because they just
wouldn’t fall into line with the(ir) rules (that’s what they thought “Thy will
be done, thy kingdom come” was about). But
Jesus rewrote the rules. And rewrote the
stars. These people got Jesus and what
he was about. These were his people.
The final example I
want to mention came from a discussion among Jesus’ disciples as to who is the
greatest in the kingdom of heaven. In answer
to their question, Jesus “called a child, whom he put among them, and said, ‘Truly
I tell you, unless you change and become like children you will never enter the
kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes
humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven…’” (Matthew 18:2-4).
The visuals of this
scene are helpful. Imagine the normal
set-up of disciples with their teacher.
They’re probably sitting or kneeling on the ground, at Jesus’ feet – who
might also be seated. Then comes the
child, who seems to be standing, and as such is towering over them all. Who is greatest in this picture? The child, head and shoulders above the rest.
Contrast this with
the normal perception of such a child in that world – a “little child” (the
Greek word is a diminutive form, suggesting possibly under seven years old). At this age, they were not contributing to
society, and there was every chance they might not live to adulthood. They were almost seen as expendable, and probably
not as a full person in their own right.
But here, Jesus turns all that on its head. He rewrites the stars.
While these examples
may have been plucked out, they are not isolated incidents. On the contrary, they are consistent with the
general tenor of the Gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John – and Luke’s
follow-up volume, Acts. And the main
contributor to the New Testament, Paul, agrees with much of the sentiment. He was wildly inclusive, particularly of Gentiles/foreigners. He also – controversially – addressed
children in his letters, before addressing their parents (Ephesians 6:1-4;
Colossians 3:20-21). He addressed wives before
their husbands (Ephesians 5:22ff; Colossians 3:18-19). He addressed slaves before their masters (Ephesians
6:5-9; Colossians 3:22-4:1). In even
addressing these groups, Paul was being revolutionary – he was dignifying them
with choice and agency, to behave in the way he suggests. But by speaking to them first, before
their supposed superiors, he was challenging the structures. He was, in a sense, rewriting the stars.
That is a central
pillar of the Gospel. It is good news
because it releases people from the structures that hold us – slaves and masters,
women and men, children and parents, those like us and those not. The good news is: Jesus rewrites the stars.
