I don't write a lot of movie reviews.  I took a film study class in high school - 2 hours of watching movies every week should be a breeze, right?  The writing assignments made it one of the hardest classes I ever took!  But it did help me to see the art behind the entertainment, and taught me to pull out the 'sermon' the writer/director/producer was preaching.  So I appreciate deeply meaningful movies that effectively communicate a message.

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42 tells the story of Jackie Robinson's rookie year with the 1947 Brooklyn Dodgers.  The significance, of course, being that he was the first African American to play Major League Baseball.  'Firsts' are always inspiring to us - pioneers who boldly go where no man has gone before!  Amelia Earhart, Sir Edmond Hilary, Neil Armstrong.  Their lives are defined in history by the firsts they accomplished.  And when the odds are stacked immensely against us, firsts turn everyday people into heroes.



Jackie Robinson becomes one such hero for us in 42.  Segregation and Jim Crow laws were at their height in 1940s America, so we see a man who inevitably takes on the world.  His humility is his charm because he's not a Martin Luther King Jr. out to change America, he "just wants to play baseball."  And play baseball he did.  Really, really well.  Which reveals to us the sermon behind the curtain.



The story is more or less predictable: Jackie rises through the ranks as insults are hurled, a few people stick up for him, and he ultimately get's drafted to the Majors.  It's how he succeeds that makes the movie meaningful.  When the insults - and baseballs - start flying at his head he can't fight back.



"You want a player who doesn't have the guts to fight back?"

"No. I want a player who's got the guts not to fight back."



Jackie shows his strength of character in his ability to not stoop to the hatred hurled at him.  But that doesn't mean he didn't fight back.

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Our pastor recently began a sermon series entitled Ten Times Better, taken from Daniel 1:20, "In every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king questioned [Daniel and his friends], he found them ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters in his whole kingdom."  Through this they gained position and influence in a culture diametrically opposed to theirs.  Peter explains the value of this in his first letter: "Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us," (1 Peter 2:12).  The point being that we as Christians are called to be excellent in everything we do, that they can't ignore the influence of God in our lives, we gain influence and he gets the glory.  (As a side note, Peter is quoting Jesus here from Matthew 5:16 which interestingly comes right after Jesus said, "Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me."  Peter wrote this to Christians who were being tortured and fed to lions for entertainment of the Romans.)



Perhaps the producers of 42 didn't realize just how well they preached this sermon, but who knows, maybe they did.  Jackie fought back not with fists, but by being so good at baseball, they couldn't ignore him.  They couldn't force him out and they couldn't beat him.  They told him he didn't belong, so he hit home runs.  They told him "go back to the cotton fields;" he stole bases and scored runs.



Jackie didn't just become the first African American in the major leagues, he won rookie of the year.  He did it not only by playing baseball ten times better than everyone else, but with a character that was ten times better as well.



Have you seen it? What did you think?