It's Groundhog Day!

This is the sermon I preached on Sunday, February 4.

The movie "Groundhog Day" has become a favorite of many since its bigscreen debut in 1993. It tells the story of an obnoxious Pittsburgh weatherman named Phil Connors who is sent, along with a crew, to Punxatawney Pennsylvania to cover their Groundhog Day festivities. Groundhog day is a major event in Punxatawney, featuring crowds, fireworks and a groundhog named Phil that they claim is the same Groundhog that has been predicting the coming of spring, with the aid of the town's Groundhog Society, since the 1880s. Phil the weatherman is none too happy to be part of this, and he goes to sleep at the end of his miserable day anticipating returning to Pittsburgh the next morning. To his surprise, he awakes to the same song on the radio the next day, and the same exact DJ patter announcing "It's Groundhog Day!" He goes out into the hall of the inn where he is staying and discovers that today is yesterday--or yesterday is today--however you say it, it is Groundhog Day all over again, and nobody else notices except for him. This happens to him day after day--he goes to bed at the end of Groundhog Day and wakes up again on the morning of Groundhog Day. He tries everything he can think of to escape it, including suicide, but he still wakes up again on the morning of Groundhog Day.

In a 2005 National Review article called "A Movie for All Time," Jonah Goldberg writes,
In the years since its release the film has been taken up by Jews, Catholics, Evangelicals, Hindus, Buddhists, Wiccans, and followers of the oppressed Chinese Falun Gong movement. Meanwhile, the Internet brims with weighty philosophical treatises on the deep Platonist, Aristotelian, and existentialist themes providing the skin and bones beneath the film's clown makeup. On National Review Online's group blog, The Corner, I asked readers to send in their views on the film. Over 200 e-mails later I had learned that countless professors use it to teach ethics and a host of philosophical approaches. Several pastors sent me excerpts from sermons in which Groundhog Day was the central metaphor. And dozens of committed Christians of all denominations related that it was one of their most cherished movies."

When the Museum of Modern Art in New York debuted a film series on "The Hidden God: Film and Faith" two years ago, it opened with Groundhog Day. The rest of the films were drawn from the ranks of turgid and bleak intellectual cinema, including standards from Ingmar Bergman and Roberto Rossellini. According to the New York Times, curators of the series were stunned to discover that so many of the 35 leading literary and religious scholars who had been polled to pick the series entries had chosen Groundhog Day that a spat had broken out among the scholars over who would get to write about the film for the catalogue. In a wonderful essay for the Christian magazine Touchstone, theology professor Michael P. Foley wrote that Groundhog Day is "a stunning allegory of moral, intellectual, and even religious excellence in the face of postmodern decay, a sort of Christian-Aristotelian Pilgrim's Progress for those lost in the contemporary cosmos." Charles Murray, author of Human Accomplishment, has cited Groundhog Day more than once as one of the few cultural achievements of recent times that will be remembered centuries from now. He was quoted in The New Yorker declaring, "It is a brilliant moral fable offering an Aristotelian view of the world."

I know what you're thinking: We're talking about the movie in which Bill Murray tells a big rat sitting on his lap, "Don't drive angry," right? Yep, that's the one. You might like to know that the rodent in question is actually Jesus—at least that's what film historian Michael Bronski told the Times. "The groundhog is clearly the resurrected Christ, the ever-hopeful renewal of life at springtime, at a time of pagan-Christian holidays. And when I say that the groundhog is Jesus, I say that with great respect."

That may be going overboard, but something important is going on here. What is it about this ostensibly farcical film about a wisecracking weatherman that speaks to so many on such a deep spiritual level?...

To me, Groundhog Day is a profound meditation on the nature of existence, and on the role of love in human life. Phil finds himself trapped in an existence in which the good and bad things that happen to him literally repeat on a daily basis. Psychotherapists often advise their unhappy clients to examine their own lives for recurring patterns--do they keep getting stuck in dead-end jobs or relationships? Do they move from one place to another, seeking a change, only finding that they manage to re-create the same miserable circumstances over and over again? At one point, Phil says to a local guy he meets in a Bowling Alley bar, "What would you do if you were stuck in one place and every day was exactly the same, and nothing that you did mattered?" The man replies, "That about sums it up for me." I know that I was able to take fees for therapy out of my budget only after I faced the fact that my life had become as repetitive as Phil's in Groundhog Day.

The thing is, and I hope I'm not giving away the ending here--Phil doesn't free himself from re-living Groundhog Day over and over again by trying to free himself. He begins to free himself essentially by saying, "Okay, let's say this goes on forever. How can I make the best of it?"

Life is life. The nature of human existence hasn't really changed much. Pick up the Bible or ancient Greek or Roman texts and you'll discover that humans have been prone to the same flaws and virtues at least as long as people have been writing about them. Since the time of these ancient writings, human beings have sought to discover the meaning, the purpose in human existence, and the answers have not changed yet. So Phil, having discerned the repetitive and seemingly meaningless nature of his existence, chooses to undertake this journey of discovery for himself. First he tries to milk his repetitive days for attention. He seduces women. He robs a bank and uses the money to bankroll an extravagant evening out. But soon that begins to feel hollow. Finally, he discovers that there is something he cares about--or, more properly, someone. He finds himself drawn to his producer, Rita, played by Andie McDowell. Day after day he attempts to woo her, and night after night, sooner or later, the evening ends abruptly with a well-deserved slap in the face. He attempts suicide over and over, but each time, he wakes up again the morning of Groundhog Day. Finally, he gets so desperate that he tries something he initially considered ridiculous--he gets real with her and confides his predicament in her, trusting that she will have compassion for him.

In today's reading from the New Testament we hear Paul's brilliant meditation on love, a meditation that rings true to Phil's journey. "Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."

Rita agrees to try and stave off the repetition of Groundhog Day by staying awake with him, but she falls asleep. As she lies sleeping beside him, Phil tells her how much she means to him, knowing she can't hear, but needing to express it for himself anyway. He tells her it doesn't matter if she hears him, or if he ever gets a chance to let her know he loves her. What matters is that he does love. It doesn't stop Groundhog Day from coming again the very next day, but somehow things have changed for Phil, because at last he has truly learned how to love. This is the nature of the spiritual journey that Phil must make in order to escape his predicament--he must learn how to love, to truly, truly love. He begins to think about something Rita said--that maybe what is happening to him is not a curse. Maybe he should try to think positively and make the best of it. He follows her advice and takes up piano and ice carving. He even tries to save a homeless man, but night after night he dies. Undeterred, he seeks others to help, and in these cases, he succeeds. Eventually, Rita responds to his love, and finally, finally he wakes up and it is February 3. Rita is by his side, and together they go outside. The town of Punxatawney Pennsylvania is covered with snow but the sun is shining. Phil puts his arm around Rita, looks at her and says, quite sincerely, "Let's live here."

In a way, life is like "Groundhog Day" for all of us. When we pay attention, we discover that we get a chance to make up for our past mistakes. And that is a blessing.