We Don't Talk About Bruno (Part 3 of our Encanto Series, preached August 7, 2022)
We are in our third week of exploring Disney’s rich story, Encanto. In this story about community and belonging and giftedness, today we consider ways we sometimes exclude folks when we misunderstand them. Specifically, I want to talk about Bruno (even though “we don’t talk about Bruno…) from two perspectives – first as a prophet and second as someone cut out of community because he is misunderstood.
I feel like it is important to offer a little window into what I was doing in Albuquerque last month because it matters to this topic. I want to share the spiritual journey I am on because, beyond lending to our conversation today, it also undergirds my call, how I show up to scripture, how I order my life of prayer, leadership, service, pastoral care and prophetic witness. This journey that I am on is at the heart of who I am and how I am with God. And that can’t be separated from the work we do together.
That all sounds like big stuff. And it is admittedly difficult to summarize, but I want to try.
Two weeks ago, I sat with about 200 other students of The Living School, a program of the Center for Action and Contemplation, and learned from great spiritual teachers – Fr. Richard Rohr, Dr. James Finley, Dr. Barbara Holmes, Brian McLaren, and Mirabai Starr. Each of these teachers is a student of the mystics – folks like Theresa of Avilla and St. John of the Cross – and each embodies contemplative practice – seeking to deepen their prayer life in order to be in deep relationship with God.
At the same time, none of these teachers is content with prayer being the end of their devotion to God. Each understands that in relationship to God, we have the ability to choose to behave, live and act in the world, on behalf of justice and in respect for the wonder and sanctity of God’s creation, which includes everything.
God’s creation is the expression of God in the world. You, me, nature. But also how science unfolds. How others of different faith traditions live and move and have being. And so the way we live out our respect for the fullness of God’s creation is a lived expression of our relationship with God.
In other words…it is no good heading off to a mountain top for a life of prayer because prayer must be balanced with action in the world, action in relationship to others who are beloved children of God.
And really, Jesus models this in scripture by his own example – taking time with his Father before coming down the mountain to teach and serve and advocate and model right relationship, teaching the disciples how to pray right alongside teaching them truth and healing and practical things like feeding crowds.
So the balance of contemplation or reflective time with God and action in the world makes sense to me at some deep gut level…but frankly, I am better much better at action than prayer, and so spending time to understand the deep recesses of opening myself to God is really important and hard work for me. This is why I applied to The Living School.
The theme for last week’s teaching in Albuquerque was “A School for Prophets.”
Maybe when you think of prophets, you think of the biggies from the Jewish tradition – Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel. Or maybe you think of the lesser prophets – Amos, Hosea, Zechariah, etc. But what about Moses? Jesus? Mary? John the Baptist?
And who are the prophets that are speaking today? Or who have spoken in our lifetime? Dr. Martin Luther King, Greta Thunberg, Desmond Tutu…
And what if each of us has moments of speaking a prophetic truth? I don’t have to be a full-time, locust eating, shouting prophet to have a moment of speaking prophetic truth. I believe our own Bishop Easterling has a powerful prophetic voice if we have ears to hear, for example.
So let’s pause there and recall that prophetic truth as demonstrated in the prophetic work of scripture is not necessarily divining the future, but it is naming what is real and true here and now, and what is unfolding before us, often unnoticed or actively ignored.
As I typed this, thinking about modern prophetic voices, I admit that I believe our ability to tune into prophetic wisdom today is interrupted by the clamor of the 24/7 media cycle and the omnipresence of social media which constantly serves up things to stir our reactions – positive and negative – leaving us with less time to listen for understanding.
Also, prophetic work is not limited to individuals. There are prophetic movements within groups of people. There are communities that speak and walk with a prophetic voice. If you lay aside the “black lives matter” organization and look at the movement of people worldwide who lift their voices to protest violence against black bodies, claiming that black lives do matter, you see a prophetic movement.
Prophets, individual and communal, are not often popular because they are naming very hard things…things to which we’d rather NOT pay attention.
We know what Jesus’ hometown did when we started to speak truths that made them uncomfortable, right? We were reminded in today’s scripture. Folks drove him out of town and threatened to throw him off a cliff!
After a week of swimming in all of that thinking and learning about prophets, I came back to the movie Encanto and specifically the character Bruno in different ways. Suddenly beyond the troubled relationship he had with his family, I understood Bruno’s gift differently, too. Bruno had a gift of prophecy. And in some ways, Mirabel’s sensitivity to the cracks in the house demonstrates a kind of prophetic gift as well.
Bruno has visions of some sort – but he also simply names the things he sees. For example, Bruno’s sister Pepa has the curious gift of manifesting weather – throughout the movie we see that she is prone to anxious reactivity that spawns rain, thunder and lightening. When Pepa remembers her wedding day, she remembers Bruno predicting bad weather that turned into a hurricane. But in truth, Bruno didn’t make that hurricane happen. Pepa’s anxiety about her big day might have, given what we can see of her gift…
Bruno told Isabel her power would grow. She believes that has something to do with marrying Mariano as Abuela seems to wish. At the same time Bruno told Dolores that the man of her dreams would be betrothed to another. She pines for Mariano even as he seeks after Isabela because that seems to be what his mother wants as well.
Was Bruno really seeing the future or was he reading the cues of complicated social and family dynamics? And to what extent do those sorts of predictions become self-fulfilling prophecies that shape the actions of those who have heard them?
I wonder…do we let our feelings about some truths prevent us from really understanding? Or really seeking understanding?
Do we let our feelings about the truth that people speak keep us from relationships with that person?
As a result of everyone’s perception of - and reaction to - Bruno’s predictions, he has been shunned by the family Madrigal.
We don’t talk about Bruno no no no…
Now Bruno lives behind the walls of the house, in a dark world of cobwebs, illusion and isolation. He longs for nearness and inclusion, and all the while, his family talks about him and not with him.
In one scene we see that behind the walls of the dining room, Bruno has set for himself a place at the table, complete with a peep hole so that he can join the family at mealtimes, even though they don’t know he is there.
As the family faces unknown weaknesses and threat throughout the Encanto storyline, it is possible that being in relationship with Bruno would actually help to shed light on ways to fix the crumbling community. But they can’t see that, can’t imagine that.
Because we don’t talk about Bruno.
What if we talk about Bruno?
What if his family had looked for him after his disappearance? What if they had asked for more information about the things that he saw?
In a world that is woefully divided, in the midst of hard things, I feel like each day I see more clearly that good relationship seeks understanding and connection, not distance and judgement. We are surrounded by structures and systems and tools and vehicles that create more distance and judgement. Bots create inflammatory responses to our social media posts SO THAT we are more distant from one another. The media is often chasing the advertising dollar more than the truth. With COVID we have become necessarily comfortable interacting on screen, and yet we are human beings made for connection.
Can we not just talk about Bruno, but actually talk with Bruno?
Can we ask Jesus a clarifying question rather than driving him off the cliff?
Can we sit and have a conversation, perhaps a conversation that begins with curiosity and wonder rather than firing off an email, a comment, a dismissal?
I know that requires time and fortitude, patience and deep listening. And yet I think the Kin-dom of God depends on that work.
This morning, we gather at God’s table.
A table where all of God’s beloved creation is invited and welcome.
As we gather today, I ask that we remember the Brunos of the world…who long to be at the table but who might have been left out.
I hope you’ll take just a moment to consider those places where you might need to reach out to someone who is NOT at the table with us…to remind them that they belong, to get curious about why they are not here, get curious about who they are, what they see. Invite them to this table, to your table at home, to a table at the local coffee shop. And maybe in our listening, we will hear prophetic truth or see hope and connectedness and love in an entirely new way.
May it be so.
Amen.
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