There can’t be any doubt that one of the most controversial films ever made is Monty Python’s Life of Brian. The film is well over 40 years old now but no doubt some of you at least will remember the enormous arguments it caused when it was first released in 1979. Many people saw the film as an attack on Christianity, on the teachings of Christ, and even on Christ himself. The film was condemned as offensive and blasphemous, and it was banned in many countries and by many local councils in this country. All that is, as I say, well over 40 years ago now but I know that there are still people who haven’t seen the film and won’t watch it because of what was said about it all those years ago.
But whatever your own opinions on this film are, I would say that while it may be offensive in some respects and may be in very bad taste in certain parts, it is not blasphemous because there is nothing in the film at all which ridicules Jesus Christ or his teachings. There is however an awful lot in the film about how stupid organised religion and individual believers can be, about the appalling things that organised religion can lead to, and individual believers can do in the name of their religion. As the late Python member Terry Jones said;
“We always stated Brian wasn’t blasphemous, but heretical. It wasn’t about what Christ was saying, but about the people who followed him – the ones who for the next 2,000 years would torture and kill each other because they couldn’t agree on what he was saying about peace and love.”
In fact, one of today’s leading theologians, Richard Burridge, sees the Life of Brian as a tribute to Jesus because the Python’s decided that they couldn’t make a joke out of him or his teaching and that that, in the film, the only person who rises above the general stupidity and appalling behaviour on show, is Jesus himself.
Whatever people thought about the Life of Brian, there’s no doubt that one of the most controversial scenes in the film, and certainly the one that probably shows the worst taste, is the crucifixion scene at the end of the film where Brian and many others, have been condemned to death and, while they hang, dying, on crosses, sing Always look on the bright side of life.
I’d be surprised if anyone doesn’t know that song or hasn’t heard it at one time or another. It’s actually become a theme tune of sorts for people going through hard times. During the Falklands War, for example, it was sung by the crew of HMS Sheffield as they waited to be rescued from their sinking ship. I’m sure too, that at least some of you will have heard it played, and maybe even sung, at funerals. And of all the things that I think we can learn from the Life of Brian, and I do think that there are many things we could, and should, learn from this film, perhaps this very tasteless song is one of the most important things that we can take from it.
This morning, we read part of St Paul’s great teaching on the Resurrection, and what it means for us as Christians. There’s no doubt that, as St Paul says, if Christ was not raised from the dead, our faith is in vain. What is the point of being a Christian if this life is all there is? If there is no resurrection we might as well follow another way of life, another faith, a philosophy, or simply eat, drink and be merry because tomorrow, we die. But where is the hope in that? What’s the point in life then? And if this life is all there is, how can we look on the bright side when this life draws towards its end?
In this chapter of his First Letter to the Corinthians, St Paul address some of these questions and says,
‘But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.’
And if we believe that, then we can always look on the bright side of life, even when this life draws towards its end. We can, in fact, and as the song says, always look on the bright side of death because if we truly believe that Christ is risen then we can still have hope in the face of death. In fact, we can have even more than hope, we can have assurance that the end of this life is not the end of our life because we have Christ’s assurance that, like him, we will rise to eternal life too.
Having that faith though, doesn’t mean that we have to take death lightly. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t grieve when someone we know, and love dies. That’s a perfectly natural human thing to do and even Jesus did that. Jesus whose faith could work miracles and who knew better than anyone that the end of this life is the necessary precursor to eternal life, wept at the grave of his friend, Lazarus. So looking on the bright side of life, or death, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t grieve for people when they die. And whilst we might have faith that we’ll rise to eternal life, we don’t know what that life will be like, whereas we do know what this life is like. So when we die, we’re venturing into the unknown and, as I said in my sermon last week, the unknown frightens us. We know that we’re not in control of what happens to us after the end of our earthly lives either and not being in control frightens us too. But perhaps what also frightens us is that fact that we know we haven’t always done the things we should have done as disciples of Christ. We know that we haven’t always done the things that Jesus told us we should do if we want to be raised with him to eternal life.
There are two sides to our faith really. On the one hand it holds out to us this wonderful hope of the resurrection to eternal life, but on the other hand, it makes demands on us that we have to meet if we want that hope to be fulfilled. But I think we’re all rather keener on the hope of our faith than we are on fulfilling the demands of faith.
Every time we come to church to receive the sacrament of Holy Communion, we’re asked to call to mind and confess our sins. We confess that we’ve sinned,
‘…in thought and word and deed, through negligence, through weakness,
through our own deliberate fault.’
We might beat our breast at that point and then we say that,
‘We are truly sorry and repent of all our sins.’
But are we really sorry? Do we really repent? Do we really make our best effort not to do again the things we’ve just confessed to doing, or do we have to call to mind and confess the same things again, and again? If we’re honest, isn’t it very often, probably usually, the latter? And yet we still want to have that great hope of resurrection to eternal life, in spite of our failure, our inability or our unwillingness to live in the way that will make that hope more certain. To put it in terms of Monty Python’s Life of Brian, we all have tendency to act in the stupid, appalling ways the characters in that film act, but then, like those characters, we still want to sing Always look on the bright side of life, as we hang on the cross.
I said a little earlier that I think this film has a lot to teach us and I think, above all, it is just this point. We proclaim our faith in Jesus Christ and yet, both as individuals and as a Church, we act in ways that are completely contrary to the things he taught. We talk about love and peace, mercy and forgiveness, tolerance and understanding. We talk about loving our neighbour just as much as we love ourselves and loving our enemies as much as we love our friends. We talk about all these things. And yet how often do we just talk about them without actually doing them? We talk so often about these things and yet we so often fail to show them in our dealings with other people, perhaps especially towards those who are different to us in some way. Even to those who share our faith but not our denomination, our tradition or our parish church. We do these things, and then we blame everybody else because it’s never us who’ve got things wrong, always them. We know Christ said we shouldn’t these things, but we do them anyway. We know the will of the Father is that we’re all raised to eternal life, and we know that Christ came to teach us what we need to do to inherit eternal life. We know that only those who do the Father’s will can be raised to eternal life, and yet we still do all these things. We seem to want eternal life without necessarily having to do what, or at least all, Christ said we need to do to gain it.
At its heart, Monty Python’s Life of Brian is a story of mistaken identity; Brian is mistaken for the Messiah and people follow him because of that. And when I see and think about what we do as individuals and as a Church at times, I sometimes think we might as well be following someone called Brian because we certainly don’t appear to be taking very much notice of Jesus Christ. But if we always want to look on the bright side of life, and especially if we want to be able to look on the bright side of death, we can’t make that mistake.
We live in hope of the resurrection to eternal life and our faith tells us that this is not a mistaken or a forlorn hope. Our faith tells us that we can do more that always look on the bright side of life, that we can also look on the bright side of death. But our faith also places some demands on us if we want that hope to be realised. So let’s make sure that we don’t just talk about our faith but live according to the teachings of Christ so that when our earthly lives are drawing to a close, we really still can always look on the bright side of life.
Amen.
Propers for the 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time, 16th February 2025
Entrance Antiphon
Be my protector, O God, a mighty stronghold to save me.
For you are my rock, my stronghold!
Lead me, guide me, for the sake of your name.
The Collect
O God, who teach us that you abide in hearts that are just and true,
grant that we may be so fashioned by your grace as to become a dwelling pleasing to you.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.
Amen.
The Readings
Jeremiah 17:5-8
Psalm: 1:1-4, 6
1 Corinthians 15:12, 16-20
Luke 6:17, 20-26
Prayer after Communion
Having fed upon these heavenly delights,
we pray, O Lord,
so that we may always long
for that food by which we truly live.
Through Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Parish Church of St Mark Chadderton 