Film Friday Elemental is tale of fire and water, a sort of Romeo and Juliet story. Ember is a fire elemental who helps her immigrant parents run Firebrand, the local store and hangout in Firetown. However Element city is also populated by the water elementals, and the two keep their distance from each other. Until Ember meets city inspector Wade Ripple. Wade comes over when Ember discovers a whole mishmash of leaks in the Firebrand basement. The fire elementals keep away from the water elementals in general, suspicious and fearful of them, fire and water don’t mix, and as the immigrants the fire elementals are at times held back. However, as Ember and Wade embark on a breakneck adventure to stop the copious water that is leaking into Firetown, they inevitably to start to fall for each other, a highly unlikely couple. What could possibly go wrong.
It’s so easy to draw our lines in the sand, almost a part of human nature to divide the world into them and us. Those in and those out. The right and the wrong. Yet, as the saying goes, the line between good and evil runs right through the centre of every human heart.
I’m reminded of something Paula Gooder wrote about the parable Jesus told of a religious Pharisee and dishonest tax collector going to pray. The Pharisee looks at the tax collector and immediately judges him, telling God that he is not like the useless and wayward tax collector, he is a better person than that. Meanwhile the tax collector, barely lifting his face, simply mutters his prayer about how much he needs God’s mercy as he faces himself and admits who he is.
The key point here is that we are not invited to judge the Pharisee for his attitude – to do that would just make us like the Pharisee. We are instead invited to reflect upon the tax collector, the person facing themselves and bringing an honest prayer to God. We’re invited to be in that place of knowing how much we need God’s mercy.
In some ways Elemental is not unlike this parable, it’s easy for the fire and water elementals to see their differences and to judge one another. So easy. One side seeing the other as inferior. But Jesus calls us to see with his eyes. To see ourselves and to know how much we need his love and mercy, not least so that we may view the world and others through the eyes of heaven.
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