“All this is of God, the One who reconciled us to themselves through the Anointed One, and who gave to us this servant work of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5.18).
The road to hell, as you may have heard, is paved with good intentions. And in this week’s movie, those intentions almost pave a road to non-existence.
Starring Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd, Back to the Future became the highest-grossing film of 1985. Released on 3 July of that year, it told the story of Marty McFly who finds himself in the past, threatening his and his sibling’s existence, and trying to get…well, back to the future.
In case it’s been a while, our teenage hero, Marty McFly, accidentally finds himself back in 1955. Once there, his good intention to rescue his father from an oncoming car causes his future mother to fall madly in love with him instead of the awkward, bullied George McFly. Doing so endangers the timeline, illustrated throughout the film by the fading images of Marty’s siblings in a photograph. Marty has to get his mom and dad together before the end of the upcoming school dance and get himself back to 1985 before he is, literally, out of time.
Along with great casting and humor, what makes the movie one that continues to resonate almost forty years later is that Marty is an unlikely hero. He’s (in one character’s terms) a slacker. His impetuous action prevents his parents from meeting. His repeated attempts to get his future mother to fall for his future father are failures. Almost everything he does makes things worse. He is, quite possibly, the worst person for this situation. Which is, at times, exactly how I feel.
God, Paul reminds us, entrusted this incredibly important work of reconciliation, of the redemption of all things, to human beings—folks like you and me. Personally, I’ve wondered if angels or cats may have been the better messengers for this grand project considering how often people can twist things to their own gain, turn them upside down, even endanger reality. We’re really good at making things worse than they already are.
Eventually, Marty’s actions end up changing his family’s life for the better, in spite of his mistakes and plans gone awry. And as the film comes to its close, there’s hardly any of the changes for which he can claim credit. Turns out that his parents may have always had it in them to change and transform, and his stumbling about in the past just opened up a road to renewal, and grace.
And that may well be the greatest wisdom in trusting us humans with a message like the Gospel: that it is not about us. That no matter how accidental the situation, how many mistakes we make, we can always be a conduit for transformation in the lives of those we encounter. We can be a means to someone discovering a life more abundant, one lived as their true selves.
And the roads paved by our intent? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.
May I, in spite of myself, bring love, grace, and joy to those I encounter.
“And the roads paved by our intent? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.” What a joyful way to describe our future destination and the path to it!! And that simple prayer has been added to my collection of daily prayers