The Gospel According to Lost (book review)

I have always been skeptical of The Gospel According to… books.  The market is flooded with them: The Gospel According to Peanuts, The Gospel According to Star Wars, The Gospel According to the Simpsons, etc.  I often feel the author tries to find something in the story that was never intended.  The Gospel According to Lost, however, is different.  I don’t know where Damon Lindelhof and Carlton Cuse, the producers of Lost, stand spiritually, but anyone who has seen the show will realize that they certainly intend to raise some major philosophical, ethical, and spiritual questions.  As a result, Lost is a perfect candidate for the Gospel According to… treatment.

It is obvious that Chris Seay knows and loves Lost.  He honors the writers and creators by exploring the themes they intentionally raise within the story and characters to which we can all relate.  In the first half of The Gospel According to Lost, Seay explores questions raised by the story arcs of the main characters. There is a lot to reflect on here.  For example, what do we do with violence, is anyone beyond redemption, how do we handle/mishandle our calling, and what is the relationship between law and grace? What makes this section so valuable is that the questions raised are universal and cover a wide enough spectrum of issues that anyone open to personal reflection will find something to think about.  In the second half of the book, Seay uses themes, characters, and storylines from Lost to help illuminate Biblical teaching, specifically (and appropriately) the “lost” parables of Luke 15.  Exploring these parables in the context of Lost helps the reader apply Jesus’ teaching in a very personal way.

I really enjoyed my time in The Gospel According to Lost.  It is a quick and engaging read that any reflective fan of the show needs to read before the final season kicks off in February.

Christmas… Now What?

Advent is a season of expectation, but what happens after the day we looked forward to for so long?  This year Erin and I were able to identify with the holy family as we were expecting our own bundle of joy.  Sure, we didn’t give birth to the long awaited messiah, but we were pretty excited nonetheless.  Because we had been trying to get pregnant for a while, there seemed to be an extra amount of excitement and anticipation.  As we reflected on the advent season, it was hard not to acknowledge the long held expectations of the people of Israel.  For hundreds of years they were expecting and actively looking for the messiah, the one promised by the prophets to restore the nation of Israel.  I wonder how the excitement and expectations of Mary and Joseph were influenced by the knowledge that the baby they were waiting for was the messiah that their people had been anticipating for hundreds of years.  Imagine their joy when the day finally came.  The savior is born!  But now what?

Take it from the dad of a two-week-old.  Your expectations do not match reality.  Taking care of a baby is more challenging than you could possibly understand until you’ve actually experienced it.  There are times you wonder what you got yourself into, but that’s okay because you realize that you love the little goober even more than you ever imagined was possible.  I wonder what Mary and Joseph expected.  Were they caught off guard when the messiah seemed to cry for no reason at all?  Were they surprised that the messiah would pee all over when they tried to change his diaper?  Did they love him so much that they thought maybe they didn’t want to share him with the world?

We often see Christmas as a big, exciting climax, but in reality Christmas is not the climax.  The birth of the messiah was just the beginning.  And while Jesus had arrived, there was still a great deal of waiting.  The people of Israel had to wait for the realization of their expectations.  In fact, the majority of those longing, aching for the messiah had no idea he had even been born.   A handful of shepherds, a man named Simeon, a prophetess named Anna, and a little drummer boy (if the carols are to be trusted) were the only ones outside the holy family who knew that the messiah was living among them.  How many wondered if the messiah would come in their lifetime?  How many heard the messianic prophecies read at the synagogue while Jesus was growing up down the street?  How many prayers were offered up for the coming of the messiah without knowing he lived among them?  God was working in the world, his messianic mission had begun, and nearly all of those he came to save had no idea whatsoever.  I wonder where we might be unaware of God’s work in our own lives.  What prayer is he answering even now without our knowledge?  How can we set aside our selfish impatience and trust that God is at work in our lives to will and to act according to his good purpose?

The Way of Holiness

Recently I have been reflecting on a message Robert Gelinas gave at the Renovare International Conference this year.  Gelinas spoke about holiness and how we often misunderstand holiness today.  Godly holiness, he said, is a way of delight, not legalism.  He used two stories from Greek mythology to make his point.

In Greek mythology, the Sirens were bird-like women who lived on an island surrounded by rocks and cliffs.  They sang beautiful songs that would lure any men within earshot to shipwreck on the island.

In the Odyssey, Odysseus wants to hear the Sirens’ legendary song, so he orders his men to tie him to the mast of his ship and fill their ears with beeswax.  As they neared the island, Odysseus could hear the Sirens, and he was filled with a desire to go toward them.  He began to scream at his men to set a course for the island.  With ears full of beeswax, the sailors were deaf to both his pleas and the Sirens’ song, so they kept their heads down and sailed on. Seeing that they were not responding, Odysseus began to struggle with his bonds trying to free himself so that he might jump overboard and swim to the Sirens.  But his bonds held tight, and his men sailed on until they were clear of the dangerous song.

This is how I use to approach holiness.  I saw it as a battle.  I told myself I needed to keep my head down, soldier on, and fight for every inch while doing everything I could to ignore the siren song of sin.  I basically thought it was my responsibility to manage my behavior and produce a life of holiness.

But a better metaphor for holiness found in the story of Jason and the Golden Fleece.  Jason and his men did not use beeswax and rope to avoid the sirens.  Jason was told that Orpheus, a brilliant musician, would be necessary for a successful journey.  As they approached the Sirens, Orpheus began to play a song more beautiful that that of the Sirens. As a result, the Sirens’ song had no influence over Jason and his men, and they sailed on safely.

This is the real way of holiness.  The way of holiness is not the way of white knuckles.  The way of holiness is the more beautiful way.  Recently I have been seeing the result of this kind of holiness in my life.  There are times in my life when I neglect the disciplines, times when I wander off the path of my rule of life.  I am finding that I am not called back by guilt or shame but by a glimpse of and a desire for the way of holiness.  It comes in a song, a message, a book, the beauty of nature, or a relationship.  I catch a glimpse of the life I desire, the life that I know I was created by God to live or the person I know He created me to be.  That glimpse draws me back to my rule, and I find holiness not in a legalistic struggle to achieve it but in my desire to return to the delight I find abiding in the true vine.

Follow Jason on Twitter http://twitter.com/JasonFeffer

Blueprints on Our Hearts

When I was a kid, I had a deep love for stories of high adventure. I remember visiting the Woodstock Public Library every two weeks and systematically moving down the shelf until I had read every King Arthur book in the collection, and I am still enamored with stories like this today, the nephew of a farmer uncovering his past and following in his father’s footsteps as a Jedi Knight, a teenager pressured by his father to become a doctor uncovering a passion for acting, or an aimless computer programmer discovering he is destined to save humanity.

We are drawn to stories like these because of something deep inside us. We are captivated by tales of ordinary people discovering they have a great purpose (The Matrix, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings) or stories of characters waking up to deeper and more meaningful lives (Dead Poets Society, Braveheart, The Wizard of Oz, It’s a Wonderful Life). This is because deep down we long for these stories to be our story.

We long to discover that we were made for more than the life we currently experience. Like Dorothy, we a live in black and white while dreaming of a place over the rainbow where the dreams that we dare to dream really do come true. We long to be William Wallace, but if we are honest, we feel more like Robert the Bruce. We lead what Thoreau called “lives of quiet desperation” and ache for something more, something better, something deeper. This ache is a symptom of the deep desires that percolate beneath the surface of our lives.

To what stories or characters do you connect deeply?
To what desire or longing do these stories or characters connect?

It is this ache that I believe is somewhat responsible for the popularity of the Harry Potter. At the start of the story, Harry is an unfortunate boy forced to live with an uncaring aunt and uncle, but as the story unravels, Harry discovers that his parents were members of a hidden society of wizards, and he is introduced to an incredible new world.

However, this doesn’t just set the stage for the beginning of the saga. Each summer Harry returns to his aunt and uncle, and every book begins with a boy living in this dreary place all the while knowing he is a part of a larger, deeper, more adventurous story. I wonder if J.K. Rowling did this to intentionally connect her readers to their own desires for a deeper life.

Most of us grow up expecting that when we are adults we will be satisfied. We think, “When I have a job of my own, move out of my parent’s house, or get married, then I will be happy.” But we meet our soul mate or get a great job and find that it doesn’t satisfy our deepest desires. “When I have kids,” we think, “then I’ll be satisfied.” But we have a couple rugrats and realize we’re still not satisfied. So we wonder if we’ll finally be satisfied when we have grandkids or retire, but we retire and have a gaggle of grandkids yet still feel discontent.

You can plug in any number of expectations, but the problem remains the same. The things we hope for or seek to fulfill our desires rarely do. We respond to this disappointment in a number of ways. Some experience a mid-life or quarter-life crisis. Others become addicted to sex, food, or material things in hopes of satisfying the ache. But more often than not what we seek in hopes of fulfilling our desires is not what satisfies the real desire, the deep longing born from a sense that we were made for more.

If we trace our desires down to their most base level, I believe we find our deepest longings are for love, joy, peace, and purpose. Yet we often wish for things that are poor reflections of the real longings in our lives. We may wish we had a husband or wife, but what we really long for is to love and be loved. We may dream of having a lot of money, but our real desire is peace from worry and/or the joy we expect money to bring. We may want a certain kind of job, but what we really want is purpose and meaning. Our surface dreams are merely reflections of the true deeper desires of our lives. The surface desires may bring some satisfaction for a time, but they will never satisfy the deepest longings of our souls, the desires hardwired into our hearts.

What do you dream about? What do you hope for?
What deep desires might those dreams be reflecting?

Is it possible that our deep, unmet longings tap into the truth that we were actually made for more than what so many of us currently experience? I believe the longing that flows deep within each of us is a desire for the Kingdom of God made real in our lives. In the Kingdom, we are deeply and intimately loved and have the capacity to love others the same. In the Kingdom, there is an enduring joy that soars above circumstances. In the Kingdom, there is peace that transcends understanding. In the Kingdom, we find our purpose. In the Kingdom, we become the people God created us to be. I believe the blueprints for the abundant Kingdom life are written on our hearts in our deep desires, and until we acknowledge this, we sentence ourselves to a life of discontent.

You Call That a Testimony?

A number of times in my life I have been asked to write my testimony. “Tell the story of how you accepted Jesus,” they ask. Sometimes I am even asked for a date. It is assumed that such an important event, moment, and decision in my life should be forever etched in my memory.

I know many people who have incredibly inspiring stories of conversion. Some even celebrate the date each year as a second birthday. That is beautiful, but it has not been my experience. I have always had a tough time answering the date question. I don’t remember a date. I don’t remember one specific, eye opening moment of realization, clarity, and decision-making.

What I remember is being eight-years-old, sitting on my father’s knee, and trusting him when he told me that I needed to accept Jesus. I suppose in some sense I understood what he was saying, but I have to wonder if I prayed that prayer more out of trust and respect for my father than a trust-filled leap into the redeeming arms of God. But from that day on, I did consider myself a Christian.

Some time later, after years of professing faith, reading Scripture, and attending church, I was at a Christian concert where alter calls were in vogue, and I had a deep sense somewhere in my heart that I needed to answer the call. I was a bit embarrassed because my family (to whom I professed to be a Christian) was there, so I snuck away to where those soon to be sanctified souls gathered. I prayed the prayer and snuck back. I don’t remember the date. In fact, I didn’t feel like I was making a momentous decision. I actually felt that I was confirming, to God and myself, that the life I had been living for the last five years was genuine.

My senior year of high school I became active in a church. This was the first time in my life I experienced a consistent community of Christians. It was there I began to realize that my faith was more than a set of intellectual beliefs. I realized that my faith was pointless if my relationship with Jesus was just one part of a segregated life. I realized that my relationship with Jesus was the center of my life and everything else flowed from that.

This experience deeply impacted my life. Later that year I was sitting with one of my best friends, when he asked me an odd question. It’s important to know that he and I would fight often. We were both stubborn, and a typical evening included an argument that ended in me throwing him out of my house. We were third degree black belts in knucklehead fu. The question he asked as we sat on the stairs outside the gym was if I had been seeing a psychologist. I responded that I hadn’t and could not understand at the time why he asked. Looking back, I realize that he saw a change in my life, and the only way he could explain it was that I had been seeing a psychologist.

So help me out. Which of these moments was my moment of salvation? Is it the first, because this story began there? Is it the moment at the concert? That was, after all, a response to God and not my father. Or was it the realization that Christ must be the center, because this was the moment that brought on the most obvious change in my life? It is a tough question to answer, and I honestly don’t know if there is one.

I don’t know that I could point to a single date and say that was the moment. Rather, I get the sense that my date is an ongoing one. These three stories paint a picture of my salvation, and sometimes I wonder if that picture is still being painted.

So why do we ask for a date? Why do we assume that everyone must have this seminal conversion experience? What if our assumption is wrong? What if this assumption has caused us to elevate the conversion experience to such a level that it enables the alarming lack of disciples in the church today? What if our view of salvation has become so influenced by the idea of a moment that we have communicated that the moment is the pinnacle, and everything that comes next is an after thought? I think we have.

I think we have communicated a view of salvation that says, “Believe in Jesus and say a prayer. Then your eternity is set, and you can get back to your life.” No one is intentionally communicating this (at least I hope not), but I think that unintentionally we are producing a church that views salvation as holy fire insurance. We believe in Jesus, say a prayer, and purchase a policy. We may feel the need to keep the policy paid current, so we go to church, give a tithe once in a while, and maybe even serve those in need from time to time. But these are not the actions of a life transformed. They are the actions of men and women looking to make sure their eternal destinations are secure.

In defining salvation solely by an intellectual belief, we have robbed the Gospel of its power in our actual lives. We effectively stick the stallion that was meant to run in a cramped stall. The Gospel, whose purpose is to give life, becomes a set of right beliefs that we hold to serve our own purposes and pull out when it is convenient.

I believe that we have missed essential elements of the Gospel, and if we are going to experience abundant life, something has to change. We are going to have to see the conversion experience for what it is, a beginning, not an end. We are going to have to become disciples.

Dr. King’s Story

Martin Luther King Jr. was a great leader.  You cannot deny that, but what made him a great leader? Dr. King led this nation to social reform, but I am convinced that his influence produced something even more profound.  He gave an entire people group a sense of dignity and value when the world told them they had none.  He accomplished this by telling a different story, a new story different from the one his people had believed for more than a century.

Born in Atlanta on January 15th, 1929, Martin Luther King found himself in the middle of a story saturated with racism and segregation.  His mother faced the difficult task of every Southern African-American mother in the 1960s, to explain segregation to her child, but she insisted that this story was fiction, and the truth, she said, was that he was valuable.  She taught her son to “feel a sense of ’somebodiness’” while having to face a world that told him he was “less than.”  This story, told by his parents, instilled in Dr. King the vision of a new story and a different world.

In seminary, Dr. King heard the story of Mahatma Gandhi.  Gandhi’s philosophy was profoundly formational in Dr. King’s life and eventual mission.  This story melted his skepticism about the power of love, and he saw that love could play a role in social reform.  He said that in Gandhi’s emphasis on love and nonviolence he found the method for social reform he had been seeking.

On December 1, 1955, the story of a woman refusing to give her seat up on a bus prepared a people to hear a new story and launched Dr. King’s rise to leadership and influence in the civil rights movement. Mrs. Parks’ action was the catalyst for the bus boycotts of Montgomery, the first major offensive in the fight for civil rights. A mass meeting was called at the end of the first day of boycotts.  At this meeting, Dr. King began what he called the most decisive speech of his life with the story of Rosa Parks and reviewing the long history of insults the African-American citizens experienced on the city buses.  He preached that they and the whites were not the only characters in the story.

“If we are wrong, God almighty is wrong.  If we are wrong, Jesus of Nazareth was merely a utopian dreamer that never came down to earth.  And we are determined here in Montgomery to work and fight until justice runs down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

God was a character in this story. He preached that God was on their side, and confidently placed the African-American people in the story of God with an allusion to the day of the Lord and Amos 5:24.  That night when Dr. King he knew that they had already won. The outcome was already decided, not because of a boycott or rousing speech, but because thousands of African-Americans stood “with a new sense of dignity and destiny.”  Collectively they denied the lie of the old story and accepted the truth of the new story.

The success of the Montgomery bus boycotts and the somebodiness it birthed gave the story great momentum. The action moved to Albany and then to Birmingham, and the story was growing.  More and more African-Americans began to believe the story Dr. King was telling, and true to the concept of an organic movement, people rose up all over with a sense of dignity and joined the movement.  For the first time African-Americans were uniting across the country against the implicit racism of segregation in the South and the understated, but nonetheless humiliating, inequality of the North.  It was a desire to demonstrate this unity that led to the march on Washington and Dr. King’s most famous speech.  He stoked the imagination of a nation when he articulated his dream for the conclusion of the story.

“I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.  I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.’  I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.  I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.  I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.  I have a dream today… And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

I don’t think I would be misrepresenting Dr. King to suggest that his vision was more about his people having a sense of somebodiness than social change.  No doubt injustice had to be defeated.  Social change was necessary because segregation was an enemy of dignity and value, but more important than the right to eat at the same lunch counter was the right to dignity in one’s life.  It is often said the journey is as important as the destination, and I believe that is most certainly true in this story. Perhaps more valuable than the social reforms of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 was the somebodiness embraced by the African-American people in the process.

I am deeply impacted by the frequent battles with fear and bitterness in Dr. King’s story.  Over and over he describes being overcome with fear or tempted to give in to bitterness.  Whether initiated by attempts to intimidate him, death-threats, attacks on his fellow nonviolent protesters, or broken promises, these threats to the story plagued Dr. King most of his life, and every time he turned to God in prayer.

After one particularly disturbing threat, he described the feeling of all his fears coming down on him at once. He cried out to God, and his response was so vivid that Dr. King could recall his words many years later.  “Martin Luther, stand up for righteousness.  Stand up for justice.  Stand up for truth. And lo, I will be with you.  Even until the end of the world.”  Dr. King believed these words and felt God’s presence as he never had before.  The fear melted away and was restored with confidence.

This was a common experience for Dr. King.  We tend to deify people like Dr. King by erasing their struggles and making them more than human.  Dr. King was an amazing man, but it is important that we remember his humanity.  He struggled often, but was so certain that God was on his side that his faith never wavered.  He knew that God would give him the balance, guidance, and strength he needed.  It is helpful to me to know that even a great man like Dr. King faced struggles with fear and bitterness.

What kind of stories to you believe; what kind of stories do you live in?  Are they the right stories?  Do you need a new story?  When you encounter threats to your story, what do you do?  Do you give in or do you cry out to God?  As we honor and reflect on a great man today, embrace your somebodiness.  Regardless of your race, gender, or age, you are created by God in his image, and that makes you somebody.

(All quotes are from The Autobiography of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.)

Unbreakable

“Purpose is what gives life meaning.” –Charles H. Perkhurst

-Watch Unbreakable. Pay attention to the emotional state of David. Early in the movie he says that he wakes up in the morning feeling sad. Watch for the reason for David’s sadness and how he changes during the movie.

1. What do you think is the reason for David’s sadness?

2. What changes for David during the film? Ultimately, what makes the sadness go away?

-I’m sure your answers to these questions are the same as mine (and probably better), but let me state my opinion for the sake of us all being on the same page. I think David experiences this sadness because of a profound lack of meaning in his life. Watch the deleted scene where David speaks to the priest. It’s no wonder that M. Night Shyamalan says this was the first scene he got right. It completely encapsulates David’s defining characteristic in the film, his search for meaning. David’s journey in the film is one of discovering and embracing his purpose. It is this journey that ultimately chases away the sadness.

3. Can you relate to David on any level? Do you have an unmet longing for meaning in your life, or have you discovered and embraced the unique purpose God created you for?

-If you have an understanding of the purpose God created you for, spend some time right now thanking God for that purpose. Thank God that you have been created for a purpose and he has revealed that that to you.

-If you identify with David’s and his sadness, take a moment right now and read Psalm 139. You might be very familiar with it. But try to read it with new eyes, with a fresh perspective.

1 O LORD, you have searched me
and you know me.

2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.

3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.

4 Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O LORD.

5 You hem me in—behind and before;
you have laid your hand upon me.

6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.

7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?

8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,

10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.

11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”

12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.

13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.

15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,

16 your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!

18 Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand.
When I awake,
I am still with you.

19 If only you would slay the wicked, O God!
Away from me, you bloodthirsty men!

20 They speak of you with evil intent;
your adversaries misuse your name.

21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD,
and abhor those who rise up against you?

22 I have nothing but hatred for them;
I count them my enemies.

23 Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.

24 See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.

-God knit you together; he formed you with a purpose and intention. As my Dad likes to say, “God don’t make no junk.” Spend some time praying now. Ask God to tell you or show you the purpose for which he created you. Ask him to point out the unique gifts he’s given you, the passions that bring you to life. Listen and watch for his response. Listen for his voice. Watch with expectation for his answer to your prayer.

The Incredibles

“Man fully alive is the glory of God.” St. Irenaeus

-Watch The Incredibles. Pay close attention to your reaction to the characters and story. Listen and watch for where your heart is stirred.

1. What struck you about The Incredibles? What scene was your favorite or had the biggest emotional response in you? Why do you think that is? What happened in the scene? Is there someone/something you relate to?

2. How did each of the four main characters feel about their powers early in the movie?

3. Which character do you connect or identify with the most? Why do you think that is?

4. How did that character’s feelings about having powers change at the end of the movie?

-The Incredibles is a about embracing our gifts, strengths, and passions. God created each of us for a purpose, and he has given us what we need to accomplish that purpose. We don’t need to be ashamed of or hide our gifts, strengths, and passions. He has given them to us so that we can use them, not for our own selfish purposes, but for his purpose.

5. What are your strengths? If you were a super, what real strength of yours would set you apart?

-If you have trouble identifying your strengths there are some great resources below.

Myers-Briggs Personality Assessment

Strengthsfinder 2.0 by Tom Rath

What You Do Best in the Body of Christ by Bruce Bugbee

Ask a friend who really knows you what strengths he/she sees in you.

6. How do you feel about your strengths? What do you think about them?

7. How might you more fully embrace the strengths God has given you?

8.What are you passionate about? What motivates or gets you excited?

-If you have trouble identifying your passions below are some resources.

http://www.spirithome.com/passion.html is an assessment that can be helpful.

http://www.zoweh.com/docs/Rich%20Uncle%20Exercise.pdf is an exercise that can help identify passions. The type of organization you give the money to and participate in reveals something about your passions.

9.How can your strengths and passions work in harmony in your life today?

10. What would it look like for you to live a life today where your strengths and passions are fully embraced and put into action?

11. What are some things you could do right now to live more deeply out of the strengths and passions God has given you?

Braveheart

“Every man dies, not every man really lives.” –William Wallace in Braveheart

(Before you engage in this experience it is important that you understand an assumption I am making. I believe that God has called each of us to a specific life. We have all been called, given access to, the Abundant Life (John 10:10), a life full of love, joy, peace, freedom, and meaning. The assumption I am making is that you agree with this simple theological truth.)

-Watch Braveheart. Pay close attention to your reaction to the characters and story. Listen and watch for where your heart is stirred.

1. What struck you about Braveheart? What scene was your favorite or had the biggest emotional response in you? Why do you think that is? What happened in the scene? Is there someone/something you relate to?

-I have a theory about Braveheart. I don’t think we are meant to identify with William Wallace. I think we are meant to be inspired by him, even desire to be like him, but I don’t think we are supposed to identify with him. I think the character of William Wallace is a Christ-figure in Braveheart.

2. What do you see in the character of William Wallace that makes him like Jesus?

-I don’t think we are meant to identify with William Wallace, but there is a character that I think we are meant to identify with another character. I believe we are meant to identify with Robert the Bruce.

3. Think about the character arc of Robert the Bruce. Describe him at the beginning of the film. What happens to him during the film? Who is influencing him? What does he do? How does he change?

4. Watch the scene between Robert and his father that starts 2 hours and 12 minutes into the film.

-What are the competing messages in Robert the Bruce’s life? Who do these messages come from? What do you think he means when he says that he will never be on the wrong side again?

5. In what ways have you been influenced away from the calling God placed on your life? What lies have you agreed with that keep you from living the life God has given you? In what ways have you lost heart?

6. Identify the influencer or lie and give it a face or an image. Stand up and imagine the face or image is right in front of you. Tell the influencer that you will not lose heart; tell the influencer as Robert the Bruce does that you will never be on the wrong side again.

-Watch the final scene (“Bleed with Me” on the scene selection menu)

7. Imagine yourself on a hill like Robert the Bruce at the end of the film, but instead of your enemy in front of you, the enemy lies defeated behind you. In front of you is the life God has given you. Thank Jesus for the work he has done to make that life possible by defeating the enemy that lies defeated behind you. Invite Jesus into the journey. Ask him to lead the way for you as Wallace did for Robert the Bruce, and charge forward to claim that life as the patriots of Scotland do in this final scene.

Transformation in Film (a seminary project)

For one of my classes this semester I was asked to do a project that helps lead people in transformation. I love movies, and I believe there are some incredibly transforming moments in film. So for my project I chose to write reflection questions for a few of the films that have been most influential in my life. I would like to invite you to participate with me in this project.

There are three movies involved in this reflection, Unbreakable, The Incredibles, and Braveheart. The intention is for them to work together. Ideally you would watch and engage in all three of the movies and reviews over the next couple weeks, but if you are crunched for time you could certainly engage in one or two of the films. You can do it alone or as a group, but however you do it engage with your whole heart. When you have finished, please leave a response on the blog. This will allow me to use your responses as a part of the project. If you are nervous about putting yourself out there, you can leave an anonymous response.

I pray that the Father will meet with you as you engage, and that you will experience his presence more and more as he transforms and fills your life with his love.