Frozen: “It’s Easier To Melt A Frozen Head” (Movie Review)

Posted on December 8, 2013 by Jacob Sahms

Frozen is easily my favorite Disney animated movie of the last few years (Brave, Wreck-It Ralph, Planes, etc.) It’s also one of the best movies of any kind that I’ve seen this year. Loosely based on Hans Christian Anderson’s The Snow Queen, the film stars Kristen Bell (well, at least her voice) as the princess Anna, who must seek to reverse her sister Elsa’s (Idina Menzel) powers that cause their kingdom to freeze. Along the way, Anna will find herself in a love triangle with Prince Hans (Santino Fontana) and the mountain man Kristoff (Jonathan Groff), befriended by a talking snowman named Olaf (Josh Gad), and singing her way through the roughest week of her life. It’s Disney magic at its finest.

Elsa and Anna are orphaned early (c’mon, it’s a Disney movie!), but the day that Elsa is crowned queen, the powers that have been hidden for so long become evident to everyone. And the power of fear takes over, causing the townsfolk to label Elsa a monster and causing her to run to the mountains to be alone. All of this is built on a foundation of shame and grief from the sisters’ past, and it drives a wedge farther and farther between them, and everyone else.

Thankfully, Gad’s Olaf, who can re-arrange himself any way he chooses to, and Kristoff’s reindeer Sven provide plenty of hijinks that keep the kids laughing and lighten the tension. Gad knows how to use his voice to make you laugh, and the animation that appears to be a cross between Brave and Sofia the First (yes, I’ve watched that!) has enough nuances that the adults are laughing along, too. This is a genuinely clever movie… and it extends to the nuanced way that our hearts are moved by the end, too.

Through a series of events, Anna’s heart gets “frozen,” and only an “act of true love” can save her life. We’re completely and absolutely set up to believe that the end result must be like that of Sleeping Beauty or Snow White but… you’ll have to wait and see. It’s one of several ‘hooks’ that are built into the narrative flow, even keeping the adults in an audience going “whoa!” But the dialogue and discussion of true love? That makes this a deeper narrative than what has been turned out by the Mickey Mouse machine lately.

Twice, the troll king (yes, there’s one of those here, and a giant abominable snowman, too!) tells seeking human folks that “it’s much easier to heal a frozen head than a frozen heart.” He says something like, “you can change your mind easier than you can learn to love,” and I’m reminded about how true that is! So often, we can change our opinions easier than we can change our attitudes, and this little, rock-like king ‘preaches’ in the midst of a swirling, emotional epic.

Olaf and Anna are huddling around the fire, as the snowman tells Anna that “some people are worth melting for.” They discuss what an act of “true love” might really be, and a portion of my brain flipped, mid-movie, to John 15:13, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” It’s ultimately the definition that the film settles on, and the connection was made stronger as I walked to the parking lot, and my six-year-old said that the movie’s lesson was one “we’ve heard in church.” The magic, the wonder, the animation were all momentarily secondary to the truth that we could see true love in the midst of a children’s film.

Frozen’s music, animation, dialogue, and plot are all necessary ingredients in a film that delighted a multigenerational audience, and found me beginning a countdown until the film arrives on Blu-ray. It’s a magical experience that reminds us the meaning of true love, not just the romantic kind, and asks us if we have the faith, the love, and the forgiveness to live each moment with that kind of love as our guide.

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Out Of The Furnace: Vengeance, What Cost? (Movie Review)

Posted on December 7, 2013 by Jacob Sahms

I was hooked from the moment I saw the preview: Christian Bale’s Russell Baze goes searching for his little brother Rodney (Casey Affleck) and finds himself up against Woody Harrelson’s mountain man Curtis DeGroat. Produced by Ridley Scott and directed by Gods and Generals/Crazy Heart’s Scott Cooper, the film is a slow boiling thriller in the vein of Winter’s Bone or Drive, transplanting the action in the rural areas of Pennsylvania and New Jersey rather than some urban sprawl. But at the heart of the matter is the relationship between the two brothers, and the lines we will cross when it comes to family.

Russell is the “good” brother, until a poor decision finds him serving time. In the meantime, his rudderless brother gets in deeper with the local loan shark (Willem Dafoe) and moves up the illegal brawling circuit until he’s in the clutches of DeGroat. The audience already knows the kind of human being DeGroat is, having seen him brutalize a man and a woman in the opening scene that conjures up those other grind-it-out flicks, or something even more vicious, like A History of Violence. The astonishing thing is that for most of the film, Bale’s Baze is the observer, the acted-upon rather than the act-er, until he comes to that moment where he must choose the kind of man he will be.

There are several side issues that bear mentioning before I get back to the nitty gritty. There’s the question of a serviceperson’s status in between tours of duty, as the younger Baze finds himself broke, meandering, and angry, with no positive outlets. Brad Inglesby’s script highlights the problem there, while shining (intentionally?) a light on the political climate around war and the military in a way that plants the film in a realistic present. There’s also the inability of the police/government to do its job, as some people prove to be above the law (or too dangerous to cross). While this seems likely in the case of the Prohibition of alcohol and other recollections of days gone by, Out of the Furnace implies there are still corners of the U.S. where crime (and violence) pays.

Still, this is a big name-filled flick that takes a close up on Bale’s Russell and Harrelson’s DeGroat. In most cases, DeGroat proves more gripping, more interesting, because he’s such a nuanced psycho. (One might say this happens to Bale on a regular basis, as he’s upstaged by Heath Ledger’s Joker in The Dark Knight.) But Harrelson plays DeGroat with restraint, like a tethered beast chewing glass, most of the time, until he unleashes his fury, sometimes apologetically and sometimes without remorse. And Bale’s elder brother has to consider what responsibility he has for this demon loosed on his kid brother, even if his brother brought it on himself.

Zero Dark Thirty did such an amazing job of highlighting the cost of one person’s soul when violence and vengeance are combined. Furnace attempts to lure us in and ask us what Russell will lose if he pursues justice that the police can’t achieve, if he invests himself fully in his brother’s life. For the most part, he’s seen as a man of peace, even attending church services in prison and outside. We even hear the chaplain intone from Isaiah 53:5, “But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed.”

Is Russell a Christ-figure? Does he take on the pain and anguish of the quest because of his brother’s sins? Does he take on something he doesn’t want (a la Man of Steel) to provide a greater peace? Out of the Furnace leaves us wondering (even if it does provide an epilogue that seems to let us somewhat off the hook), and asking ourselves, what does justice cost? When is vengeance justifiable? What decisions do we make everyday, that seem small, but that lend themselves to a greater good or evil?

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Homefront: Who Watches Our Violence? (Movie Review)

Posted on December 5, 2013 by Jacob Sahms

Don’t believe what you’ve heard (Rotten Tomatoes, anyone?) This is the best Jason Statham flick since The Transporter. After several disappointing spins as The Mechanic and various incarnations of Crank, Statham had semi-Statham-like performances in Killer Elite and Redemption/Hummingbird. But now, strange as it is to see him playing a father figure (c’mon, he is 46), he returns to the screen as Chuck Logan’s DEA agent Phil Broker. And, as you might expect from the title, he goes all Bryan Mills/Liam Neeson on the meth heads who would do his nine-year-old daughter harm.

After infiltrating and capturing a biker gang running meth in New Orleans, and mourning the unrelated death of his wife, Broker retreats to the backwater territory of Rayville, La. When his daughter (newcomer Izabela Vidovic) is bullied by a local redneck’s son, she responds with the skills that he taught her, setting in motion a series of events that brings vengeful bikers scurrying toward his tranquil life. (Obviously, we wouldn’t expect his young daughter to “take” it from the bullies, but we are certainly led to believe that the Broker family justice is swift… and on the excessive side.

The boy’s mother, Cassie Bodine (Kate Bosworth), watches Broker take down her good-for-nothing husband, and unleashes her powerful (locally) brother, “Gator” Bodine (James Franco), on the Broker family. But while Broker takes the advice of school psychologist Susan Hatch (Rachel Lefevre) and plays nice with the Bodines, Gator has alerted the big city meth heads to Broker’s location via his girlfriend (Winona Ryder, the weak link in this acting chain). Cyrus (Frank Grillo) is dispatched with a team of killers to take down both Brokers, who converge on said ‘home front’. The tension mounts thanks to the moody music of Mark Isham, and the balance of the calm Statham and the twitchy Franco, rising to a crescendo that’s expected.

What’s not expected is the way that the Brokers’ goodness, thanks in large part to the advice they receive, changes the attitudes of the people around them. It’s not their violence, or their self-preservation, but their actual kindness that ultimately affects how the story plays out. Sure, this is a cool Statham action thriller where the violence is a necessity, but it’s curious that the film actually explores whether our violence actually causes more violence, whether violence itself can break the cycle. “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that,” said one of the world’s most notable pacifists (MLK, Jr.) Homefront isn’t pacifistic but it does seem more self-aware about how far we can get fighting violence with more violence, and asking us to consider what example our violence sets for our children. 

Sure, most of us will never find ourselves in the Louisiana bayou waiting for a showdown with eight gunmen. But we can choose violence or not everyday, in our words, in our driving, in our instruction to our children about how to do with bullies on the playground, etc. And at the end of the day, we need to recognize that our society moves forward in the same manner that we instruct our children, because they are always watching, whether we recognize it or not. 

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Sunday’s Sermon Today: Do You Take Prayer Seriously? (Daniel 6:6-23)

Posted on November 20, 2013 by Jacob Sahms

I’m not sure when it started, but for as long as I remember, my older son has called his goodnight prayers his “thank you Gods.” It makes sense because when he was first starting to pray, we talked to him about how our prayers were a good time to thank God for things. Sure, there were times we asked for something (help the dog feel better, help us not be afraid of the storm, etc.) but thanking God for what we were blessed with was key.

I assumed that when our second son started to say his good night prayers that he would call them his “thank you Gods” but somewhere along the way, he picked up that we said our “blessings” at meals, and he calls the good night prayers his “bwessings” (he’s two). But he too thanks God for a litany of people, the fun things he did each day. Thanking is just part of their process.

But as adults, prayer gets more complicated doesn’t it? We’ve seen more of the world, more trouble, more frustration, more uncertainty. Prayer gets deeper, more convoluted, more … something.

It begs the question, if you had to name your prayer, what words do you use to describe it?

Is it hard, mysterious, tough, powerful, faithful? Would you describe prayer as life-threatening? Would you call it my “asks for,” my “begs,” my “needs”? Do you get real with God or do you simply go through the motions? Do you still approach prayer like it has to happen, like it’s something you look forward to, or does the world around you crunch you into a prayer-free zone where prayer is a last resort not the first step?

In the drama The Apostle, Robert Duvall is an out-of-work preacher who finds himself staring up at the world from the bottom of the pile. And one night, he prays a prayer that lays it all out there, like some of the prayers listed in the Old Testament. He literally yells at God. Have you ever done that? Have you ever been so connected to God in your conversation that you could be real enough to actually tell God what you were thinking (like he didn’t know it already)?

In Daniel 6:6-23, we find Daniel, the advisor to the king, knee-deep in a conspiracy of the high court. See, several of the king’s other advisors must’ve felt threatened by Daniel’s relationship to the king, so they went to the king (never too bright a bulb as we’ve seen already in his handling of nutrition and the thousand-foot statue of himself) and proposed that the king issue a law that said the king was the only person who could be prayed to for a month.

And the king, proud, powerful, and vain, thought this was a great idea, and signed on the dotted line. Condemning his best man to death with a stroke of the pen.

When I find out that there’s a law or a rule in place that seems to penalize me, I usually pout for awhile. Sometimes, I’ll even eat some candy and watch television. But I rarely flaunt the breaking of that law immediately, and I’ll admit it, I don’t pray about it as often as I should.

But Daniel, he’s iconoclastic and faithful. It doesn’t just say that these out-for-blood rivals found Daniel praying; it says that when Daniel heard the law was in place, he went to his room, through open the windows and prayed to God at the three times appointed for prayer. He didn’t change his pattern, he didn’t hide what he was doing. He went to God about the problem in prayer.

Daniel went directly from hearing the bad, life-condemning news to prayer. Dir-ect-ly.

Now, how seriously do you take prayer?

Of course, his rivals saw the prayers, and went running to the king to tattle like little kids who’ve caught their classmate in mischief. “Oh, King Dariiiiiiius! Remember your law about praying? Well, Daniel is breaking it!” Instantaneously, you can see the color drain from the king’s face as he realizes what he’s done, and he thinks all day on how to get Daniel out of trouble.

Still, there was no rescue for Daniel. The king’s law was more powerful than the king himself. The law was too dangerous, and the king couldn’t undo it. So Daniel gets thrown into the lion’s den with the king’s blessing, “May your God, whom you serve continually, rescue you!”

Daniel was thrown in, rare meat and blood still bumping, and a stone placed over the mouth of the den. And the king went back to the palace to contemplate the funeral of his friend and advisor, while Daniel… slept?

It says that at daybreak, at dawn’s first light, the king ran to the lions’ den and cried out before he even got there, “has your God actually been able to rescue you from the lions?”

Daniel responded that there had been an angel there all night, that the angel of God had shut the mouths of the lions because Daniel was innocent in God’s sight. And Daniel pronounces himself innocent of offending the king, because his prayers to God were right and just. Not only was he alive but there were no wounds on him, because he had trusted in God.

So, I’ll ask you again, how seriously do you take prayer?

I wonder what would happen if we took prayer as seriously as Daniel… or Jesus.

In Matthew 6, Jesus couches his teaching on prayer in terms of not being a hypocrite, and in terms of forgiveness. You’ve heard it before, but consider again:

“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.”

Jesus told his disciples to treat prayer like it was sacred, a trust between God and them, and to pray even though God knew what it was they were talking about already.

And here we thought prayer was to keep God happy! No, prayer is for us, to keep us connected, to make us part of the process.

Jesus put a premium on prayer, on giving God praise and putting God’s will before our own, on focusing on what we need for today (not tomorrow), on forgiving us and on our forgiving others, and on avoiding all evil. Straightforward, right? Easy for the Son of God AKA God himself to say, right? Consider how Jesus prayed when push came to shove, when the cross was right before him, filling up his vision.

In Luke 22, “Jesus prayed:  ‘Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.’ An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.”

So, Jesus’ instructions to his followers, one foot in front of the other, keep the main thing the main thing, when it came down to the wire, Jesus’ prayer life exhibited the way that he believed we should pray and act. Jesus’ earnest prayer to do God’s will brought him into the strange place where his prayer made him bleed (or at least, get very, very sweaty). That’s some hardcore, personal prayer!

Jesus is literally saying he wishes that God would free him from the anguish, that God would take the pain and suffering and death away, IF IT BE GOD’S WILL. And so God sends an angel to strengthen Jesus in mind and body… and to answer the request with “keep going, my son.”

But that doesn’t stop Jesus from praying. It’s not that he gets an answer he doesn’t like and then he bails. The next day, in Luke 23:34, Jesus was hanging on the cross, and he prayed, ““Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

Jesus is hanging there, dying, and he prayed that God would forgive the very people who had hung him on the cross to kill him. Would you be there, dying, and praying for the people who were killing you? I’ll admit that I sometimes struggle to pray for my enemies when they’re insulting me, looking at me funny, or talking about me behind my back LET ALONE BEATING ME WITH WHIPS AND NAILING ME TO A CROSS.

We get the “praying for our enemies” thing confused all the time. Jaron and the Long Road To Love delivered this choice take on prayer in “Pray For You”:

I haven’t been to church since I don’t remember when
Things were goin’ great ’til they fell apart again
So I listened to the preacher as he told me what to do
He said you can’t go hatin’ others who have done wrong to you
Sometimes we get angry, but we must not condemn
Let the good Lord do His job and you just pray for them

I pray your brakes go out runnin’ down a hill
I pray a flowerpot falls from a window sill and knocks you in the head like I’d like to
I pray your birthday comes and nobody calls
I pray you’re flyin’ high when your engine stalls
I pray all your dreams never come true
Just know wherever you are honey, I pray for you

Brought some grins, didn’t it? Some of us have prayed those kinds of prayers– but somehow, that’s not exactly the kind of prayer I think Jesus would encourage us to.

Daniel and Jesus, brothers in prayer. Both facing certain death, both determined to take prayer seriously. One was saved from death and one was not (at least not immediately!) But both point us to believe that maybe we’re supposed to be taking prayer a little more seriously than we are.

I know I’ve got some praying to do. For people I know. For my sins. For the grace to be more like Jesus.

What do you need to pray for? How will you do it? Who will you pray for?

We’re going to close in a minute, with a pattern that lays out who is most important (God) and the attitudes we should have about prayer, God, and this amazing life God has called us to:

Consider who the focus of our prayer is.

Consider how God is honored in the beginning of the prayer, and how God’s will is the directing element.

Consider how the kingdom of God is used to bring the eternal, to bring heaven, into the now.

And consider what we’re asking for (our immediate needs, forgiveness to receive and to give, eternal salvation).

And as we pray, ask yourselves, what it is that I should be “taking to the Lord in prayer?” What is it that we should be.

I don’t think you can do prayer right, or wrong. I don’t think you need to know all the words. But I think our attitude matters. I think it matters how much we want to be with God and like God when we pray. Because our prayers have the power to heal the sick, to change the world, and even more amazing, to change our hearts.

Will you pray with me, these words from the Lord’s Prayer, like it’s the very first time?

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one. 

This sermon is for the 9 and 11 a.m. services at Blandford UMC on November 24, 2013. 

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Fight, Flight, Freeze, or…Follow? (A Mustard Seed Musing)

Posted on November 18, 2013 by Jacob Sahms

Stress is a reality. We don’t have to like it, but we have to figure out how we’re going to handle stress when it happens. A decade into ministry in various settings, I find that humans tend to respond to conflict in a variety of ways that seem to be pretty common in the animal kingdom. The physiologist Walter Bradford Cannon is credited with the explanation of the “fight or flight” or “acute response,” which he used to explain the reaction of animals when facing danger. And most of the time, it seems to define how people work, whether it’s at home, at work, or… in church.

Cannon’s ideas have become increasingly interesting to me as a pastor, as I negotiate the dynamics of churches handling stress, whether it’s natural change, conflict, or something irregular. But on further study, I found that Cannon’s ideas were actually threefold when considering the animal kingdom. And as I’ll propose, there may actually be a fourth!

1. Fight: When stress hits, some people go into defensive, “circle-the-wagons” position. They aggressively respond to whatever the current ‘conflict’ is, paint the world in black and white, and move forward with a steel-willed determination that the situation they face (and the world around them) is definitively divided between ‘us’ and ‘them.’

2. Flight: When stress hits, some people… run! They see the problem, the controversy, the unpleasantness, and are convinced that absolute avoidance of the situation is best. Flight can include distance traveled, avoidance of the people and place involved, ignoring the problem, etc. But involvement in the problem and any solutions is prohibited!

3. Freeze: When stress hits, some people are rendered immobile. Depression and anxiety are earmarks, as the stress/conflict/frustration over the situation causes these people to be completely neutralized or sidelined to the point where they can’t act any way.

Which one is your default? It’s probably one you can trace in a pattern, back to childhood. When so-and-so was upset with you, or you had a problem in school, you [__________]. When you and your significant other clash, you [_______]. When the problem arises at work, you [_______]. When a disagreement over how to handle something in a community organization or place of worship, you [_________].

But what if there’s actually something more, a different option?

4. Follow: When stress hits, some people go to Jesus. They see the problem, the controversy, the conflict, and they go to God in prayer, in holy conversations with others, in reading the Scripture, in examining their conscience with the Holy Spirit’s help. It’s the only option not available to Cannon’s study because animals don’t have souls. Animals can’t see the example of Jesus, they can’t hear the teachings he proposed, they can’t develop a new way of thinking that affects their moral behavior. [In an aside, it’s similar to cartoons not being able to praise God, but that’s Chris Rice, just sayin’.]

But we can. We can choose not to fight needlessly, to stay instead of fleeing, to continue to move and live even when the going gets tough. We can make a pointed decision to love God and love others even when we and they are less inclined to love, and more inclined to one of the first three options. While we all say we want to be in control, we sometimes fail to actually take control. With these four options, I think I’d prefer the fourth. It sounds a lot more like really living than the first three.

But it’s certainly not easier.

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Man Of Steel (Revisited): Who Will You Become? (Movie Review)

Posted on November 15, 2013 by Jacob Sahms

I’ll admit it: I rarely rewatch a movie when it arrives on Blu-ray. Sure, months or years later, I’ll watch something I enjoyed to see if it holds up, but my memory, my first take, is usually sufficient. But Man of Steel was sufficiently powerful, and left me with enough questions, that I had to see it again. To my surprise, it proved even more gripping the second time around.

In the re-visioning of the famous exchange between Jor-El (Marlon Brando) and his wife at the beginning of Richard Donner’s Superman the Movie, we find that director Zach Snyder isn’t terribly interested in shaking up our expectations (yet). We get some of the mythological and Christological elements, where Jor-El believes that his son, Kal-El AKA Clark Kent AKA Superman will “be a god to them,” that is the people of Earth. But we’re quickly introduced to the baptism by fire of Clark’s coming out party when he hauls the school bus out of the river, and we find that Clark’s father, Jonathan (Kevin Costner), isn’t is as convinced of the divinity involved.

Jonathan tells the teenage Clark that “When you find out what you can do, it’ll change everything. Our beliefs, our notions, what it means to be human. Everything.” He proceeds to tell Clark the hard truth that people are afraid of what they can’t understand, and when Clark worries that “God did this to me,” Jonathan reveals the ship that brought Clark to the Kents as a baby. But Jonathan continues to claim Clark as his son, even while acknowledging that another father (Clark’s biological one) sent him to Earth for a purpose, and it’s up to Clark to figure out what it is.

We see soon that Clark is a pacifist. He could easily maul the trucker to the point of oblivion (he takes out his frustration elsewhere), but the earmarks of peaceful coexistence with the human race, that will become more important later, are hinted at earlier. Overall, the two themes of greatest importance rolling through the film seem to be a) the responsibility of Kal-El to figure out who he is and b) the way that power is used for good or abused. He’s both helped and hindered in the first by his two fathers: Jonathan doesn’t want him to expose himself for fear of being ostracized (and Kent puts his life on the line to defend his beliefs), while Jor-El is closer to Zod in his understanding of the place that a powerful person has in the global hierarchy (even if he thinks it should be used for good).

Michael Shannon’s Zod is a morally complex alien being, who is still the blackest of souls but not someone we can dismiss as amoral or sadistic. He is in fact an insurrectionist, a terrorist on Earth, who wants to protect the things of Krypton, first while living on Krypton and later while struggling with Clark/Superman. He’s still something like a Neo Nazi, determined he needs to keep the bloodline pure, but he’s not the devoid-of-morality monster that he was understood to be in the Donner versions or comic books. He does believe that the power of his physical nature grants him “divine right” to make decisions, that “might makes right.” He’s determined to make his own decisions for what’s best from his point of view, and the fact that Superman is the only one who can stand against him physically means that no one else can change his mind.

Still, in a world where our superhero movies seem more and more determined by the complexity of the villain, this movie is about Kal-El and the individual who he will become. Burgeoning out from the hologram conversation he has early on with his birth father, he learns that the symbol of the house of El means hope: “the potential in every person to be a force for good.” It’s this motto that drives him to be moralistic in his own actions and to inspire others. It’s tied to Kal-El’s belief that the people of Earth will rise to meet him “in the sun,” to “accomplish wonders” through his leadership. Sure, Zod’s comparison to Clark shows a depth of evil that makes Superman brighter, but there’s still development in Cavill’s portrayal that gives the film its grit and staying power.

While I wasn’t a huge fan of 300 or Suckerpunch, Snyder’s work was visually stunning, and the budget he was allowed for Man of Steel has been spent on casting and making this the visually spectacular film that a flick about Superman should be. The scene where the bus plunges into the river (in slow motion) and then rises thanks to you-kn0w-who, plus the battle sequences, the Fortress of Solitude, frankly, all of it, make this one of the most amazing flicks I’ve seen experienced in awhile. Sure, it’s not the deepest thing to come out this year (hello, 12 Years a Slave) but it is wildly entertaining, and a delight to watch.

And again, I’m struck by the fact that the visually-obsessed director still manages to work David Goyer’s screenplay in a way that provides great depth, in addition to the ways I’ve already mentioned. Superman/Kal-El’s interaction with Amy Adams’ Lois Lane is a satisfying reboot of the relationship between the alien superhero and the intrepid reporter; the commentary of the various public officials (whether it’s Lawrence Fishburne’s Editor Perry White, Christopher Meloni’s military man, or the talking heads on the news) shows us what it might look like if this really happened. And of course, from my perspective, that only adds to the “what if Jesus came back like that?” moments that are already permeating the film (thank you, Colin Raye).

But, wow, those peacemaking elements run deep (“what kind of man do you want to be, Clark? Because whoever he is, good or bad, he’s going to have the power to change the world.”) And the example of Clark/Kal-El’s decision-making has life-altering implications for him AND for others (see: Pete). All of this only makes the decision that Kal-El ultimately makes, by performing the one thing that only he could do, and taking it upon himself… Well, that just makes Snyder’s Superman even more like the Christian Messiah. He literally bears the sins of two worlds on his shoulders, knowing that he will carry the weight of that forever.

And, like any great movie, it forces us to ask what we’ve done with the opportunities, powers, and skills that we’ve been given. We’re forced to ask, “are we representing what is good and true and right well? Have we learned from our own lives and from the teaching of our parents and leaders?” (Some will say, “no! I hope not.”) At the end of the day, we all have choices to make and situations that will test us beyond the bounds of anything we’ve known before. The way we live our lives before we get there will help us understand how we should respond when we find ourselves under attack. We’d best be ready.

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12 Years A Slave: Are We Really Free? (Movie Review)

Posted on November 14, 2013 by Jacob Sahms

“All men are not free if one is oppressed.”– Anonymous

The best film of the year. A brutal, unflinching look at slavery, racism, abuse, and humanity. An absolutely emotional punch in the gut. A film I couldn’t watch a second time. All of these are true descriptors of 12 Years A Slave, directed by Steve McQueen (Hunger, Shame), produced by Brad Pitt, and hailed as the best film of 2013 (frankly, it is, hands down). It will force you to consider the history of slavery in the United States in a new way, and to ask what “slavery” still exists in our world today.

The film focuses on the performance of Chiwetel Ejiofor (Serenity, Redbelt) as real-life freedman-turned-slave Solomon Northrup, whose 1853 memoir gives the film its historical background. Northrup is lured south from his New York home under the guise of putting his musical talents to good use, and kidnapped by slave traders from Washington, D.C. His humanity is systematically stripped as he descends south to New Orleans, where he is first purchased by William Ford (Benedict Cumberbatch, Star Trek: Into Darkness, Sherlock, The Fifth Estate, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug).

Ford is the first of two slave owners who will own Northrup; the second is Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender). Both men quote the Scripture to their slaves, but the use of Scripture is strikingly different. Ford uses the Scripture to attempt to soften the weight of the situation, as he is almost an apologetic slaveowner, while Epps is an abusive sadist who takes joy in controlling the men and women under him, manipulating the Scripture to justify his own yearnings. Ford sells Northrup to Epps in an attempt to keep Northrup alive when one of Ford’s workmen threatens Northrup’s life (but the sale also makes Ford’s life significantly easier). [As an aside, it is truly amazing just how many films Cumberbatch is in throughout 2013, but even more amazing is how he excels at the variety of roles! But Cumberbatch and Fassbender are superb in their despicable roles.)

McQueen is unflinching in his portrayal of slavery, and in the brutality of the situations that Northrup finds himself in, but this is not the tasteless ‘art’ of Quentin Tarantino. Sure, there is National Geographic nudity, several scenes of blood-spattered violence, and a smattering of vulgar vocabulary, but it flows ‘naturally’ from the story, rather than bludgeoning us the way that Django Unchained did. I’m still not convinced I could watch the film again, as I made myself continue to watch at times, but this is a film that attempts to stare backward into the void of our national consciousness, finding a realistic meet between the saccharine 42 and Unchained.

What we see is that slavery is a complicated mess of epic proportions. Ford and his wife don’t see slavery the same way (she tells a female slave stripped of her children that “before long, you’ll forget them,” and later has her ‘removed’). Epps’ wife thinks it’s the white slaveowner’s job to keep the wicked slaves under their heel, while he takes everything he wants from the slaves, as his interest is more carnal in every form. Regardless of their motivation, or beliefs outside of the effort of their farming, all of them prove to be corrupted by the evil of owning another human being to the point where they can’t escape the impact of their own sin.

But McQueen’s portrayal of the Northrup story doesn’t leave Northrup as a developing hero without scars. Sure, we expect that he’ll bear the scars of his masters’ whips, but did we expect that he would have to compromise his own moral standards to survive? And surviving is the key here, isn’t it? Did we expect the degree to which he would have to change himself, sublimated on one side and aggressive on the other, to make it? A man broken by the system who attempts to move forward, growls early on that he doesn’t “want to survive, but live.” But by the end, is it really living? Does he return to life, ever?

Northrup shares this ethical conundrum with Mistress Harriet Shaw (the always excellent Alfre Woodard), who finds herself elevated to lady of the plantation by her white owner-turned-husband. She too has had to compromise, but as she puts it, she’s not out picking cotton or being beaten, so what’s the harm? It’s a different sort of story, where yes, there is black and white (on so many levels), but the subcategories, the various levels of tragedy and brokenness, is so much more nuanced than simply cheering one man’s quest for freedom. None of us are left without questions about our motivations.

This is an exploration of history, but it’s also an examination of our present. In a world where children and women are sold into slavery around the world, kidnapped and transported, or forced into inbred situations of twisted proportions, we are not free of this evil. If we can see that the ills of apartheid, the scourge of Nazi Germany, the violence of the civil wars in Rwanda and the Czech countries, are all dangerous to our survival as a human race, to our very souls, then why can’t we learn?

I found myself praying, “God forgive us,” as the credits rolled. Not just because of the great crimes against blacks perpetrated from the founding of America through the 1970s (…and through the present), but because we have not learned. Jesus quoted the prophet Isaiah when he said he’d come to set the captives free, proclaim good news to the poor, and give sight to the blind in Luke 4:18-19. But can we really see? Can this film aid in our freedom, in our experiencing the good news? We must repent of seeing others as less based on class, skin color, gender, sexual orientation, creed, and country, and focus on the imageo dei, the central thread of truth that we are all made in God’s image.

Without that core belief, we’re left as slaves to ourselves, and the fragile, faulty ways we excuse our own sin and manipulations with self-justification and arrogance. And while one of us is a slave, none of us is free.

For several other films that may stir your soul, consider these: The Power of One, The New World, To End All Wars. 

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Sunday’s Sermon Today: Rare Or Well Done? (Daniel 3:1-5,15-25)

Posted on November 13, 2013 by Jacob Sahms

How often do you think you’re forced to choose between what you’re told to do by your boss, by the government, by your spouse, by your parent, and what you think that you’re supposed to do based on what the Bible has to say?

Once a day? A week? A month?

What pressure do you face? Is it the loss of a job, or a friendship, or status? How do you decide what’s “right” for that instance? We’d all like to say that we always do the right thing… but we don’t. And frankly, neither did the people in the Bible. Peter got it wrong several times; so did Abraham, David, and Adam… but we still remember them well. It’s not always getting it right or wrong though that matters in the Bible– it’s usually most important how God shows up.

In Daniel 3, the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar set up his first conflict with his favorite dreamcatcher Daniel. Now, he didn’t mean to, but his pride caused him to think that it would be a great idea to have a thousand-foot-tall statue built of himself and set up out in the middle of a field so that everyone could come and worship it.

The announcement was made that when the Babylonian band started playing, that everyone would fall down and worship the statue. The worshipping of the statue would be an indirect worshipping of the king, but it wasn’t the kind of worship we understand today, where people willingly and voluntarily gather for worship of Yahweh God, or Buddha, or Mohammed. No, this was the kind of worship that was followed with a threat: Anyone who didn’t bow down and worship the statue would be burned alive in a fiery furnace.

Imagine if that’s what we understood church to be like. If you don’t come to church, if you don’t worship God, if you don’t read your Bible or pray, you’re going to burn. Wait, isn’t that what many of our churches preach as the main reason to go to church? That your choices are the “smoking or non-smoking section” in hell? Jesus certainly did say that he was the way, the truth, and the life, and  the only way to the Father (John 14:6). But is that kind of forced relationship what Jesus was talking about?

I think not.

Jesus wanted to create a sacred space where God and humanity were present together and the people who chose to embrace what God was offering would worship. He didn’t spend nearly as much time on judgment as he did on grace, and hope, and love. But in Daniel’s day, there was no grace proffered in the king of Babylon’s ordinance.

Even though Daniel and his three friends had already proved important to the king, when a group of astrologers, men who were no doubt displaced by Daniel’s abilities, came and tattled on Daniel’s crew, Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego, for not bowing. They weren’t buying into the order, death sentence or not, because they knew that they should have no other gods before Yahweh God.

The king had the three men brought before him, and specifically told them that it if they did not bow that they would be thrown into the fire. And he threw in a zinger about the fact that their God wouldn’t be able to save them from burning to death.

So you bow, right? You give in, you say “yessir,” and you drop to your knees. And you go back to worshipping the way you know is right the next day. Right?

Instead, our trio challenged the king’s authority: “If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”

First off, they are reasonably sure that the Biblical God that they serve will save them from the fire, and from the king’s wrath. But second, if God chooses not to save them, they still have faith in God- they will not be deterred by the momentary setback of dying!

That is crazy, outlandish, bold faith, isn’t it? “We’re not reducing our standards. We’re not going to be threatened into going against our beliefs. And we don’t care if you do hold our feet to the fire!” Well, honestly, it doesn’t immediately speak to the king’s good size. It says that he’s so infuriated that he forgets how impressed he was by them, and orders them thrown into the furnace immediately.

The fire is stoked to be seven times hotter. So hot, in fact, that the soldiers escorting the men to their deaths died when they got closer to the flames. But those three men, they didn’t die: they multiplied. Remember that verse where “two or three are gathered in my name” that Jesus issues to his disciples (Matthew 18:20)? It says that the three men were joined by a man that Nebuchadnezzar said looked like “a son of the gods.”

The Gentile, the non-believer, recognized that God had shown up, and he remembered what the men had said before he had them thrown into the fire. He immediately attributes the fourth man’s presence to their faith; he knows that something holy just happened even if he didn’t understand it before.

The king sees that they are not burned, that their clothes are intact, that they don’t even smell like fire! Now, I know that was some kind of miracle: my parents heated their house with firewood while I was growing up, and the wood burning smell filled the house, and our clothes, when we sat by the fire. To be immersed in the fire, and neither burned nor smelling like it, were two more signs of the Lord God’s hand being over these three men.

The fire couldn’t hurt them, no, the fire couldn’t touch them.

Nebuchadnezzar goes from antagonist to chief evangelist in an instant. “Praise be to the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, who has sent his angel and rescued his servants! They trusted in him and defied the king’s command and were willing to give up their lives rather than serve or worship any god except their own God. 29 Therefore I decree that the people of any nation or language who say anything against the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego be cut into pieces and their houses be turned into piles of rubble, for no other god can save in this way.”

The obedience of three men changed a king, and a country. Because they chose well, and followed through. Because they knew who they were and who they were not, regardless of the consequences.

Do you have that kind of intense faith? Are you the rarest form of person, who is willing to follow through, to stand when others kneel, to speak for truth when others are willing to buy the lie? Or are you well done, cooked, burnt up by the adversity of the world’s denial of Jesus, of faith, of God’s movement in the world?

Brian Doerksen’s song, “Refiner’s Fire,” comes to me in moments like this:

Purify my heart
Let me be as gold and precious silver
Purify my heart
Let me be as gold, pure gold
Refiner’s fire
My heart’s one desire
Is to be holy
Set apart for You, Lord
I choose to be holy
Set apart for You, my Master
Ready to do Your will
Purify my heart
Cleanse me from within
And make me holy
Purify my heart
Cleanse me from my sin
Deep within

Gold doesn’t burn in fire. It gets refined, refreshed, made new. If Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego bow to the statue that day, they are destroyed: they’ve given up who they are and who they are supposed to be. They’ve sold out, bought in, given up the ghost. But by staying true to their faith and who they were supposed to be, their lives blossomed, and their influence increased exponentially.

What would it look like this week if you turned back the gossip or the inappropriate jokes or the instructions to fudge numbers or to lie when the truth was harder? What if you chose to say that you were called by God not to worship the things of the world and that God was with you, whether He saved you in that moment or not?

Those who bowed (and escorted the men to the fire) were left extra crispy, smelling of bacon. But the three men who loved God above all else? They came out smelling like a rose.

In Isaiah 43:2, God said, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.”

I pray today that you will be fireproof, bound for heaven. That you will be flame retardant, refined by the fire but not burned. May God see your struggle and walk with you as you bear his name.

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Sunday’s Sermon Today: You Are What You Eat? (Daniel 1)

Posted on November 13, 2013 by Jacob Sahms

Most of us have gone through a phase where we wanted to lose weight. We’ve tried plenty of methods, working out, not eating after a certain time, better nights’ sleep, several little meals versus breakfast/lunch/dinner, whatever the latest fad is, right? But ultimately, it doesn’t matter how much we change everything about our lives, if we don’t alter what we eat, as one of my informal Facebook surveys proved.

When asked for weight loss tips, several of my friends focused in on the number of grams of sugar they consumed per day.

Some held onto the tried and true exercise programs, or Weight Watchers, or a glass of water before every meal.

The ingesting or the intake was the thing!

What we eat impacts our ability to lose weight. We can change all the other variables, and if we don’t change what we consume, it really doesn’t matter. It’s a lesson many of us have learned by looking down at our guts and our growing clothes sizes, but it’s one that Daniel understood as a young man, imprisoned in Babylon.

Now, maybe Daniel was smarter than many adults, or maybe his perspective on the world was sharpened by his being kidnapped at such a young age, and being thrust into a strange culture. In Daniel 1, we know that he was dragged to Babylon by King Nebuchadnezzar’s righthand man, Ashpenaz,  along with all of the young men who were deemed to be all of the young, male royalty, who were “without any physical defect, handsome, showing aptitude for every kind of learning, well informed, quick to understand, and qualified to serve in the king’s palace.”

King Nebuchadnezzar has snagged the best-of-the-best that Israel had to offer. The pretty kids, the skilled kids, the people that he could use because they were brimming with potential. And Ashpenaz was supposed to brainwash them, to lure them in with the finest foods and to teach them all about how to be a Babylonian. Nebuchadnezzar didn’t plan on just capturing other countries. He wanted to assimilate them, until no one could remember that they were anything other than Babylonian.

We’re told that Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah were chosen, and renamed Belteshazzar, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Their assimilation, their discipleship, their removal of all things Jewish was intended to be thorough, complete, and final.

But in 1:8, it says that “Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and wine.” How often does it come down to one person? One person who is willing to make a tough call, to follow what he or she knows to be true, to be bold and courageous in the midst of a sea of adversity like Abraham or Joshua. One person to say yes to God like Mary.  and he asked the chief official for permission not to defile himself this way.

It says that God honored Daniel’s faith and softened the heart of his jailer, Ashpenaz, but Ashpenaz still had to deal with his own pain and fear. The Babylonian heard something in Daniel’s plea that made sense, that defied the ways that he’d been expected to act. But he was still afraid.

So Daniel, a teenager remember, but maybe it has to be a teenager, someone brave and willing to play fast and loose with the rules, even in captivity, says, “give us ten days to try it our way.” He proposes a ten-day experiment, the compare and contrast, the my way versus your way test.

And at the end of ten days, Daniel’s crew of Four Musketeers was healthier and stronger than those who ate the rich food of the palace. And the outcome was so stark, so obvious, that Ashpenaz took away all of the rich food of the king and substituted it with the vegetables that Daniel had proposed.

Were the four men sent back to their homes? No. Were they freed from slavery? No. Were their instant troubles alleviated? No.

Their obedience was rewarded though. “To these four young men God gave knowledge and understanding of all kinds of literature and learning,” and their responsibility, their stature, rose. They had stood together against something they knew wasn’t right, and they had survived. They had rejected the fat, the poison, the dilution of their physical selves because it would dishonor their beliefs, and God had rewarded that.

Sounds like a perfect segue to “our bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit,” right? I could promote Jenny Craig For Jesus or Weight Watchers and Ye Holy Ones or South Beach of Galilee Diet. But instead, I think it’s fascinating to focus in one aspect of this, and shocking enough, it’s not the food.

Daniel rejects the idea of taking in anything that would weaken his spiritual being.

The food is just the physical thing we recognize, but Daniel is rejecting being assimilated into something less than who God wants him to be. The new name, the new language, the new beliefs, the new everything.

Daniel knows who God is and he rests in that. He’ll pass on the extra servings of everything else. He’s turning all of the bad stuff aside… “thanks but no thanks on the wine.”

And I wonder how much of the seemingly insignificant things we “allow” for are the beginning of the slippery slope. Where do you or I draw the line on staying true to following Jesus?

Do we curb our tongues in vocabulary, or in the way we speak of and to others?

Do we consider what we read about, watch on television and in the movies, listen to on the radio or on our iPods?

Do we reject the stories, jokes, gossip, or general meanness that circles around us at work or at home or with our friends?

Are we willing to take a stand on whatever front could be the most dangerous to us, and recognize that we are meant for something greater than this? That God doesn’t want our minds, our bodies, our souls defiled by the junk that the world tells us is okay? That God wants our undivided attention and love, that’s decluttered of junk, food or otherwise?

I pray that this week that you will have the faith of Daniel, to reject those “foods” the world tries to feed you, and stick to the diet of God’s truth, love, and grace. I’m betting it won’t take you a ten-day trial period to see the difference.

This sermon is for the Stand service at 9 a.m. at 11607  S. Crater Road in Prince George, Va. 

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Thor, The Dark World: Absolute Evil (Movie Review)

Posted on November 12, 2013 by Jacob Sahms

Jimmy Kimmel had a funny segment last week about Marvel’s portrayal of Thor: The Dark World as a lovely romantic comedy (Thor Actually) where Thor (Chris Hemsworth) pursues Dr. Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) from Asgard to Earth. Ultimately, it’s only half right. The other half of this sequel is that Foster ends up being possessed by the Aether (an all-out, evil force), a power that Thor must try to keep from the Dark Elf Malekith (Chris Eccleston). With Thor’s responsibilities now split between Earth and Asgard, will an alliance with his evil stepbrother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) be enough to defeat the evil?

The Dark World is considerably funnier than the original, potentially a turn from director Kenneth Branaugh’s initial foray into the universe of Marvel’s Thor. Kat Dennings, as Foster’s intern, is always funny, but Hemsworth proves capable of more than meathead swings of the hammer. There are plenty of those moments (even if Marvel goofs with the Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark moment being spoiled in the previews) that show off the action of the film, mixed in with the moody conversations about brotherhood, kingship, and responsibility between some combination of Odin (Anthony Hopkins), Thor, and Loki.

Frankly, Hiddleston steals every scene he’s in, proving that again, we’ve sought a desire to make the evil we face more complex, more intriguing, more “dark,” to someone provide a new nuance to the way that we perceive our heroes. While I like Hiddleston’s portrayal of Loki, as a man mixed up with his own lack of nobility, his own struggle with belonging, his envy of his brother, and his lust for power, I found Thor himself… boring.

The Man of Steel devolved into a smash-’em-up, but it still asked better, deeper questions than this film does. Sure, it’s more metaphysical and less gritty than MOS, but the space-travelling elements of the film make it rather cheesy at times (although not as bad as the Captain America: Winter Soldier promo that came before the film), with elements of cool mixed in. But Thor himself comes across as a man we’re supposed to see develop into a leader, and we don’t actually see any change. The main character is merely the foil to watch the cool scenery, see a self-sacrificial moment like the end of The Avengers, and show off his brawn. Frankly, I think Hemsworth is better than that.

For me, the best part of the movie was… the end. There were two cliffhangers, one tying into the Guardians of the Galaxy movie and one setting up Thor 3, which we assume is set for fall 2015, after CA2 and Avengers 2. The inclusion of one Benificio del Toro and someone I won’t spoil here was terrific. But the primary film could’ve been much stronger.

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