A SPOONFUL OF SUGAR GOES A LONG, LONG WAY: SIN, REPENTANCE & REDEMPTION IN DISNEY'S MARY POPPINS
From a recent stage production of Mary Poppins. Public Domain.
According to the Book of Common Prayer, “All Sundays of the year are feasts of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1) commemorating his death, passion, resurrection, and ascension. In the season of Lent the overall tone of the liturgy shifts from this joyous celebration to the contemplation of our sins and mortality. Nowhere is this better highlighted than in the collect for Ash Wednesday, which reminds us that we should be “worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness,” all while observing “a holy Lent by self-examination and repentance by prayer, fasting, and self-denial. . . .” (2) But even outside of Lent the regular language of Episcopal worship draws attention to our need to repent from sin. This is especially noticeable in the general confession, used whenever the Eucharist is celebrated, in which we collectively state: “we confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed. . . . We are truly sorry and we humbly repent.” (3) Moreover, nearly every Eucharistic prayer draws attention to our need of repentance in order to be saved from sin and death.
In the midst of a feast of gratitude and thanksgiving, it is not surprising that some people find these words discomfiting. However, I think a more nuanced understanding of sin, repentance, and redemption can not only ease those concerns, but open us up to God’s love, grace, and mercy more fully. And though it may not seem immediately obvious, one of the best examples we see of this repentance and grace can be found in Disney’s 1964 film adaptation of Mary Poppins.
Set in the Edwardian London of 1910, Mary Poppins tells the story of George and Winifred Banks and their two children, Jane and Michael. Mr. Banks works at a prestigious London bank and, as such, rarely (if ever) has time for his children, who respond to this lack of affection by repeatedly acting out to get his attention. As a result, the Banks family has had a hard time finding a nanny who can keep the two children in line. Enter Mary Poppins who, through her unorthodox means, helps Mr. Banks realize that his personal business ambitions – ostensibly done in the name of family – are, in fact, driving a wedge between him and those closest to him. The film ends with the Banks family stronger and happier than before, with Mr. Banks committed to finding a work/life balance that centers his family’s needs.
Sin and repentance, though never directly named in this family-friendly film, are at the core of the Banks’s family story. But to understand this, it’s important to define what sin is and what it isn’t. The church has used the threat of sin and its shame to oppress and control marginalized people for nearly as long as there has been a church. From enslaved people being told to “obey their earthly masters” (cf. Eph 6.5, Col 3.22), to women being denied leadership roles until the twentieth century, and young queer people being raised to believe their authentic, God-given identity is an affront to that very same God, sin has been held over the heads of the already disenfranchised in order to maintain control and prop up existing power structures.
This is not what I mean when I talk about sin.
Sin, properly understood, is any action we take that puts our own will ahead of God’s, and our own wants ahead of others’ needs. The result of these choices is a relational breakdown between us and God, other people, and all of creation. (4) Sin can be a small thing or a large one, but it's something we all do every day, “by what we have done, and by what we have left undone.” (5) As such, the threat of sin should never be used by people in power to coerce or control others. Rather, the church draws attention to sin in order to bring us back to God: when we put our own wills first we become beholden to purely earthly concerns and lose not only our liberty, but our sense of self. Broken relationships, therefore, are the primary symptoms of sin, both personal and societal. That the world is out of order is a problem humanity has been struggling with since our first steps as sentient creatures (the nearly three-thousand-year-old story of Adam and Eve is essentially an attempt at explaining this). And as broken relationships are at the center of Mary Poppins, the movie becomes a helpful way of understanding what sin might look like in our own lives.
A number of things contribute to Mr. Banks’s near-estrangement from his family, not least of which is the time period the story is set in. Western culture of the early twentieth century taught that well-to-do husbands and fathers ran the household to their wants and needs. As a respectable banker, Mr. Banks expects his home to function like his business, going so far as to sing “How lordly is the life I lead!” when describing the regimental schedule he expects his family to follow. (6) Mr. Banks’s hierarchical misordering of his household puts his own wants first – the desires of the rest of his family are barely considered. As such, he is inattentive to the needs of his children, Jane and Michael, even when they make their own wants plain. Writing their own advertisement for a new nanny, Jane and Michael ask that she “Never be cross or cruel. . . . Love us as a son and daughter. . . . If you won’t scold and dominate us we will never give you cause to hate us.” (7) These words are a plea to their father to be in a proper relationship with them, but Mr. Banks is unwilling to listen and, instead, rips up what they’ve written, throwing it into the fireplace, a visual reminder that their opinions don’t matter to him.
Enter Mary Poppins, who arrives floating on her umbrella like a bird gently coming to ground. (Chirstian viewers could easily be forgiven for seeing this descent from the clouds as an allusion to the Holy Spirit coming to land on the Banks’s household.) In what is ostensibly her interview for the job of nanny, Mary hires herself, showing the audience that Mr. Banks’s bravado is nothing but a fragile façade. And while the household is immediately taken with Mary’s methods – and is happier for it – George Banks only becomes more and more frustrated. For him, every action must have “purpose and practicality,” and he has no time for the sort of games Mary uses to bond with Jane and Michael, claiming they fulfill no “basic need.” (8) Mary, however, brings in the winds of change that will ultimately reveal the family’s brokenness, and sets in motion the actions that will allow it to heal. Indeed, the first thing she teaches the children is that the adults in their lives might be the ones who need help: “Sometimes a person we love,” she says, “through no fault of his own, can’t see past the end of his nose.” (9) In other words, sin (and the broken relationships it creates) has epistemic consequences: Mr. Banks’s inability to see his children as fully-formed people with genuine needs and wants is at the heart of the family’s disorder.
The brokenness of the family relationship comes to a head when the children visit their father’s bank. Michael, tuppence in hand, declares he wants to use his money to feed the birds outside St. Paul’s Cathedral, a simple act of charity which, according to Mr. Banks, is a waste. Instead, Mr. Banks, with the chairman and partners of the bank, attempts to take Michael’s money in order to open an account, the investments of which will help fuel the English colonial project. (10) When Michael refuses and loudly demands that the bankers give him his money back, a run on the bank ensues, and the children run away.
Lost and alone on the streets of London, Jane and Michael are found by Bert, a friend of Mary’s, who listens to their tale (video here):
“Who’s after you?” Bert asks.
“Father is,” Jane replies.
Bert, having a hard time believing Mr. Banks would be chasing his own children, tries to understand: “Well now there must be some mistake. Your dad’s a fine gentleman and he loves you.”
But Jane, with tears in her eyes, disagrees. “I don’t think so. You should have seen the look on his face.”
Michael agrees, saying “He doesn’t like us at all.”
But Bert can see that Mr. Banks is trapped within a larger system of societal pressure that he can’t escape. Bert says to the children:
“Now begging your pardon, but the one my heart goes out to is your father. There he is in that cold heartless bank, day after day, hemmed in by mounds of cold heartless money. I don’t like to see any living thing caged up.”
Jane is surprised to hear this. “Father? In a cage?” she asks.
“They make cages in all sizes and shapes, you know,” Bert says. “Bank-shaped, some of them.”
And though the children aren’t quite convinced, Bert drives the point home:
“Who looks after your father, tell me that? When something terrible happens, what does he do? Fend for himself, that’s what he does. Who does he tell about it? No one. Don’t blab his troubles at home. He just pushes on at his job, uncomplaining, alone and silent.”
Finally beginning to understand, Jane asks “Bert, do you really think father needs our help?” (11)
But while the children are finally beginning to understand that their father is trapped by society’s expectations of him, the run on the bank has had severe consequences for Mr. Banks, who is losing his job because of it. While waiting at home for the meeting that will end his career he’s met by Bert, who helps him to put everything in perspective (video here):
“It’s that woman, Mary Poppins,” Mr. Banks says. “From the moment she stepped into this house things began to happen to me! . . .
“My world was calm, well-ordered, exemplary
Then came this person with chaos in her wake
And now my life’s ambitions go with with fell blow
It’s quite a bitter pill to take.”
Bert pushes Mr. Banks to bring all the pieces together:
“I know the very person you mean. Mary Poppins. She’s the one what sings:
“A spoonful of sugar goes a long long way
Have yourself a healthy helping every day . . .
“You’re a man of high position
Esteemed by your peers
And when your little tykes are crying
You haven’t time to dry their tears
And see them grateful little faces
Smiling up at you . . .
“You’ve got to grind grind grind at that grindstone
Though childhood slips like sand through a sieve
And all too soon they’ve up and grown
And then they’ve flown
And it’s too late for you to give
Just that spoonful of sugar
To help the medicine go down.” (12)
Mr. Banks has finally figured out that the problem to be solved in his household is not his children’s need for attention and affection, but his own inability to provide them with it – that simple “spoonful of sugar” of love, grace, and mercy that goes a long long way.
That evening at the bank Mr. Banks is fired like he expects, but he suddenly finds it doesn’t matter. He’s realized now that what truly matters is a full, loving relationship with his family, putting their needs above his own wants, and no longer submitting himself to the societal standards of 1910’s London. The film ends with the Banks family going out to fly a kite together, while Mary Poppins is left alone. Her umbrella, speaking for the first time, says to her: “They think more of their father than they do of you.” Rather simply, Mary Poppins responds with four words that are the heart of this story about healed relationships: “As it should be.” (13)
If sin is the misordering of relationships – ourselves first, with God and others coming after – then sin is the very core of the Banks family’s problems. Though the film does not mention God, its central conflict, nonetheless, hinges on a deeply religious theme: the need to repent of the chaos that broken relationships can wreak on our lives. In the same way, when Mr. Banks stops submitting to the broader societal expectations around him and focuses on repairing the relationships in his life, those relationships immediately begin to improve and give his life a fullness it had been missing up until that point. This truth is beautifully summarized in the 2013 film, Saving Mr. Banks, when Emma Thompson’s P. L. Travers (author of the Mary Poppins books) says to Tom Hanks’s Walt Disney: “You think Mary Poppins has come to save the children, Mr. Disney? Oh dear.” (14) By the film’s end, Disney finally sees what’s at the root of the story: “Forgiveness, Mrs. Travers. It’s what I learned from your books. . . . Every time a person walks into a movie house . . . they will see George Banks being saved. . . . George Banks will be redeemed.” (15)
Mr. Banks’s redemption and restored relationships are a tangible, visual example of the gifts and joys that come from asking God for forgiveness for the daily ways our own sin damages the relationships in our lives. Our desire to be forgiven is not simply so that we can forgive and forget. Indeed, if that were the case it would make light of the hurt we can cause one another and ourselves in our sin. (16) Instead, we ask for forgiveness from God so that, day by day, we may have a better chance, as the general confession says, of delighting in God’s will, and walking in God’s way, with relationships that are fulfilling and life-giving.
The knowledge of our forgiveness from God opens us up to new life and new possibilities, because it doesn’t merely brush aside our past sins, but holds them together with God’s great forgiveness. As Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, says, “Forgiveness of that sort is creative because it reveals new dimensions to a relationship, new depths, new possibilities.” (17) This is all the more extraordinary when we consider that God in the person of Jesus Christ took on our sins, knew our pains and sufferings, felt them keenly, and died for our sake. And yet even then, God’s love is boundless. Even though the cross symbolizes humanity’s rejection of God’s love, God’s love for us is still endless. What a remarkable gift! (18)
Notably, no one in Mary Poppins is ever shown explicitly forgiving anyone. Rather, the fact of Mr Banks’s redemption is shown through his actions. God’s love and forgiveness for us is also like this. Though we may, at times, ask for it, more often than we come to realize we have already been forgiven by the changes that show up in our life when we commit to a proper ordering of relationships. As former Yale Divinity School professor, Denys Turner, once said: “God doesn't need our repentance for forgiveness – God's already forgiven us. Rather, our repentance is what allows us to experience it most fully.” (19) Mr. Banks does not earn his redemption, as his family were prepared to forgive him all along. Rather, he only comes to know his redemption when he seeks his family’s forgiveness and makes room for their love in his life, and we see the evidence of his repentance when he repairs a broken kite for his children and invites them to fly it with him.
The language of sin and death in liturgy may strike us as cold or off putting, but it is an invitation for us to examine the places in our lives where our relationships have been misordered, and to contemplate the ways to put them right. When we do, we may find, like Mr. Banks, that our lives are stronger and fuller for it. This is not a reward, but a return to what should have always been the status quo, and a chance to give thanks for God’s grace on us, the God whose mercy exceeds our wildest expectations. (20) So. Let us remember our sins, not for their own sake, but for the forgiveness that comes from our repentance of them and for a deeper knowledge of the immensity of God’s love. And like Mr. Banks, don’t forget that, when it comes to our relationships with one another, a spoonful of sugar – of mercy, grace, and love – goes a long, long way.
The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and Other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church Together with The Psalter or Psalms of David According to the use of The Episcopal Church, (New York: Church Publishing Incorporated, 1979), 16.
The Book of Common Prayer, 264–65.
The Book of Common Prayer, 360.
“Sin and Redemption,” from the Catechism in The Book of Common Prayer, (New York: Church Publishing Inc., 1979) 848.
The Book of Common Prayer, 360.
“The Life I Lead,” music and lyrics by Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman, from Mary Poppins, directed by Robert Stevenson, featuring Julie Andrews, Dick Van Dyke, and David Tomlinson (Walt Disney Pictures, 1964), Disney+ (2022).
“The Perfect Nanny,” music and lyrics by Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman, from Mary Poppins (1964).
Mary Poppins (1964).
Mary Poppins (1964).
“You see Michael, you'll be part of...
Railways through Africa
Dams across the Nile
Fleets of ocean greyhounds
Majestic, self-amortizing canals
Plantations of ripening tea”“Fidelity Fiduciary Bank,” music and lyrics by Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman, from Mary Poppins (1964).
Mary Poppins (1964).
“A Man Has Dreams (The Life I Lead/A Spoonful of Sugar,” music and lyrics by Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman, from Mary Poppins (1964).
Mary Poppins, 1964.
Saving Mr. Banks, directed by John Lee Hancock, featuring Emma Thompson and Tom Hanks (Walt Disney Pictures, 2013), Disney+ (2022).
Saving Mr. Banks, 2013.
Rowan Williams, “The Forgiveness of Sins,” in A Ray of Darkness (Lanham: Cowley Publications, 1995), 49–50.
Williams, 50.
Williams, 51-2.
Denys Turner, “Sermon” (Marquand Chapel, Yale Divinity School, New Haven, CT, March 4, 2015).
Jerome, “A commentary on the prophecy of Joel,” in Celebrating the Seasons, ed. Robert Atwell (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 1999), 155–56.
