Emily Lyons

On the sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astounded […]

And they took offense at him.
—Mark 6:2,3

Dear Friends,

Spiritual insights sometimes come from unlikely places.

For me this week, that place is Our Home Out West, a camp Western parody written by and starring Cole Escola. It’s very silly, very crass, and also somehow a story about loving others as Christ loves us.

Harper is a young orphan stranded in the frontier town of Pan City. Fifi, owner of the local brothel, scandalizes the self-righteous townspeople when she announces she will adopt Harper rather than let him be sent away to a workhouse.

After Fifi brings Harper home with her, he asks, “How come people hate you? Why are they always so mean to you?”

She responds, “I think they believe that if they follow all the rules, nothing bad will happen to them. So when they see someone who’s not following all their rules, and doing just fine, it makes them scared that their rules don’t really matter. And when people get scared, they get mad.”

Fifi could be describing the people of Nazareth.

Here comes Jesus, upsetting their understanding of who he is, calling all their rules into question. They can’t begin to open their minds to what he is teaching because they don’t believe he should be teaching them at all.

They don’t believe it, because they think he is just one of them—which is to say, a nobody.

Unable to imagine anything different than what they know, they robbed themselves of the ability to hope that something better was possible.

There’s another layer to Our Home Out West.

It’s clear that Harper is a queer kid, and Fifi is the only adult in his life who recognizes this about him and affirms it. By taking him in, she not only saves him from a bleak childhood; she gives him a chance to imagine and hope that a better future is possible for himself.

“What rules don’t you follow?” Harper asks Fifi.

“That’s a…conversation for when you’re older.”

I wonder if there were any people in the synagogue that day who, instead of feeling fear and anger at Jesus’ words, felt—perhaps for the first time—that they did not have to be afraid, and that a better future was possible.

In Christ,

—Emily