On Charlie Chaplin, Roman Brutes, and God's Love (Romans 8:26-39)

An impassioned speech delivered by Charlie Chaplin as he plays a character meant to mock Adolf Hitler in the final scene of the 1940 film, The Great Dictator, is widely regarded as one of, if not the greatest speech in movie history.

The Great Dictator was Chaplin’s satirical lampoon of the era’s antisemitism, fascism, and authoritarian despots, including Hitler in Germany and Italy’s Benito Mussolini. Chaplin wrote, directed, produced, and starred in the movie to weaken the hold these movements had on people’s lives and imaginations, to boost the morale of those already in the war against them, and to stir neutral America to join the fight for a free Europe.

In the final scene, Chaplin’s character—a Jewish barber who is trying to escape the repressive regime of a tyrant named Adenoid Hynkel–finds himself mistaken for the very same man. Ushed onto a stage standing before Hynkel’s army, the barber is told that the troops, who are even then on the verge of victory, are waiting to hear from their dear leader.

The barber moves to the microphone and confesses that he, the dear leader, has had a change of heart.

“I’m sorry,’ he says, “but I don’t want to be an emperor. That’s not my business. I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone.”

As the speech continues, the wall between reality and fiction falls, the words transcend the movie’s made up plot, and Chaplin, the concerned citizen–not a character he is playing, speaks directly to his audience.

He continues,

I should like to help everyone - if possible - Jew, Gentile - black man - white. We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other’s happiness - not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone. And the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way. Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical. Our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost…

Then, as grand sweeping music plays in the background, the speech reaches its crescendo.

In the 17th Chapter of St Luke it is written: “the Kingdom of God is within man” - not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people have the power - the power to create machines. The power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure.

Then - in the name of democracy - let us use that power - let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world - a decent world that will give men a chance to work - that will give youth a future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie! They do not fulfil that promise. They never will!

Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people! Now let us fight to fulfil that promise! Let us fight to free the world - to do away with national barriers - to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness. Soldiers! in the name of democracy, let us all unite!

And that’s the earnest speech delivered by Charlie Chaplin playing the character of a Jewish barber who is mistaken to be an antisemitic tyrant in the absurd comedy, The Great Dictator. The power of the speech, of course, isn’t just its content. It’s how the tension between its sincerity and the ridiculousness of the movie’s comedy allows the message to be received more clearly and directly.

I suppose Chaplin could’ve made a really funny movie mocking Hitler and then recorded a public service announcement to role after the credits, “Hey, Charlie Chaplin here with a message about the war in Europe.” I guess he could’ve done that, but it’s hard to believe that would’ve been anywhere near as effective.

Some years later, the great comedian Mel Brooks noted on this point, "Rhetoric does not get you anywhere, because Hitler and Mussolini are just as good at rhetoric. But if you can bring these people down with comedy, they stand no chance."

Charlie Chaplin understood this and understood that the moment in which the world found itself in 1940 and the message that needed to be stated demanded that the earnest and the absurd stand side by side in order for the truth to be revealed about both.

I’m not joking when I say that I truly believe Saint Paul understood this principle, too, and that it informed his writing of words that we regard as Holy Scripture.

I think this is especially true of the Book of Romans or the letter he wrote to the Christians living in Rome in the middle of the first century.

In other words, Saint Paul understood that the moment in which the Roman Christians found themselves at that time and the message that needed to be stated demanded that the earnest and the absurd stand side by side in order for the truth to be revealed about both.

There’s a certain level of ridiculousness at play in Paul’s message to the Romans. The idea that a group gathered together in the name of an executed Jewish carpenter could accomplish anything significant, much less overcome and offer an alternative to the ideological pull of the Roman Empire was beyond foolish.

Couple that with the group’s inherent contradictions—the diversity of the members’ religious backgrounds and economic clout, for example–and the Church’s prospect for being anything more than a bunch of religious weirdos who simply flamed out were laughable.

Honestly, it was most likely that the Church would fall apart because the members would fall back into old habits and prejudices and turn against one another, but even if they overcame that monumental challenge to their survival, the Empire was always there to enforce its idolatrous and authoritarian agenda with violence.

Seeing that the Church had its work cut out for itself, Paul began by encouraging the people to find their identity in Jesus and his love, rather than in their backgrounds or riches.

Using his command of the Jewish scripture, his knowledge of classical philosophy, as well as humor and exaggeration, Paul diffuses the people’s desire to judge one another and divide themselves into factions and cliques.

“You’re impressed with your family’s history and you like your family’s money, but I tell you,” said Paul, “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”

It’s who Jesus is and what Jesus did that Paul wanted the people to see as their foundation and guiding light.

It’s Jesus’s love and power that Paul wanted the people to recognize as their source of unity and the strength to overcome whatever trials they faced.

That’s what brings us to the passage at hand, a selection from Romans, chapter 8.

Aware of the forces working against the Christians in Rome, Paul was undeterred.

"What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us?"

And then, confronting the enemies to the people’s success that existed within their own hearts as well as those running amok in the culture, Paul delivered a pretty great speech of his own.

He who did not withhold his own Son but gave him up for all of us, how will he not with him also give us everything else?

Who will bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies.

Who is to condemn? It is Christ who died, or rather, who was raised, who is also at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.

Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will affliction or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword?

As it is written, "For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered."

No, in all these things we are more than victorious…

The more familiar translation of that phrase is “more than conquerors” which really drives home how Paul is poking at or popping the balloon of the Empire’s supposed superiority.

“[There are those who would have you believe that you are nobody and insignificant, but I am telling you that you] are more than victorious–[more than conquerors]--through him who loved us.”

And then comes the mic drop, the crescendo, the gospel truth that exposes all the Pretender’s lies.

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Held fast by God’s love, you can stand firm against whatever comes your way.

That was the substance of Paul’s message a very long time ago, but it is as relevant to you and me today as it was to any disciple anywhere at any time.

Hardships that wreak our hearts or consume our thinking, tragedies that grab headlines or steal our peace of mind–the power at work within us is even greater than these.

Literal and figurative brutes may rise to power over us, but they lie!

It is in Christ, however, that we know the truth, that we know love, and that we know what it is to be free.

Thanks be to God for this Good News. Amen.