The year of Biblical movies, oh my!

Apparently this is the year of biblical movies.

February 28 is the opening of Son of God, which is basically a re-run of the the History Channel's series with some additional cuts, and apparently less devil. Then there's Noah. Or it might be Lord of the Rings IV. It's hard to tell from the trailer. Then, don't forget about Heaven is for Real, which is a big-screen adaptation of a NY Times bestseller from a couple years back. Finally, December brings us Exodus and Mary, Mother of Christ, because who didn't see Joel Osteen as an executive producer coming?

Russell Crowe: Master and Commander... and Noah. He can sail a ship and build one.

Now, I got ultra-snotty about these things, so I'll just go ahead and apologize right now. I mostly don't like these kinds of movies. I didn't like Passion of the Christ and the History Channel series on the The Bible left me less-than-thrilled. It wasn't even that it was bad theology or anything; I just didn't care for it. That's a critique that isn't remotely fair, and I realize that, but it's also simply true for my experience.

I've been thinking more and more about why this is, since apparently I'm going to be barraged with these movies over and over in the coming months, and I've come to this conclusion: I want these movies to do too much.

Let's forget Heaven is for Real for a moment, because that's really a different kind of movie compared with the biblical ones. For the others there are several things I want from them: I want them to be historically accurate, I want them to be theologically sound (not the same thing), and I want them to be entertaining (because they're a movie, duh!). Only, I'm pretty sure hitting all three is an impossible task.

What happens when you write a scathing sermon directed at one person

Scripture: John 7:37-52

           We are terrible at interpreting scripture. Seriously. Terrible. The Pharisees remind me of this every time they come into the picture. I get this sickening sense that I am one of them most of the time—this feeling that I see exactly what is convenient in the Bible and ignore anything that is not. I do it. You do it. The TV evangelists do it. We are all Pharisees who see and hear exactly what we want.

            I figured I would get the bad news out of the way. There is good news here, but it’ll have to wait a minute.

In today’s reading the Pharisees have a problem with Jesus—well, you can say that about pretty much every story in John’s Gospel— and, in this case, the problem concerns his hometown. He isn’t from the right place. The Pharisees scoured their scripture and found no account of a prophet coming from Galilee, therefore, being the good teachers of the law that they were, they informed Jesus that he could not be a prophet. Their Bible said it; they believed it; that settled it. Like so many of us who take the Bible seriously, the Pharisees had laid out all the rules about what a future Messiah would look like. They had the Torah in one hand, the prophets in the other, and a clear certainty that God was bound to the written words he had given.

This is a sermon on dualism, but I don't use the word so I think we're OK

Scripture: John 6:35-59

            The Jewish leaders in John’s Gospel remind me of those characters from the old Scooby Doo cartoons who nonchalantly appear at the beginning of each episode, but since there are only ever one, or at most two, new characters introduced in an episode it becomes painfully obvious who the bad guy is going to be in the end. Like any good Scooby Doo villain, I can imagine the Jewish temple leaders shaking their head at the end of the Gospel and saying, “And we would have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for that meddling Jesus.” (For those of you who think I use too many current pop culture references, understand that everybody in high school has absolutely zero idea what I’m talking about right now)

“The Jews,” as John frequently calls the group of temple leaders who interrogate Jesus, are never going to accept anything divine about Jesus—it’s just not going to happen. He’s going to keep telling them things like “I am the bread of life,” or “I am the light of the world,” or, as we heard with Nicodemus a few weeks back, “I am the Son of Man.” Sorry to ruin the end of the story if you’ve never read John’s Gospel, but “the Jews” are never going to get it. They’re always going to despise that meddling Jesus. And it’s for reasons like the reading we have today.

Addiction and Christianity: How recovering addicts show us a better way.

Hoffman, courtesy of Wikipedia

Addiction has been in the news a lot since the death of Philip Seymour Hoffman in a way, unfortunately, that it hasn't been with other, no less tragic, deaths. Still, any publicity is in a way good publicity. I listened last week to a radio show in the Twin Cities where caller after caller added their personal stories with addiction--some of whom in the past tense, walking the long road of recovery, and some in the present, still trying to figure out how to shed the addiction monkey always on their back. Then there was one email that I thought pretty well summed up the dissonance that we have as a culture around addiction, and, while I'm paraphrasing here, the gist of it was this: the writer said he had "zero sympathy" for an addict, plenty of sympathy for their families and loved ones, but no sympathy for an addict, because the emailer made the choice to abstain from drugs and alcohol and it was a free choice. He said that addicts, too, had that choice and, because they chose poorly, they are suffering the consequences.

I'm glad that this guy wasn't written off because he's right that commitment is not completely separate from the addiction equation, but I have a bone to pick with the contention that mere abstention from drugs or alcohol is a sure-fire bet to ward off addiction. Firstly, a person must be sure never to have surgery and get prescribed any kind of pain-killer, since any opioid (even a very small dose for a short period of time) can form an addiction. Next, there is no guarantee that waiting until a person is 21 will ward off addiction to alcohol or other legal substances. Again, a person can make a choice not to drink even then, but culturally it is acceptable at that time (and really much before, if we're honest). So we end up in a position where what is socially acceptable may lead to an addiction that is decidedly not. Finally, a person can be born to an alcoholic and drug-addicted parent and, apart from anything they do, they may develop a natural dependency. Surely we can't say this was within their control? This is before we get to other addictions that are not directly drug-related. I suppose the only way to abstain from any potentially addictive substance is to never eat, drink, or make any kind of free choice.

Part of the problem with the way we think about addiction is that it's easy to assume there is a one-size-fits-all cause and solution to the problem. Instead, some people have addiction written all over their genes. All it takes is one experience and, without any intervention, they will be addicted for life. More often, people become addicted more gradually or after a particularly bad spell, depending on numerous biological and psychological issues. Part of the reason this is difficult to quantify is because everything goes into this equation: everything. If a person is abused as a child that will make them more susceptible to escaping into things that are addictive; if a person is addicted to one thing it may or may not make them more likely to be addicted to something else. There is nothing universal about this.

Except maybe one thing. I firmly believe that everyone has the same potential for addiction--that potential is just magnified for some more than others both by genetics and environment. The reason we don't see much of ourselves in the meth addict or alcoholic that we see on the street is because we have decided that certain addictions are acceptable and certain ones are not; in short, we have decided that their addiction is gross but ours is not. Certainly drug and alcohol addictions are bad both for individuals and communities, but we hardly bat an eye at people addicted to sugar or social media or sex. All of these can have terrible repercussions for an individual, for families and for communities, but we often don't even recognize them as addictions. It's just something we enjoy.

The woman at the well: Sinner, saint and model of faith

Scripture: John 4:1-42

            There is this great correlation in John’s Gospel that we miss if we’re not reading the stories back-to-back. Thankfully, we are. Last week we heard from Nicodemus (well, those who came to church against the advice of the sheriff’s office heard about Nicodemus), and this week we get the woman at the well. It might not be immediately obvious what these two stories have to do with each other, and if you didn't read them one after another I suspect there would be little reason to see any similarities whatsoever, but because they follow one another several similarities and differences emerge. In fact, the two stories may well have been set up to compare and contrast.

            When Nicodemus comes to Jesus he does so at night. When the unnamed woman comes to the well it is at noon, in the middle of the day. They both come with questions: Nicodemus about being born a second time and the woman about living water and the one who gives it. One (Nicodemus) intentionally seeks Jesus out, while the other seems to chance upon him while about her chores. But the real contrast is in their response (or lack thereof). After asking his questions, Nicodemus disappears from the story entirely (like the Vikings on Super Bowl Sunday). John gives the sense that this is all about Jesus' explanations and Nicodemus serves no further purpose. On the other hand, the woman prods further, questions more, and wonders aloud about who Jesus really is before finally running off to tell everyone about the man who may be the Messiah. While Nicodemus came at night as a sign of doubt, the unnamed woman comes by day and shows her faith—even in a Jew with whom Samaritans generally would not interact.