The Jerk
Comments on Galatians with an ear to Luther’s commentary
Scripture Text: Galatians 1:6-9 and Luke 8:9-15
Series: Comments on Galatians
In the Carl Reiner movie, “The Jerk,” (story by Steve Martin and Carl Gottlieb) the hero of the story, Navin (Martin), has been reduced to who he truly is, in his own words: “a jerk” with a thermos. In one of a hundred memorable scenes, he has lost his fortune and leaves his beloved Marie (Bernadette Peters), saying as he leaves that he does not need her or any of the material things he has accumulated. It is the loss of his “stuff” that makes him feel he has lost the love of his life. After all, she could not possibly love him if he does not have “stuff.” Yet as he leaves their home insisting, “I don’t need this stuff, and I don’t need you,” he adds to the list of things he does not need, “I don’t need anything. Except this.” Navin then picks up an ashtray and declares that he does indeed need it, and then a “paddle game” and other assorted and useless “stuff.”
Of course, he does not need the armload of “stuff” at all. What he really needs is Marie but he cannot believe she could love him without his “stuff.” So, he leaves and becomes a derelict who clutches a thermos, somehow a symbol of the love he has lost.
Navin’s story is all too often our story. God does not love us because we are beautiful or brilliant or talented or wealthy. He just loves us. Go figure. In a simpler time of our lives we accept his love and revel in it. As time goes on we tend to become religious, accumulating all of the “stuff” of religion, until God becomes a corner-piece like Marie in the aforementioned scene. Like Marie, all God wants is to offer us his gracious love but we cannot imagine God could love us simply because we are somehow the object of his love. And so, like Navin, we accumulate “stuff” that we know is not necessary but does make us feel religious.
God does not love us for what we do for him. He simply loves us. We must get over ourselves — our “necessary” and required rules and rituals and religion and “stuff” — and accept his love once again.
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Author
Rev. Dr. Mark E. Ryman has served as Pastor for St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Salisbury, NC, since 2021. Previously, Pastor Ryman served congregations in North Carolina and Ohio, as well as a call to specialized ministry with Sola Publishing.
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