Sunday Matinee #71 Planes, Trains, and Automobiles
"YOU'RE GOING! THE WRONG! WAY!!!"
Acts 2:1-21 | Revised Common Lectionary | EnterTheBible.org
Pentecost Sunday | 05.19.2024
Context: One of the more famous stories of the New Testament outside of the gospels, the scene in the Upper Room at Pentecost depicts the arrival of the Holy Spirit in the midst of the newly-born Christian movement. The gathering is exuberant and their experience is incredible, with lots of energetic shouting. It makes some wonder if these people have been drinking.
7 Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? 12 All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” 13 But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.” 14 But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, “Fellow Jews and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. 15 Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. 16 No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel…”
Planes, Trains, and Automobiles | 1987
IMDb | Letterboxd | RRMC
Context: Neal Page (Steve Martin) is just trying to get home for Thanksgiving and keeps getting paired with unlikely companion Del Griffith (John Candy). While driving cross-country, Neal falls asleep in the passenger seat and Del mistakenly gets turned around and ends up going the wrong way down the highway. Another pair of travelers (stunt performers John Moio and Victoria Vanderkloot) tries to warn him, with lots of energetic shouting. It makes Del wonder if these people have been drinking.
Neal Page: Hey, what's going on?
Del Griffith: Some joker wants to race.
Screaming Driver: Turn around!
Neal Page: Don't race. It's ridiculous.
Del Griffith: All right, come on. Let's go. Let's go.
Screaming Driver: Put your window down!
Neal Page: He wants something.
Del Griffith: Eh, he's probably drunk.
Screaming Driver: You're going the wrong way!
Neal Page: What?!
Screaming Driver and Screaming Driver’s Wife: YOU’RE GOING THE WRONG WAY!
Neal Page: He says we're going the wrong way.
Del Griffith: Oh, he's drunk! How would he know where we're going?!
Neal Page: …Yeah, how would he know? Thank you! Thanks a lot. Terrific.
Del Griffith: Thank you! (Del honks the horn twice.) Heh, heh, what a moron.
Commentary:
I have written or preached about many aspects of the Pentecost story. Acts of the Apostles chapter 2 is long and rich, and though I’ve preached nearly every Pentecost Sunday since becoming a clergyperson, I don’t know that I’ve ever had the chance to really focus on the accusation of people being drunk like I’m doing here.
“They are filled with new wine.” Look at them. They all say they experienced something incredible. They are all amazed and astonished. They’re babbling, running around all perplexed, shouting and asking what’s going on. I wasn’t there when it happened, but the more I watch them go on and on the more I know the truth:
“Oh, they’re drunk.”
That’s what this second crowd thinks as they watch the first crowd who witnessed the Holy Spirit in their midst. The experience has changed these people so thoroughly, and they’re in the midst of their transition, a delicate, tender moment of reaching new realization about themselves and the universe. Watching these people from the outside looking in has brought out their cynical side. It’s too fantastic to be real. It must be yum-yum juice.
I admit it: I have had spiritual experiences that I cannot always explain. Seen things that one day I can explain and the next I am at a loss for words. Felt feelings that have brought me comfort, then confusion, then comfort yet again. At the time of this writing I recently witnessed the total solar eclipse from within the path of totality for over four minutes on April 8, 2024. I love the fascinating science behind it. And while we could predict the eclipse to the second, there is no way to measure what it meant to me emotionally, spiritually. It takes a poet.
There are many classic scenes in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. I’d say this is the most-quoted and most-beloved, in my experience. Like Donna Frenzel in her (almost sole acting role!) scene opposite George Clooney in Out of Sight, we get another scene with seldom seen actors playing opposite big stars. I’ve got to give major kudos to stunt performers John Moio and Victoria Vanderkloot as Screaming Driver and Screaming Driver’s Wife. Because I have likely mock-yelled in their cadence “YOU’RE GOING THE WRONG WAY!” at least 1,000 times in my lifetime so far.
Maybe that’s what makes the scene work so well. If the driver and spouse were a huge cameo, like Demi Moore and Kevin Bacon reprised their roles from John Hughes’s She’s Having a Baby for some sort of Hughesiverse crossover, it would’ve repealed all the comedy and tension of the scene. We needed normal people to point out the obvious. Likewise, we get normal people thinking those at Pentecost were drunk to play opposite of “star” apostle Simon Peter to help it feel real. If we got a cameo from a named person or authority office, I don’t think it would play as well. Here, we get ordinary people calling out extraordinary events and “stars” responding.
In both cases, the response is an accusation of drinking too much. In the movie, it’s obviously played for laughs. But when I hear this passage read in a worship setting, it always elicits at least a chuckle. The very idea that anyone in this scripture story or movie should be dismissed because they’re drunk is funny. At the same time, maybe we can take a step back and think about all of the reasons we’ve dismissed people before.
Did we dismiss that person because they were too young and inexperienced? Too old and out of touch? Too drunk or high? Too differently abled? Too different of a brain chemistry? Too different of a sex or gender or race or orientation or religion or culture or accent or clothing choice or whatever it is that ran through our head so we could know that deep down we are right and they are, well, not right? In the Acts story, Simon Peter steps up from denying disciple to assertive apostle and speaks the truth. In the movie, Neal Page tells Del Griffith the people yelling are right. What do you do when you find yourself dismissing others? How do you reopen?