Snowpiercer: Escapist Train Hurtling Toward Hell (Movie Review)

Posted on July 13, 2014 by Jacob Sahms

Legend has it that South Korean director Bong Joon-ho stumbled across Jean-Marc Rouchette’s graphic novel, Le Transperceneige, about a perpetually-moving train that houses the remnants of the world’s population. Divided by class and perceived ‘worth,’ the train signifies the caste system and all of its dangers, while Chris Evans’ (Captain America) Curtis Everett stands in as Spartacus, freer of slaves and upholder of justice. Having received heady comparisons to the Wachowskis’ The Matrix and Neill Blomkamp’s District 9, can a highly-amped but little seen film replicate that kind of fantastic success?

Everett leads the latest revolt at the insistence of his friend, Edgar (Jamie Bell), and a woman (Octavia Spenser) who has just had her son kidnapped by the Teacher (The Newsroom’s Allison Pill). [He’s also got the typical ancient adviser (John Hurt) and a young man (BBC’s The Musketeers’ D’Artagnan, Luke Pasqualino). The revolt begins with the freeing/bribing of the train’s former security advisor and current drug addict, Namgoong Minsu (Song Kang-hu),  and his daughter Yona (Go Ah-sung). Car-by-car, the insurgents move forward, as Joon-ho alternates between scenes of Oldboy-like violence and external shots of the train in CGI wonder. But because each car is different, the film seems to be adaptive in its genre and depiction, some more realistic than others. [Honestly, the most troubling, stomach-twisting visuals are not over-the-top violence, but rather the eating of the protein blocks (once you know what’s in them) and the trip through the “teaching car” where the next generation of the privileged are programmed to hate those in the back.]

Thematically, the film is about class, and wealth. In some ways, it seems that the train is the world and U.S. is the one controlling the front of the train with its use of 80% of the world’s oil while being a marginal percentage of its population. That’s all connected to the way we use percentages (like the ones I just made up), information, and communication. But we tell ourselves that our motivation is pure because it’s ours, just like the shrewish dominatrix, “Sir”/Minister Mason (Tilda Swinton), tells the then-captive back-of-the-train folks: “There is one thing b/w our hearts and the bitter cold. Order is the barrier that holds back the frozen death. we must all of us remain in our allotted station. we must each of us occupy our preordained particular position. Eternal order is proscribed by the Sacred Engine.” Balance seems to be Mason’s focus, as power, control, sustainability come at the sacrifice of someone or something else.

While all art seems pretty derivative at this point, even now as we see elements of Animal Farm, Lord of the Flies, The Wizard of Oz, Hugh Howey’s Wool, and the aforementioned Spartacus, but there’s still something intriguing about a storyline that’s pretty linear (I mean, c’mon, the train isn’t circular). I think that’s because of Evans, whose Curtis says non-Messiah-like things, “I’m not a leader” (or is that Charles Barkley?) and “I’m not who he thinks I am” in direct contrast to the way that the “frontrunners” are so sure of themselves, hooking their beliefs on the inventor (Ed Harris) who few have seen.  Over and over in the beginning, he’s asked “is it time?” by those who want to follow something so badly that it hurts, even more than the barbaric freezing or kidnapping that those forward in the train inflict on them.

Still, the truth about any movement, whether it’s environmental, political, social, or religious, not everyone wants to be ‘saved.’ We know that the sun is blinding, as the caboose riders experience it for the first time in decades and are terrified and inspired all at once, but this is metaphysical, too. It’s the light that the revolt brings to the tunnel by way of torches, and yet different aspects of the light prove damaging (as in the greenhouse car). “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” takes on a whole new meaning here (John 1:5). This seems to dramatically hopeless at times, we’re not sure light can make a bit of difference in this icy world!

The ending may surprise you, both in its shocking revelations and its depth. We find that the Messiah is not what we expect, that the truth of sacrifice and surrender is tied up in mercy, hope, and goodness. We find that the truth about our world requires to look at it differently, to take down the barriers, the gates, we placed and told ourselves hold us back. We find that if we look at our world differently, we might see that the depth of the darkness isn’t quite so deep, that there is hope, but that we must believe… Or we fall into the preordained suffering-as-planned view of the world that many accept, even of a God that we otherwise hear may or may not be loving.

Ultimately, what we see of the train is impacted by what our view of humanity and what are view of God is, both as travelers on the train and viewers of the film. Ultimately, how we see the world and how we treat each other is impacted by our worldview, either for ourselves as the center or for others as the focus. Do you live only for yourself or is the pattern of selflessness set by the Messiah, Jesus, to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and strength” and to “love your neighbor as yourself”? Your decision makes all of the difference.

I was surprised by the ‘truths’ revealed by at the end, but not by the temptation of Curtis. While I see Jesus as a much different person than Curtis, it found myself expecting the Jesus in the wilderness temptation of the ending. I had expected that Curtis would make it to the front of the train alone, having been peeled from his advisors and partners one by one, and be encouraged to join the ‘Wizard’ waiting at the front. I found the end to be the obvious end of the film. While visually stunning and quite philosophic (if not a bit pedantic), this wasn’t The Matrix or District 9 (or for a different brain twist, The Sixth Sense) because it didn’t spinout enough to keep me guessing.

Worth seeing? Yes. Mindblowing? Not so much.

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The Be-Attitudes: Finish Last (Sunday’s Sermon Today)

Posted on July 9, 2014 by Jacob Sahms

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.–Matthew 5:3

This week, we’re kicking off a series on the Beatitudes, Jesus’ most-famous collection of sermons, found in Matthew 5. It’s an interesting list of what it means to be blessed in Jesus’ mind, but it’s a list of intangibles that seem to add up to being what Jesus is modeling. To be these attitudes, or to Be-Attitude, one might actually begin to look like Jesus, to be a disciple of Jesus.

It’s said that a disciple is one who follows behind his or her teacher so closely, that the sand the teacher’s foot kicks up ends up on the disciple. That would literally mean that the disciple would get dirty with the master’s dirt! So… what would it look like to get dirty with Jesus’ dirt, if he is not only God but also the teacher of all things about God, the one who would help us grow in our faith and what it means to be faithful?

Jesus begins with a word about pride. Nothing like getting right to it!

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Hmmm…

There was a truly obnoxious woman who decided that she was going on a cruise, but none of her friends would go along. Behind her back, they said it was her “me first” attitude. When she arrived at the ticket counter, she barged past the people standing there, whipping her suitcase around, yelling “Me first!” When it was time for dinner the first night, she elbowed others out of the way, shouting “Me first!”

But on the second day, the cruise ran aground between destinations, and the captain of the cruise informed the passengers that they would be ferried to shore or that they’d have to swim. He started to load the elderly and the children on, but the woman practically knocked him overboard, stuffing her suitcase on the lifeboat, grumpily muttering, “Me first!”

After three days, the passengers were shellshocked and scared they’d never be rescued, but rustling in the jungle nearby revealed a band of natives, who gestured at the shipwrecked crew with their spears and motioned that they should follow. The woman screamed, “Me first!” and charged after them.

Back at their village, the natives warmed large pots of water, making feeding gestures toward the passengers and the pots. Soon, they motioned the passengers toward the pots, and our favorite shipwreck-ee screamed, “Me first!”

And the cannibals threw her into the pot.

We don’t always know how to define “humility” but we know how to define what it isn’t. Pride comes before the fall, or as Proverbs 11:2 says, before disgrace. Humility, the author later writes in Proverbs 22:4, is “the fear of the Lord.” But it’s the opposite of the values that are pushed on us by society.

We think being “poor in spirit” sounds a lot like depression, or maybe having poor self-esteem. We think it must mean the other person is weak, and we can’t quite understand why Jesus would lead off his most famous sermon with the admonition to be poor in spirit.

Why would he want us to be poor in anything?

Why would the same man who promised the coming of the Holy Spirit want us to have a deficit in spirit?

What are these Be-Attitudes getting at, anyway?

Maybe it requires reminding ourselves that Jesus himself tended to view the world through a funhouse mirror- or maybe it’s that we’ve been taught to see the world that Jesus saw through the funhouse mirror. Either way, we can’t look at things the same once we’ve seen them from Jesus’ perspective. It’s just too strange!

Maybe that’s why Paul, the former Christ-follower killer and law know it all, wrote these things:

“I am the least of the apostles.” (1 Corinthians 15:9)

“I am the very least of all the saints.” (Ephesians 3:8)

“I am the foremost of sinners.” (1 Timothy 1:15)

I believe that’s because Paul knew that if he put himself in last that he was in good company. If he was backed up, forgotten about, left behind, and ignored, he was with Jesus.

Consider what he wrote in Philippians 2:3-4 to one of the churches he had planted, when he wanted them to be like Jesus:  “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.” He went further to say that Jesus, who was God, didn’t stress his being God but rather, “made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant [or a human being],…he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!”

“Do nothing out of selfish ambition…” Wow, if we got that… the world would be different, because our perspective would be different.

There’s a story Robert Roberts tells about a game, balloon stomp, that was played in two fourth grade classes. In both classes, a balloon was tied to each student’s leg and the object was to pop all of the other balloons while protecting your own balloon. Last one with a balloon wins. Simple, right?

In the first class, there was absolute bedlam as the students attacked each other’s balloons. Well, at least some of them did. Others huddled along the walls trying to be invisible, but they were hunted down… and popped. The winner was the kid known for being a bully, for being win-at-all-costs. But he played the game the way it was explained.

In the second class, the game went differently. Maybe the students didn’t get the rules. But the balloons, not the children attached to them, were perceived as enemies. One student held her balloon to the floor so that another child could stomp it; he in turn held his down so she could return the favor. Everyone cheered when all the balloons were popped. Everyone… won.

Who really won?

“In humility value others above yourselves…”

There’s a story, some say by C.S. Lewis, about spoons in heaven and hell. In hell, everyone has a long spoon and looks emaciated trying to get their arms twisted around to get the impossibly long spoons of soup into their mouths. In heaven, everyone has a long spoon and feeds someone across from them, until all are fed.

“Value others more than yourselves.”

This, Paul writes, was Jesus’ crowning moment, because he was obedient to God’s will that he die on the cross, because he valued others, and now God has made it that “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” From worst to first! Murdered, executed, and betrayed by death on the cross meant for a terrorist, the lowest of criminals, Jesus rose by flipping the world’s perspective of pride and power, with humility.

That seems so basic to the Jesus story. In Matthew 20:16, Jesus even says, “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.” But consider, if you look back through the passion narratives, through the stories leading up to Jesus’ death while he’s being beaten on, interrogated, and accused, he doesn’t argue. He doesn’t fight back. He doesn’t demand for his day in court.

My father-in-law told me that one day, his students asked him if he minded when someone told him he was wrong. He laughed and said, “I’ve been married for forty years and I’ve had two teenagers– I’m used to it!”

Jesus’ life and death didn’t need a rebuttal. They didn’t need pride getting in the way of his mission or his humility. Jesus knew who he was and that was enough.

But we’re supposed to be humble. We’re supposed to be “poor in spirit.” How in the world can we even be a fraction of a second like Jesus?

I think we need to be more like the apostle Philip and his friend, the Ethiopian eunuch. In Acts 8:26-39, Philip is doing God’s work, minding his own business, and God sends an angel to direct him toward a middle-of-nowhere desert road.

It says while he is on the way, he meets an officer in the court of the Ethiopian queen, who is returning from Jerusalem for worship. This man obviously has seen something about the Hebrew writings, our Old Testament, that catch his attention, and he is sitting there reading the Book of Isaiah in his chariot. And God directs Philip toward this higher up, this leader from another country.

Philip sees what he is reading and asks him if he gets what he’s reading. “Do you understand?” going deeper than “can you read Hebrew?” to “does it speak to your heart?”

“How can I unless someone explains it to me?” replies the man.

So these two men, foreigners and outcasts, sit and discuss Isaiah 53:7-8: “He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before its shearer is silent, so he did not open his mouth. In his humiliation he was deprived of justice. Who can speak of his descendants? For his life was taken from the earth.”

The eunuch wants to know more, and Philip explains about Jesus’ life, teachings, and resurrection. And as they go further, they pass by a body of water, and the man asks, “Why shouldn’t I get baptized right now?”

So, Philip baptizes the man.

Two men, headed different places. Two men, poor in spirit. One humble to the gospel, to following the will of God and the teachings of Jesus. One humble enough to admit that he didn’t know everything, to ask for directions [I know, that hurts, I’m a guy!] Two men, who in their dialogue, in their mutually seeking out what they needed to live a fuller, richer, holier life, found community with each other, with God.

If the eunuch is too proud to ask…

If Philip is too proud to go…

One misses salvation, while the other misses the opportunity to be a disciple making disciples.

I’m a pretty big fan of Undercover Boss, the reality show where higher ups in various companies go plainclothes and disguised to see how their company is run on a grassroots level. They often find that the jobs that make their company go are harder than they look! But all of them find hope, and joy, when they see their employees, some working for minimum wage, who want to do their best, who want to share the gospel of their company with a new employee, humbly, faithfully, and with all of their effort.

What if Jesus walks among us today, wondering how the Be-Attitudes, the attitudes we should be, are being pronounced and shared? If Jesus is in plainclothes, looking to see if we are sharing our faith in a way that leads others to believe, if we are poor in spirit to learn more so that our faith would grow and so that others might learn from us?! 

What would it look like if we admitted that we are selfish, prideful know-it-alls, and that more often than not, in economics, social status, self-appreciation, and relationships, our attitude is “me first”?

What would it look like today if we assessed our own spiritual depth, and recognized the places where it is too shallow, too poor?

What would it look like today if we prayed that God would make us deeper, richer, fuller in those areas until they were our strengths?

What would it look like if we sought opportunities to serve rather than to be served, to bring others into blessing rather than worrying about being blessed ourselves?

I imagine we’d begin to recognize our spiritual poverty, and in seeing the depths of our need, we might find ourselves staring deeply into the eyes of the God who loves us more than we can yet know.

Paul said, “I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace” (Acts 20:24). He didn’t say he wanted to win but that he wanted to finish. He wanted to complete the task, to follow through, to be the disciple he was supposed to be.

He didn’t care what place he came in because he was grateful to be part of the race God laid out for bringing people into the kingdom of God.

Where the first would be last, and the last would be first.

Let us be least of the apostles,  the very least of all the saints, and the foremost of sinners. Then we will know our place.

In dead last. With Jesus.

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Catherine Coulter’s Power Play: Scandalous Intrigue (Book Review)

Posted on July 8, 2014 by Jacob Sahms

The nineteenth suspense novel of the prolific author Catherine Coulter finds her blending characters new and old in a two-pronged storyline, a slow building thriller of Scandal-like proportions. On one side, Davis Sullivan is tasked with protecting the U.S. ambassador to England, Natalie Black, and her daughter, Perry, safe from a shadowy stalker; on the other, the husband and wife team of Lacey Sherlock and Dillon Savich find that Blessed Blackman has escaped and is targeting them in a revenge-driven quest to avenge his mother. While the first hundred or so pages take time getting to the gripping action, the finish finds us watching as the two plots threaten our heroes’ safety and happiness.

Sullivan’s case gets the majority of our attention as he first saves Black from a carjacker, and then finds himself assigned to be her bodyguard. There seem to be an abundance of motives, from the suspicious death of Black’s fiancee to something her daughter may be involved in, but Sullivan’s motivations to get to the bottom of it move from business to personal as he grows to care about the family. But the elder Black is knee-deep in political machinations, and the complexities would make Shonda Rhimes proud.

The Blackman case is more cut-and-dry: Blessed is a crazy cultist with powers of mental manipulations, who sees Sherlock as the reasons for his family’s undoing. But the depth of the Savich-Sherlock relationship resembles a King & Maxwell relationship a la David Baldacci, with the added investment that they have a son. This is actually the creepier, more engaging of the two story lines, and it adds to the thrilling aspects in a way that the slow boil of the Black stalking.

Coulter writes in a way that’s pretty easy reading, and enough clues are dropped that you may figure out where this is going. But rather than outthinking us, the author appears more interested in making us care about her characters and watching them develop. It’s a thriller, FBI-wide and precarious, until the finish.

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Marcia Clark’s The Competition: Media’s Influence On Terror (Book Review)

Posted on July 8, 2014 by Jacob Sahms

Marcia Clark, the lead prosecutor in the O.J. Simpson to those alive in the 1990s and a CNN correspondent on the George Zimmerman trial for those a bit younger, has also penned a series of books about L.A. prosecutor Rachel Knight. In her fourth installment, Knight finds herself investigating a mass murder: a high school shooting that plays on those crimes that have come before it.

We are introduced to several of the high school students starting off a normal day prior to the shooting, and Clark provides enough detail that we can feel the dread of the onslaught. I found the text easy to read, and clever, but there wasn’t a more palpable feeling than the first few pages, that felt like a documentary version of the Columbine shooting, reflecting Sandy Hook as well. (Later, a Dark Knight-like shooting will also scream “ripped from the headlines,” but it’s not as graphically, slowly delivered. In the opening pages, I felt sick to my stomach with the violence threatened and inevitable.)

Knight proves to be part lawyer-part detective, and her involvement lends a different view of the effort to track down the murderers than we’ve seen in our view of CSI or Law & Order. It’s apparent that Clark knows more about this than we do, but it doesn’t bog down, as she mixes the flow with several side stories about Knight’s personal life and the ongoing drama of family dynamics in the lives of the people associated with the school.

But there’s a moral here that rises above the thriller: we know early on that the people responsible for the shooting want to be “bigger” than Columbine. They want to murder more people; they want to get away with it. The impact that the media has had on escalating the violence can’t be missed here, and it begs the question: how much information or exposure is too much? When do we glorify versus educate, prove newsworthy versus glamorize?

You can appreciate Clark’s prose, her expertise, and still hear her whisper: “we create some of these monsters on our own.” Where will that violence end?

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Amtrak & The Church: A Traveling Experience (A Mustard Seed Musing)

Posted on July 7, 2014 by Jacob Sahms

For our summer trip to see my family in Rhode Island, we decided that the train was a viable option and one we needed to explore for my family of four. It was cheaper than our normal day-and-a-half car ride (with tolls and a hotel night), and we’d be able to walk around the train throughout the day. Luggage was carefully packed, and activities prepared for our two kids. [Honestly, preparing entertainment for me, the motion-sick one, was probably the most taxing.] The day arrived and we departed before first light, arrived in time for our train, and leisurely settled in.

To save you the boredom of a ten-hour-trip’s worth of reading, I’ll say that the commute from the west end of Richmond, Va., to Kingston, R.I., was amicably easy. But then, disaster [at least, First World, traveling-with-kids, disaster] struck. We’d been told to prepare for our stop by the smiling, wet-behind-the-ears porter, who told us to head to the next set of doors, and we did. But as the train slowed down, we realized that no one in an Amtrak uniform was anywhere near us, and that all of the doors weren’t the same.

We hurried, dragging two kids, eight bags, and a car seat, to the same porter who’d been checking on us for hours, to see him shut the door, before wildly hitting the panic button next to him. [Let’s put aside the question, “why did you need eight bags for a four-day trip?
momentarily.] Apparently it worked as well as his walkie-talkie, and the train began trundling forward, then hurtling away from my parents standing on the platform. [We were picked up and the remainder of the trip was fine…]

Returning home, we again bundled up, boarded the train, settled in, and travelled along, happy and winsome. Until… it was time to again get off the train.

Because I’m a bit legalistic (!), I made sure we’d sought out the direction of an Amtrak attendant, as much to say “don’t forget us!” as “where do we get off?” This time, we were told to go to the head of our car, which we did, to have the porter tell us we were “good,” before realizing that she had moved a car forward to open the door. The same attendant watched us hustle to bump-bump-bump two kids, eight bags, and a carseat down the stairs without lifting a finger. The train ride was perfect, but the customer service and direction? Subpar.

With that said, I found myself moving toward my own “sphere,” that is, the church, and thinking about the ways that we often provide a “good ride” but often fails at customer service.

-When we use language in our worship that alienates someone else because they don’t know what it means, we give bad directions. Or when we expect someone to “just get it,” when it comes to liturgy we take for granted, like the Lord’s Supper or the Doxology, or when it comes to the times to stand, sit, kneel, or move around for moments like communion or greeting others (“the passing of the peace”).

-When we fail to recognize that not everyone is the same. Sure, we might expect an adult to be able to adapt and address the different situations in church, but do we expect toddlers to do the same? Do we look at single parents the same way we treat couples with kids? Do we address our situations that inhibit or interfere with those who have handicaps and their ability to participate?

-When we think that throwing up a sign here or there is the same as giving directions. Yes, there’s probably a sign outside your church that announces that you are a church, but does it say when the church meets? Are there signs inside directing people toward the meeting place for worship or fellowship or discipleship?  How do new people know where to go?

-When we think that the good news of Jesus Christ is just going to make sense without anyone explaining it, displaying it, or pointing the way. Yes, you can read the Bible and find applicable life lessons without an interpreter (assuming it’s in your language) but how many of us who do believe it to be true “got it” without help? Assuming others won’t need a helping hand is just… asinine.

Somehow, I doubt I’ll ever look at riding the train or visiting a new church the same way, now that I’ve been on that side. But the truth is, there’s more to this train analogy than Snowpiercer, right?

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On Freedom (A Mustard Seed Musing)

Posted on July 6, 2014 by Jacob Sahms

I’m a little behind on the blog, but some time away from the computer, watching fireworks, enjoying family, and reflecting on freedom got me thinking.

Our forefathers wrote: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness… We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States.”

Seems simple and complicated all at once. The authors of the Declaration of Independence believed in 1776 that America was a place that should be free BECAUSE GOD HAD GIVEN LIFE, LIBERTY, AND THE RIGHT TO JOY to all people.”

Many of them believed that they were free from their sins because of Jesus’ death on the cross.

Two freedoms, fought and bled for. I think about them both on weekends like this full of cookouts, fireworks, family, and celebrations.

And I remember that what I do with that freedom, those freedoms, says more about me than it does about the people who died for them. But too often, I take my freedoms for granted. I don’t use my voice to make a difference; I don’t appreciate my ability to worship where and how I want, or to speak my mind. I don’t share the good news of my forgiven-ness in Jesus; I don’t give enough thanks for what Jesus did on the cross for me.

I pray today that you would truly embrace freedom, not slavery of one form for another, not monarchy’s dictatorship for capitalistic imprisonment, not slavery from one sin for another.

“Everyone dies, but not everyone truly lives.”

What will you do today to truly express your freedoms in a way that blesses others, the way our forefathers, and exponentially more, Jesus, did?

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Ten Words #10: Keeping Up With The Jones (Sunday’s Sermon Today)

Posted on July 2, 2014 by Jacob Sahms

“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”–Exodus 20:17

A few years ago, David Duchovny starred in a film called The Joneses about a team of stealth marketers who move into a wealthy neighborhood to “push” certain projects. If they had appeared as ad execs or worn company shirts, the neighbors would’ve been onto them, so instead, they played the role of a regular American family, and convinced their neighbors that various up-and-coming models and products were necessary for a happy life.

That gives “keeping up with the Joneses” a whole new meaning, doesn’t it?

Somehow, our own sense of “need” versus “want” seems even more ingrained in our lives than that. When advising companies in how to market themselves, Lehman Brothers’ banker Paul Mazur said, “We must shift America from a needs to desires culture. People must be trained to desire, to want things, even before the old have been entirely consumed. Man’s desire must overshadow his needs.” The physical emphasis drove stores to move their wares from the back storerooms to the displays we see everywhere when we shop today. No longer do we go to the store firm list in hand with only what we need highlighted, now we go and browse, and “window shop,” until our real money runs out.

That desire for more has been fighting in our souls since the dawn of humankind! But that desire, that covetousness, that impulse for more, more, more, has driven us to poverty and worse.

Is it possible that coveting something, that greed, is actually a “gateway drug”?

It is in Genesis 4, where Abel’s sacrifice is deemed acceptable and Cain’s is not. Cain is thought to have held back from giving his best to God, but when Abel’s sacrifice is pleasing, Cain is jealous… and kills Abel. We’ve graduated from greed to coveting to murder!

When David sees Bathsheba in II Samuel 11, he lusts, and his lust causes him to covet, to want what is not his, so he commits adultery, and to cover it up, he commits murder!

Over and over again, there’s someone who wants something that they either shouldn’t have or don’t need and it leads them to sin, over and over again.

In neither case is the desire a problem: Cain should want God to be pleased with him, David should want to be married to a woman who fulfilled him.

But the problem is that the object of their desire was someone else’s.

That happens with us today. We want something, and someone else gets it first. We see someone else have something, and we assume, like the neighbors to the Joneses, that we need to have it, too. We see it, we covet it, and we begin to resent the one who has what we don’t.

CS Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity that “Pride gets no pleasure out of having something. Only out of having more if than the next man”; Ellsworth Kalas, a Methodist pastor, wrote that “[Covetousness] makes us blind to our own wealth, prevents us from enjoying the beauty that is already ours.”

And just like everything else, if it can happen out “there,” it can happen in the church.

Acts 6: 1-4 tells us that as the early church formed, “the disciples were increasing in numbers by leaps and bounds, hard feelings developed among the Greek-speaking believers—’Hellenists’—toward the Hebrew-speaking believers because their widows were being discriminated against in the daily food lines. So the Twelve called a meeting of the disciples. They said, ‘It wouldn’t be right for us to abandon our responsibilities for preaching and teaching the Word of God to help with the care of the poor. So, friends, choose seven men from among you whom everyone trusts, men full of the Holy Spirit and good sense, and we’ll assign them this task. Meanwhile, we’ll stick to our assigned tasks of prayer and speaking God’s Word.'”

The Acts church was divided over who had what, and who had more. It doesn’t matter if the one group was actually receiving less or not, or in what order, it’s that even in the midst of the church having everything in common, the disciples were playing the “I need more” game.

It’s an age-old problem, and one that can’t be fixed easily. We long for bigger televisions, bigger churches, bigger cars. We live in a country with 6% of the world’s population and 25% of its oil usage, and wonder if global envy could lead to terrorism. We buy into our Protestant work ethic that hard work equals more money equals buying more to the point where we can’t experience satisfaction. We play the lottery, and hear that ninety percent of the winners play again… even while telling us that they wish they had never won.

In James, the author wrote a blistering message about greed and wanting more than we have: “Where do you think all these appalling wars and quarrels come from? Do you think they just happen? Think again. They come about because you want your own way, and fight for it deep inside yourselves. You lust for what you don’t have and are willing to kill to get it. You want what isn’t yours and will risk violence to get your hands on it.”

Ouch.

So what are we going to do about it? I think we must ask ourselves some pointed questions.

What do you covet? What do you wish you had that you didn’t? What would you sacrifice to get it? What things suffer when you want for something that isn’t yours to have?

What do we buy cheaper that leads to suffering of others?

What do we buy bigger that we don’t really need, when there’s someone else who could use what we have?

Does social media lead to a kind of “Facebook envy”? Does our constant ability to compare ourselves to others help or hurt us? Do we think we don’t have enough because we can’t take of our basic needs or because we compare what we have to someone else?

What could change our minds?

In his book Ten, Sean Gladding tells the story about a recently released con who moves into a halfway house. After dinner, she finds her roommate going through her own stuff, organizing it into two piles. The roommate turns to the recently released ex-con and gave her one who pile. “Why are you doing that?” “I’ve been going to a church ever since I got out. And the pastor preached on the fact that if we had two things, and someone else had none, we should give them one. So, here.”

Kyle Idleman wrote that “we live in a constant state of consumption, but there is a difference between being full and being fulfilled.” Nice wordplay, right? But isn’t it true? We’ve bought into the Lehman lie; we’ve perpetuated the belief that if it’s in the showroom, any showroom, that we need it. And yet, when we have it, it doesn’t matter. We don’t actually feel any better. We haven’t achieved any deeper happiness.

Somehow, when we give it away, when we recognize that we have enough and something more, then we feel better.

Do you believe you have enough? This week, find someone who needs more— and give. This week, give away what you’ve “stolen.” This week, recognize that God has given you enough.

This week, recognize the “and more” and give it away.

I encourage you this week to find someone who has less than you. If you can’t find them by Wednesday, let me know. Figure out how you can help them out of what you’ve got in abundance. Figure out a way to sacrifice what you have more of until they have enough– then figure out if there’s something extra you can do to bless them.

Chesterton also said that “there are two ways to get enough, or to be content with what we have. One is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less.” I don’t know that the “more” I’ve ever accumulated has made me feel content. I do know that the looking at what I have, in family, in friends, in relationships, in health and happiness, that has lead to being content.

Being content means recognizing that God has promised to love us, protect us, walk with us, save us, and give to us what we need. And that God’s promises have been proven true over and over again.

This week, rest in where you are. Recognize you are blessed. Then use that blessing to lift someone else a little bit higher.

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Dean Koontz’s The City: The City Personified

Posted on July 1, 2014 by Jacob Sahms

Pages into the latest Dean Koontz, I was reminded of the Red Hot Chili Peppers song, “City of Angels.” It chronicles the exploration by the singer as he struggles within Los Angeles, to understand himself and realize his potential with the anthropomorphic City by his side.

“Sometimes I feel like I don’t have a partner
Sometimes I feel like my only friend
It’s the city I live in, the City of Angels
Lonely as I am, together we cry

“I drive on her streets ’cause she’s my companion
I walk through her hills cause she knows who I am
She sees my good deeds and she kisses me windy
I never worry, now that is a lie.”

Our narrator is Jonah Kirk, who tells the story as an older man, of his early developmental years in a city impacted by the effects of Vietnam, and jazz, and the Civil Rights movement. Kirk’s parents have problems, and his father becomes a fleeting, in and out again, influence on his young life, while his grandparents’ influence increases. Still, in Koontz’s eyes, it takes a village (or at least an apartment building) to raise a child, and the book becomes peppered by the people who Kirk meets in and around his homes.

Because this is Dean Koontz, we know it’s going to be a little … different. And that’s where the City personified comes in, as a beautiful woman who appears in Kirk’s life, “blessing” him and guaranteeing that he’s empowered to make a difference. It does take awhile for the narrative to get where it’s going, but if you’re a Koontz fan, it’s worth the wait. Nuanced, tense, scary and beautiful, the emotional payoff is strong, as we see who Kirk is supposed to be and what he’s been intended for all along.

After reading the book, I’m left wondering: do I recognize how the “city speaks”? Do I know what I’m here for? What do I take pointers or direction from? How can I know who I’m supposed to be? For me, it’s about prayer and reading the Bible, but there’s also that holy nudge, that voice that speaks, directs, and moves, the Holy Spirit. For Jonah Kirk, the Spirit speaks as the City.

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Linwood Barclay’s A Tap On The Window: Dirty Little Secrets (Book Review)

Posted on July 1, 2014 by Jacob Sahms

A few years ago, one of those lovely suggestions that Amazon does popped up: “for fans of Harlan Coben, try Linwood Barclay.” Having read every one of Coben’s novels, I gave Never Look Away a spin, about a man who loses sight of his wife at an amusement park and sets in motion a seriously trippy Hitchockian story. I was hooked. [The fact that Barclay also responded favorably to charity requests of signed autographs only increased my appreciation!] Requesting the mass market release of his book A Tap on the Window seemed relevant, with No Safe House just around the corner.

In Tap on the Window, ex-cop/current private investigator Carl Weaver fights his gut feeling and picks up teenage Claire Saunders on a rainy night. When she trades places with another teen named Hanna, who is subsequently found murdered, Weaver is drawn into a web of violence and secrets that may include Claire’s mayoral father and Weaver’s brother-in-law, the chief of police. With Barclay, no small-town is safe, or free of dirty little secrets, and every police force is capable of … anything.

One of the best aspects of this particular Barclay page turner is the exploration of grief. Weaver and his wife, Donna, both grieve their suicidal son’s death differently. Weaver searches for clues, interviews potential witnesses, to his son’s drug use and mind at the time of his death; his wife draws pictures of him, frustrated by their potential for capturing their son’s image and yet the way they fail to show his true nature. But their methods fail to draw them together, and instead hold the power of ripping the two of them apart. It’s not the main thing Barclay is writing about (that’s the disappearance of Claire), but it’s one of the ways that fleshes this story out and makes it more interesting.

You may, or may not, guess who did it- what- which things, but that’s not really the point. We want so badly to make things right for Carl, who seems genuinely good and genuinely compassionate. We want the justice we believe in to be brought to this town, which doesn’t pass the smell test, which doesn’t make us feel right, even though we know this is fiction. We know something isn’t right and we know, if we’ve read enough Barclay, that everything won’t be alright in the end, but it will be made… right.

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Meg Gardiner’s Phantom Instinct: Trust, And Other Fleeting Ideas

Posted on June 26, 2014 by Jacob Sahms

A shoot out explodes into action at a club, opening the thrilling latest novel by Meg Gardiner in mid frame. The violence seems random, but organized, and bartender Harper Flynn watches her boyfriend Drew die in front of her. In the months that follow, Flynn tries to unravel the why and who of the violence, recognizing that law officers Aiden Garrison and Erika Sorenstam may be her only hope of finding out the truth. But the evil that stalks them is close, rabid, and about to strike.

Gardiner’s prose is descriptive without bogging down, painting a picture of each of her characters, yet maintaining a forward-leaning thriller that has us on the edge of our seats. Our gradual unwrapping of Flynn’s persona leads us into a conflict that has been sedentary for nearly twenty years, but that paints a picture of systematic fear mongering and violence that seems just believable enough to be true. Like Chevy Stevens’ That Night, to understand the flow of the story and its motivations, we must see the perspective of a bully.

One of the most interesting side stories of the thriller is the effects of the club massacre on Garrison, who has developed what he calls “Fregoli syndrome,” (or Fregoli delusion), which causes him to think he sees someone but it is really someone else. This lingering effect of the violence at the club leaves him stripped of his role as a law officer, his ability to process information correctly at times, and periodically, his sanity. But he believes Flynn when she realizes there was an unidentified third shooter in the club, and aids her in trying to track the man down.

The majority of the action takes places after we the readers know that Flynn is telling the truth, but no one believes her (outside of Garrison). Things get complicated when more aspects of Flynn’s past come to light, in factual information and in people from her past, but she is determined to make things right once and for all, even if she puts herself in harms way. If Lee Child wrote standalone novels, instead of the Jack Reacher series, I imagine they would unfold this way, with little nuggets of truth being revealed over the chapters and a pot boiling climax that explodes with violence in a satisfactory ending (that still leaves us open to a sequel).

Gardiner has delivered an exciting thriller, just in time for the beach, or wherever you need a book to get you excited about reading, to keep you cheering the underdog fighting against her past for what her future could be.

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