Banshee: Redemption The Hard Way (TV Review)

Posted on July 30, 2013 by Jacob Sahms

Disclaimer: This review is for a Cinemax original TV show and contains some grittier elements than more mainstream reviews, like excessive violence, nudity, and language. It won’t be for everyone.

Banshee tells the story of Lucas Hood (Antony Starr), the sheriff of a small town in Pennsylvania, who battles the local gangster, Kai Proctor (Ulrich Thomsen), various episodic threats, and his own past. Because Hood is not actually the law-abiding sheriff candidate but a recently-released ex-con and thief who has taken on the identity of that lawman in hopes of gaining back his former partner-in-crime, Ana (Ivana Milicevic), who has taken on her own new persona, that of the local district attorney’s wife and dependable realtor. But everyone’s shaky security is threatened as Hood and Ana’s boss, Rabbit (Ben Cross), begins to track them down, culminating in the epic confrontation of the first season’s final episode.

I haven’t devoured a show in a weekend like this since I first got my hands on the first season of Lost, and later fell for J.J. Abrams’ “other” hit, Alias. But I burned through the ten-episode first season quickly. There’s something about Starr and his fellow actors that is enticing, but it has more to do with the plot from Jonathon Tropper and David Schickler, as it’s executed by producer Alan Ball. There’s a blend of western (think High Plains Drifter meets Justified), crime drama (The Sopranos meets The Wire), and action (Cinemax’s Strike Back) that allows for plenty of dynamic scenes with well-imagined plot development as well, revolving around striking characters.

Hood (the one we know) is a violent man, one who went to prison for theft and refusing to sell-out his lover, but who emerges with a code of honor that’s sets him apart. He’s bound to defend those who can’t help themselves (which is pretty Micah 6:8), like he does in the epic episode, “Meet the New Boss.” [This has by far one of the most violent, incredibly staged MMA fights, as Hood battles a violent rapist who also happens to be the casino’s money ticket.) He refuses to back down, in the flashback scenes to his time in prison, or as the sheriff, to a renegade biker gang, to Proctor, or to Rabbit.

But as much as Hood is driven to re-engage with Ana, he sleeps with every woman in sight. Cinemax’s desire to be “steamy” seems to force feed sex into the show (and cause me to fast forward profusely) and detracts from the folks I can recommend the show to! Which is certainly unfortunate, given that Hood’s redemptive arc shows a sort of “working out of salvation” that more shows could stand to explore. In fact, the show’s last few episodes, when Hood is engaged in making hard decisions on behalf of others in need that threaten his safety and the persona he’s created. One of those decisions involves making a deal with the resident devil, Proctor.

Proctor is bad news, as he uses his meat butchering plant as a cover for his shady business endeavors involving the local Indian casino, selling drugs, and other evil enterprises. But he’s also a shunned Amish man with family in the community, who has respect for the old ways but apparently little interest in any higher power than himself. He looks after his boundary-pushing niece and still seeks to be loved by his brother and father, but his thirst for power has driven him out of his own home.

But Proctor is nothing compared to Rabbit. It’s pretty alarming to consider that this is Ben Cross, the same man who played Harold Abrahams in Chariots of Fire! But he plays the Hungarian mobster faultlessly, with a less is more approach, using his various means of inflicting pain in prison and in Banshee, rather than actually getting his own hands dirty. It’s one of the greatest differences between Rabbit and Hood: the first uses fear as a motivator from afar, while the second hopes to inspire respect and deals with problems head on.

Too often, I’ll wade through a highly regarded show and fail to see the point of the time I invested or the graphic levels to which its depicted. I’ve loved Game of Thrones (but I was already a fan of the novels), Strike Back (again, with a heavy finger on the fast forward button at times), Homeland, Deadwood, and The Wire, but I fail to see the appeal of Dexter, Weeds, True Blood, or House of Lies. I’m NOT watching for the sex, for the graphic violence, or the language, but I find the plot intriguing. I’d be remiss in reviewing this here, without pointing out that there are certainly drawbacks to watching the show but… aren’t we looking for art in television and movies where we watch people work out their redemption through hard work and struggle?

Seriously, the payoff in the season finale was worth it to me. If you don’t like even the slightest spoiler, stop reading: to watch the retired, stay-out-of-the-way criminal/boxer Sugar (Frank Faison), the cowardly hacker Job (Hoon Lee), the former lover who wants him dead to protect her secrets, and the various, real policemen who have a vested interest in Banshee all band together to fight for Hood’s life BECAUSE HE WOULD FIGHT FOR THEIRS. There’s literally a conversation in the final episode that ends with Brock (Mark Servitto, Sopranos), the cop who should’ve been the sheriff, realizing that he has to do something against his nature because of the example Hood has set. “No greater love has a man than this, but that he lay his life for his friends,” Jesus said in John 15:13, setting up an opportunity for heroics and for disciple-making, follower-making replication. Hood has in fact made disciples in a new style of leadership, of justice, and of community.

Banshee may be explicit, graphic, etc. but it’s got some points to make about how a man can change, find himself, and lead others to do the same. Call it a guilty pleasure; I’ll call it redemption, the hard way.

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FF Rant: I’m Not An Expert, But I Could Be (Fantasy Football)

Posted on July 29, 2013 by Jacob Sahms

The last few weeks have been a pop culture/NFL mash-up of epic proportions. Dennis Pitta and Percy Harvin have proven Shakira right: “Hips Don’t Lie.” Aaron Hernandez is trying out for Netflix’s Orange is the New Black. Tim Tebow is trying to prove some new mystical realm with “The Third Coming” as the Patriots’ backup backup tight end in a story sure to be directed by Martin Scorsese.  Aaron Rodgers is channeling 90210 and saying steroid head Ryan Braun lied to him and destroyed their friendship. Tony Romo said he WANTED to play in the Hall of Fame game to make up for the games he’ll keep the Cowboys from playing in January in, Kobayashi Maru-style. And fantasy football is less than a month away for most of us.

I’ll admit it: I love playing fantasy football. Maybe it’s the competition, or the camaraderie, or the fact that even a game between the N.Y. Jets and the Miami Dolphins on a meaningless Monday has importance. But here’s my mix of random observations as we head into another fantasy (er, NFL) season, from a “for fun” perspective, as well as some with a little bit more meaning.

A few of the fantasy points I find relevant to a draft, as I’ve been asked by a few people to share from my “wisdom” (i.e. obsession?), but I’ll leave the most technical stuff for this year’s draft until later.

About playing the game:

-Never draft a kicker before the last round, or for more than $1. This year’s sleeper for me? Randy Bullock, Houston Texans, who sat out last year with a ripped groin.

-Stick with your team, even when you’re not great. It’s not fair to the other people in your league who are playing well when you mail it in halfway through the season.

-You wouldn’t go to a job, or play a live game without preparing (at least stretching, right?) So don’t show up for the draft without having read a few experts’ thoughts, having talked out the season with a buddy (maybe not one you’re playing against), or having checked the latest reports on who is injured, retired, or in jail.

-Running backs still rule, even if it’s a passing league. But wideouts are climbing the ladder. There aren’t too many three-down backs anymore, but there aren’t too many wideouts who are “Revis-retardant.”

-You want to gain the advantage, but don’t offer trades that are insulting. There’s no better way to kill the league spirit, or to tick off a friend, than offering him two lame bench players for AP. (You know who you are.)

About life:

-A few people know that at one point, I had drafted fifty-plus teams, and yes, I managed them all the whole way through the season. That was several years ago (my parishioners can relax now), but it proves my first fantasy-as-life axiom: any good thing can be taken too the extreme and become a problem, or sin. Not only did my playing that many teams cause countless hours of sitting in front of the television, but it also begged the question: who could I have been spending the time with if I hadn’t been dropping backup TEs for a bye week defense? Too often, our “innocent” habits get in the way of our real relationships, with people and with God. Here’s looking at you Facebook, and Jewel Star, and …you know what yours is, don’t you?

-Anything can happen in life, a lot like fantasy. Tom Brady can roll his ankle with some help from a K.C. Chiefs lineman and ruin your season, or you can sleep through the draft and find out your buddies have bid up your auto draft picks. Life is like that: you think you have it all together, and then illness or layoffs or an act of nature, and suddenly our lives are in turmoil. In fantasy, like most sports, you can wait til next year. But what happens in life? Do you roll up and move on, recognizing a bigger purpose, or do you throw in the towel? (You can tell a lot about a person by how they manage their team when a main player goes down!) Don’t let the real moments in life pass you by; it’s fantasy heresy, but your kids’ birthdays, your wife’s attention, and your job are actually more important than your lineup.

-Everyone with any sense will tell you not to draft with your heart. It’s good advice. But at the end of the day, I’m not drafting any Baltimore Ravens or New York Yankees (baseball): I can’t stand to see those teams succeed and I don’t want them on my team. On the other hand, there’s nothing wrong with having A FEW players you’d like to see succeed, nice guys, people you know, etc. Just balance that with the previous thought: sometimes your heart won’t help your fantasy success but it will make it more fun.

-Life is a lot like a snake draft, but the kingdom of God is like an auction draft. In a snake, you take your place in line based on a predetermined (sometimes random) order and pick a player; in an auction, everyone has a shot at success because of the even team salaries. While life seems to find a way of force-feeding situations and we sometimes contribute to their negativity, God evens the ultimate playing field with the death and resurrection of Jesus. We’re all given a chance to be redeemed because “Christ died for us while we were yet sinners,” and all of us have sinned!

-Have fun*. Play with your friends. Don’t take life too seriously. I learned that one from fantasy. And my parents. And watching Sheldon Cooper on The Big Bang Theory. When you lose, and you WILL lose, refer to *. It’s going to happen. It’s about the only thing you can bank on. Which is also why you shouldn’t invest large sums of your disposable income that’s not really disposable on this (I didn’t learn that from FF… but I could have). [By the way, there are no * in fantasy football. Coulda, woulda, shoulda, you either win or you don’t. So make sure you have fun.]

Want a biased opinion about your draft, your lineup, or something else I’ve said? Leave a comment here, or tweet me @Spider_Raven. I’m not an expert, but I could be.

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The Wolverine: Blessed Or Cursed (Movie Review)

Posted on July 27, 2013 by Jacob Sahms

With strong Chris Claremont flair, The Wolverine returns us to the days when Logan (Hugh Jackman) was a ronin, a samurai without a master, in a tale set primarily in Japan. Of course, given the storyline acquired thanks to the previous X-Men movies, the film changes the chronology of things a bit, but still delivers a Wolverine tale that fans of the comics should find acceptable. Logan is faced with mortality, and in the process, finds love, justice, and purpose, in a story filled with action and rare mutant abilities.

The Wolverine isn’t great, but I appreciated the focus on hand-to-hand combat and a love story that Shakespeare would’ve loved. Called back to Japan after decades by a dying empire tycoon who owes Logan a blood debt, Logan finds himself balancing the pressures of the man’s son and granddaughter, Mariko (Tao Okamato). Logan is offered a chance to surrender his healing factor, giving the old man a new lease on life and discovering mortality for himself. But when the Yakuza kidnaps Mariko, Logan finds himself choosing to exert his powers as Wolverine, to defend her and to find himself.

There are a few visual tidbits that are extraordinary: the battle aboard the bullet train, the existence of Silver Samurai. But for the most part, it plays out the way you might expect. In fact, it seems to strongly resemble Clark Kent’s decisions in Superman II: do I give up my immortality to feel or do I recognize the responsibility I have because of my gifts?

The Wolverine tackles family issues, and more, but ultimately, it’s about purpose. If Logan is a soldier, then he’s constantly challenging, constantly seeking justice. Can a person really change and give up their calling, as the tycoon proposes?

Logan finds himself in a quandary at the beginning of the film, but by the end, he’s able to see his powers are a blessing, not a curse. His powers aren’t a blessing for him per se but a blessing so that he can be the savior, hero, and defender of those who cannot defend themselves. While he bears great weight for the death of Jean Grey, it’s ultimately self-pity that has driven him into isolation, and he recognizes that the world needs him.

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Sunday’s Sermon Today: A Different Kind of Leadership

Posted on July 25, 2013 by Jacob Sahms

For August 4, at Blandford UMC and The Stand. 

We live in troubling times. People hear about terrible things, and talk about how the world is going to hell in a hand basket. But the truth is that people have been worrying about the apocalyptic nature of their troubles for centuries. In fact, if we look back over the course of the Bible, we can see the historical wars waged, the challenges faced by God’s people, the horror that they faced from outside threats.

But in every Biblical vignette, a brave man or woman rose up to lead God’s people. In every situation, God found a way out for his people, regardless of what they were up against and what they had done to get there.

The book of Judges is full of those kinds of people. Full of godly men and women who stepped up, and stepped out on faith. And when we consider what they faced and how they chose to act, we may just learn something about ourselves and what God wants for us. (For the record, take a spin through Judges sometime, just to see some more of the interesting stories, like the story of Deborah and Jael.)

Years have passed since Moses led the people out of Egypt. A few more years, some good times, some bad times, and there are the Israelites “doing evil in the eyes of the Lord” again, worshipping foreign gods, and forgetting the God who had kept them safe before. So they were subjected to outside persecution by another group of people, the Midianites, who oppressed them, driving them into the mountains to hide in caves. The Midianites burned their crops, and killed anything Israelite they found, even the livestock.  And the Israelites called out to the Lord for help.

And the angel of the Lord came to a young man named Gideon who was threshing wheat in his wine press rather than out in the open, so that he could do it in secret. He hadn’t grown up with the beliefs of what it meant to be God’s holy people; he’d lived under the oppression of the Midianites. But the angel says, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.”

Gideon rolls through the stop sign of the angel’s compliment. No, he blows right past it to a startling accusation! “If the Lord is with us, why is this all happening to us?” Gideon asked. Gideon is NOT at all sold on this. He’s not doubting that it’s an angel, but he’s clearly skeptical of God’s overall good plan for his people. He’s only seen the pain and suffering of the recent past, and there’s no one to remind him of the overarching good that God has worked before.

Undeterred, the angel says, “go in strength and save the people, because God is sending you.”

Gideon channels his inner doubting Moses: “but I am the shortest, weakest guy from my very small family.” It’s like God showed up and told Gideon he could go and he said something like, “But I’m a Smurf, and not even the biggest one.”

The angel keeps trying: “I’ll be with you, and I’ll kill all of your enemies.”

Gideon’s response is to basically test God by challenging the angel to light an altar and the sacrifice on fire without any wood or flame. The angel complies and Gideon sees the first miracle of his illustrious conversation with God. So Gideon acknowledges that it’s the Lord who is talking to him, and the Lord starts sending him on missions, like a secret agent in training.

God tells Gideon to go and tear down two altars to idols, two altars set up to idols and to use these altars to burn a fire for God instead. Because he was afraid of his own family and the townspeople’s reaction, Gideon took ten of his servants and did it at night. The next day, it was all over the news, but stealthy Gideon… got caught. And the people wanted to drag him out into the street and kill him. But Gideon’s father shocked him by defending his son, and telling the people that if Baal really was a god, he could come out and defend himself.

So God sends Gideon to battle against the Midianites, and Gideon…. Demands another sign. He tells God that he’s going to put some fleece on the threshing floor overnight. If the fleece is wet from the dew but the ground is dry, then he’ll know what is supposed to happen.

So God did what Gideon asked. And Gideon said, “Don’t be angry… can we do that again? Make the fleece dry and the ground wet.”

And patient, grace-filled God did what Gideon asked. And finally, a few weeks after his call, Gideon went off to war. But God isn’t done with tests and challenges, even if Gideon is.

In Judges 7, God tells Gideon that he has too many men for the battle, because the Israelites will think that it was all their effort in routing the Midianites. God wants everyone to know that it was God who directed the battle, the God fought for his people Israel. So he puts Gideon up to thinning out his army.

First, he tells him to send anyone who is afraid home. And twenty-two thousand men leave. But God says the ten thousand who are left are too many.

So God tells Gideon to have the men drink from a stream. He tells Gideon to send home the men who drank on their knees, using a more cultured style to drink with cups or drinking without restraint.

So God announced to Gideon that he would take the three hundred men who were left to defeat the Midianites. He sends Gideon down the night before the battle to secretly listen to what the Midianites are saying, and he was awed by the number of men who were there to battle Israel.

But while he was there, he heard two Midianites discussing how the battle was already lost. And Gideon recognized that God was with him.

So Gideon divided the three hundred men into three groups, gave them trumpets and empty jars with torches inside, and led them to the edge of the camp. He instructed them to blow their trumpets, break open their jars to expose the lights, and shout, “For the Lord and for Gideon!”

When the trumpets blew, and the flames flared, the men of Midianite fell on each other in the confusion. Gideon’s men followed and pursued them, defeating their enemies thoroughly by the power of God’s promise and might.

So what can we take from this strange, twisted tale of God’s interaction with Gideon?

1- When we sin, there are consequences. When we repent, God hears us. Sometimes, we think that “sin” is just something that’s an annoyance, like God doesn’t really care. But the wonderfully awesome God of the universe can’t stand the impurity of our sins. God doesn’t walk away from us, but we walk away from God! Still, God’s love for us, God’s desire to be with us, is so great that God is yearning, hoping, eagerly awaiting our turning back to God. God is already ready to take us back before we’re ready to repent. God is forgiving us before we’re ready to admit that we’re wrong. That’s amazing grace.

2- God uses the weak, the marginalized, the cowardly for his glory. I love stories about broken people who get used by God for something great. Most of my superhero idols are broken: Batman and Superman are orphans; Aquaman is a rejected king; Daredevil is blind. But their weaknesses allow for their greatest strengths. And God uses Gideon in spite of his “smallness” of soul and size to show how great God was instead.

3- When God moves in a person’s life, others have to take notice like Gideon’s father. I know I’m a pastor and that some people think I have answers about life’s big questions. I know professionally people are looking to me, but I sometimes underplay that people who know me as just Jacob are looking at my life, too. Gideon’s dad didn’t set out looking for an example of faithful service to God, but when his son was bold in a situation he wasn’t, he could see what Gideon was accomplishing. He backed Gideon up, maybe even because Gideon was who he wanted to be.

4- There are right times and wrong times to challenge God.  I think sometimes we think we can’t challenge God. We can’t ask hard questions in prayer or in Biblical discussions because we might make God mad. But the truth is that there are references to people throughout the Bible who took it straight to God with their hurts, their challenges, their doubts. It reminds me of the movie The Apostle where Robert Duvall is in his room screaming out the questions he has about God. Duvall’s character is a preacher but he’s lost sight of his message, and it’s through sharing what he really feels that he reconnects with what God wants for him.

5- God wants it to be clear that God is in control. Not us, and not our problems. Too often, we try to micromanage. We make lists, we set our five-year plans, we save funds for rainy days and make God the permissive power rather than the director of our lives. But for Gideon, it’s God who does the heavy lifting, who does the liberating. It’s God who frees his people, using Gideon. But it’s clear that it’s God who allows Gideon to be part of the process.

6- Victories in our lives don’t always go textbook. They’re never pretty, but they often prove to be amazing. Growing up, I had a habit of not “playing” until I had all of the figures just right. Sometimes, I would set up until it was time to clean up, never having really played with my toys. I wanted everything to be just perfect. But playing with Star Wars figures and overcoming obstacles rarely work out the way we think they will. Often, our help comes from people we don’t really want to owe, at times we have just about given up, and arrive without fanfare. God moves in mysterious ways.

Sure, we live in strange, troubling times. We live in a world where our beliefs, our values, our relationships are constantly being challenged. But regardless of what cave your comfort and security have been driven to, the great God of the universe still calls, on the weak, the cowardly, the small. God calls with the strength of the highest power, and the patience to handle our questions. God calls, so that people may be free, so that nations may be liberated, so that the world may know: our God reigns.

There is hope in that: God reigns. God holds the world in his hands. God has a plan for you and me, and it is a good plan, for our joy and wellbeing. Thanks be to God who loves us forever, and refuses to let us go. Amen.

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Pacific Rim: Transformers vs. Godzilla (Movie Review)

Posted on July 24, 2013 by Jacob Sahms

A friend of mine (who I used to frequent movies with) asked me the other night what I thought of Pacific Rim: would I go? Was I avoiding it? Could it be better than the cheesy trailer? I said I didn’t know, but that in the interest of reconnecting, we agreed to check out Guillermo Del Toro’s latest fantasy about gigantic robot/soldiers who battle monsters from another galaxy. And I must admit it: I had fun.

Starring Sons of Anarchy’s Charlie Hunnam as disgraced (and emotionally battered) Jaeger pilot Raleigh Becket, and Idris Elba as his tough-as-nails commander Stacker Pentecost. These two squabble, struggle, and ultimately team up to take on Del Toro’s biggest creations to date (of course, the sport the “typical” Del Toro monster look). Becket’s emotional drive is the death of his brother five years earlier; Pentecost’s is the love he has for his assistant and potential Jaeger pilot, Mako Mori (Rinko Kichuki). Together, Becket and Mori will team as the two “drifted” pilots in the Gipsy Danger, an older Jaeger robot fighter, to battle these giant monsters from beyond.

I’m not sure you need much more plot to go on here. It’s pretty straightforward. The monsters from another dimension want to destroy all of humanity, and the jaegers are dispatched to defeat the monsters and, if possible, stop more monsters from coming through “the breach” (a hole between the two worlds). In a typical comic aside, Charlie Day (as a fellow Portsmouth Abbey School grad, I’m proud of him!) plays a scientist who thinks humanity can be better prepared by “drifting” into the mind of one of the beasts. When he encounters Ron Perlman’s black market dealer, we have a Hellboy reunion with Del Toro.

A few points stood out above the popcorn fray, because let’s face it, the movie is mostly about having a bot-battling good time! First, we see that there are definitely family issues here, that won’t be resolved until people face them. Mori has to figure out where she stands with her dead parents, her adoptive father, and her desire for revenge; Becket can’t quite let go of his brother thanks to the drift, and seems to have some PTSD; another father/son combo of Jaeger pilots have to resolve that they’ve never actually told the other one how they feel.

Second, we hear some fleeting theology in an exchange between Day and Perlman’s characters. The black market dealer tells the scientist that he believes in the power of the alien parts on the black market, but the Japanese believe that the monsters are the gods way of punishing them. I’ve written too often on theodicy to belabor the point here, but it’s sad anytime we have to find a reason for why bad stuff happens and we assume that we’re at the mercy of an unforgiving, wrathful god. That’s not how I believe Yahweh God works.

Third, the pilots “drift” into each others’ consciousness, and their unity provide a balance for the control of the jaegers. It’s an image of marriage where two become one, and allow the other to be made more complete (even though there is the possibility for some pilots to drive solo). But it’s also an image of the church, where the body of Christ is complete by acknowledging that we don’t have all of the same tools or gifts, and that united together we are stronger.

Fourth, and finally, we see some of the jaeger pilots go into the breach. They must destroy the breach to keep more death, more suffering, more monsters out of humanity’s worst nightmares from coming to the world to own it, demolish it, and terrorize it. I think that’s a fantastic vision for the work that Jesus Christ did on the cross by dying for our sins. Jesus “went into the breach,” filling a hole we couldn’t fill by paying a sacrifice we couldn’t provide. There is still suffering in this world, but we know in the fully realized kingdom of God that all death, despair, sin, and suffering has been cast out. No more monsters will get through when God finally closes the door, and ushers us into the kingdom of God. That’s good news, and it can provide us some measure of hope as we work to end suffering HERE and NOW.

Pacific Rim isn’t great, but it’s entertaining and powerful. The fights are excellent (even if the science is sketchy), and anyone who grew up with Transformers or Voltron or Godzilla should have a blast.

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What I Watch (So You Don’t Have To) (Movie Review)

Posted on July 20, 2013 by Jacob Sahms

I often get asked what “else” there is to watch. You know, when people have rented The Avengers and Jack Reacher, and they want something lesser known to check out. So, I’ve compiled a list of the movies I’ve watched in the last six months that you may or may not have heard of and whether or not you actually need to watch them. They more than likely didn’t get the full review treatment, but they’ll give you a gauge of what isn’t making the cut.

Surprisingly Mediocre Or Surprisingly Funny: 21 & Over, Admission, Identity Thief, Guilt Trip, Red Dawn, This Is 40, Here Comes The Boom, Hotel Transylvania

Well, Okay, If You’re That Bored…But Really, Isn’t There Some Cleaning To Do?: The Call, Stand Up Guys, Numbers Station, Down To The Shore, Playing For Keeps, Deadfall, Perks of Being A Wallflower, The Master, Dredd, Cold Light of Day

Forgettaboutit: The Rambler, John Dies At The End, Pawn, Killing Them Softly, Cloud Atlas, Tomorrow You’re Gone, The Package, Fun Size

Please Don’t (Or, How Did This Get Made?): Movie 43

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Turbo: What’s Your Calling (Movie Review)

Posted on July 19, 2013 by Jacob Sahms

Dreamworks has been regularly releasing some excellent animated films lately (Kung Fu Panda, Madagascar, Rio, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, How To Train Your Dragon), providing some competition for the Walt Disney stronghold. Turbo is the latest from the Paramount studio, with the tale of a garden snail named Theo (Ryan Reynolds) who dreams of speeding around the Indianapolis 500 track like his idol, the human driver, Guy Gagne (Bill Hader). Gagne’s tagline is that “no dream is too big and no dreamer is too small,” and Theo thinks that mantra is just what he needs!

Like any coming-of-age stories, there are hiccups in Theo’s transformation into Turbo. First, there’s the fact that he’s a snail, but we spend most of the film suspending our belief there. From the direction the story takes, it’s more important that Theo’s brother, Chet (Paul Giamatti), thinks it’s too dangerous and outrageous for Turbo to make it, establishing the typical familial pressure we’ve seen in other stories, but also tying in the family dynamic we might say is true to our human families. But in a series of accidental events, Theo and Chet end up in the snail-racing hands of Tito (Michael Pena), who is also doubted for his mega-dreams by his brother (Luis Guzman).

Parents won’t be surprised that this film climaxes in Indianapolis, but kids will enjoy the hijinks of the pairs of brothers, and the other snails that Theo meets. They’re voiced by a diverse group (Samuel L. Jackson, Maya Rudolph, Snoop Dogg) and owned by another diverse group (Richard Jenkins, Ken Jeong, Michelle Rodriguez). The film’s diversity lets it express itself, even as we see that Theo/Turbo is learning to diversify from a group of worker bee snails who only live for their conquest of the tomato plants.

The film didn’t blow me away but it wasn’t terrible either. The animation is sweet, almost to the point of defying your expectation of what’s fake and what’s real. Fans of NASCAR will love this, and in a world where’s there’s a Fast & Furious 6, there’s room for another car movie! There are family and community dynamics that allow us to see a parable about how we work within our own familial contest, and ask us to consider if we’re being held back by others and if we’re being supportive of their dreams. The truth is that Theo needs the nitro to get to where he’s supposed to be, but he’s been called to that speed all along.

I’m aware in my own experience that my “calling” to a life in ministry as a pastor has been met with support, derision, incredulousness, and roadblocks. But I’ve known that God called me, even when sometimes I wished I could do something else! Like Moses at the burning bush, we have our excuses and people present other “realities” for why we shouldn’t listen to what God is calling us to. In the end, we were made to worship God and to pursue the things he put on our hearts, and anything less would be a waste of time. We might not have a “need for speed” but when we recognize God’s call in our lives, it would be foolish to ignore it.

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What’s On? Summer Television

Posted on July 18, 2013 by Jacob Sahms

I’ll admit it: I watch a lot of television. I regularly watch the premieres of fifteen to twenty new television shows each fall, and sometimes hit a dozen premieres for the summer. This summer, I haven’t quite hit that yet, but these four have me on my way with their fill of broken heroes.

Graceland (USA, Thursdays): Rookie FBI agent Mike Warren (Aaron Tveit) is assigned to the safe house run by Paul Briggs (Daniel Sunjata), and inhabited by some cross-departmental spooks who are all undercover with different criminal organizations around the region. Warren proves himself worthy of ascending quickly in Bello’s (Gbenga Akinnagbe, The Wire) criminal organization, but he discovers that FBI sources want him to investigate suspected criminal behavior by Briggs as well. He’s immeshed in the life of the house, Graceland; he’s trying to date a woman who’s clueless to what he really does; he’s trying to stay out of Briggs’ way but struggling with his loyalty to the man. It all boils and brews in a serialized story that spills out onto the beach and the seedier sides of southern California.

Crossing Lines (NBC, Sundays): Edward Bernero has helped spin Third Watch and Criminal Minds into American success stories, but now he turns his eyes toward international serial killers with a globe-trotting band of crimestoppers. Detective Major Daniel (Mark Lavoine) is the head of the team, but William Fichtner’s former NYPD detective Carl Hickman is the one we’re tuning in for (if it’s not Donald Sutherland as the ICC’s Michel Dorne). It certainly doesn’t help that a main part of the team dies quickly like a warning shot, so we figure no one is safe except Fichtner. Hickman stopped saved a girl from a serial killer years ago, but in the process, lost the use of a hand (a mark of the struggle) and his job. Now, he’s addicted to pain meds and trying to capture the one who got away. Each week has an episodic villain, but we all want to see what happens to the man in the trailer at the carnival…

Camp (USA, Wednesdays): Headed by Mackenzie Granger (Rachel Griffiths), Little Otter Family Camp is trying to make it in the big, bad summer world against the evil, rich forces of Ridgefield and its director, Roger Shepherd (Rodger Corser), who she may or may not have a thing for. Granger is going through a breakup (maybe?) with her husband (Jonathan LaPaglia), and struggling to watch over her son (Charles Grounds). But the most interesting part of the show so far revolves around Kip (Thom Green), a leukemia-recovering teen who arrives thinking there’s nothing to live for and begins realizing he’s got plenty of room to grow. It’s rather uplifting, certainly funny, and has serious potential in the “coming of age” laden ground of summer camp.

King & Maxwell (TNT, Mondays): The powers that be hope that this will provide the kind of partnership with Major Crimes that will keep people watching. It helps that The Closer’s Jon Tenney is King, and Rebecca Romijn is Maxwell, based on bestseller David Baldacci’s bestsellers about the disgraced Secret Service agents. They’re two witty cards, solving cases the FBI’s dour Agent Rigby (Michael O’Keefe) won’t or can’t, and aided by the Ausberger-like Edgar Roy (Ryan Hurst), who provides intel and more levity. Baldacci’s crew is definitely fleshed out by NCIS’s head man, Shane Brennan, and viewers can expect that the overall mystery behind King’s shame will be solved by the end of the season.

Shows I’ve already pulled the plug on: Siberia, In the Flesh, Motive, The Goodwin Games, Whodunnit?

Shows I haven’t seen enough of or aren’t out yet: Low Winter Sun, The Bridge, Broadchurch, and Under the Dome. Tune back in later and I’ll revisit them.

Yes, I’m still watching Suits, The Killing, Major Crimes, Copper, Hell on Wheels, Longmire, and, begrudgingly, Rookie Blue and The Glades.

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Sunday’s Sermon Today: A Fish Story

Posted on July 17, 2013 by Jacob Sahms

This sermon has two endings, and it’s up to you which one you need the most to hear today. Consider it a “choose your own adventure”…. If you’ll be around the Stand UMC on July 21 at 9 a.m. in Colonial Heights or near Blandford UMC at 11 a.m. you should just come out to worship!

My favorite fish story of all time isn’t about a fish I caught (seriously, I have the worst luck with what one friend calls “hunting in the dark”) but rather about a movie about a father and a son. In the film, Big Fish, a father named Edward has always been distant and removed from his son William, except for the fantastic stories he told, like the narrative of The Princess Bride or more recently, The Lone Ranger. But young Will grows older, never knowing the difference between his father’s reality and fantasy, unsure what stories are true. In the moments that Edward passes away, he’s transformed into a big fish, and Will recognizes that in every tale there’s truth, whether it’s buried deep or right at your fingertips. He sees that his father was the big fish all along, and to pass on the truth of his father’s life is to pass on the fish stories to his children.

For me, it doesn’t really matter whether you hear the words of the Lord to Jonah as wisdom literature in poetic license or as an actual tale about an unfaithful prophet who was a historical person. God’s lessons about repentance and reclamation still provide hope in the world we have inherited today, even if we can’t wrap our minds around a “great fish” that swallowed Jonah, and kept him alive for three days. Unlike some of the other stories in the Bible about people who were convinced by a kind word, a good sermon, a wonderful healing, or some other miracle, God uses the biggest fish story you’ve ever heard to teach Jonah about what God really cares about. And in the process, it asks us to unpack how we perceive our own relationship with God, and God’s relationship to others.

Jonah’s mission from God is clear from the very beginning: “go to Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness is offensive to me.” What is less clear is why Jonah runs, why he thought that he could “flee the Lord” by boat. Surely Jonah recognized that the God of Abraham, the God of Jacob, the God of Moses wasn’t limited by space or time or location, didn’t he? Surely, he knew that God wasn’t just “here,” but not “there?” Somehow, Jonah projects his own limitations on God, and thinks he can actually “get away.” So, God uses a violent storm to stop the merchants’ boat that Jonah has stowed away on, right where it is, and finally sends a “huge fish” to swallow Jonah, where he exists, suffers, and reflects for three long days and nights.

The words of Jonah 2 tell the prayer that Jonah prays in great distress, from the perspective of Jonah after the fact.  “In my distress I called to the Lord,
and he answered me.
From deep in the realm of the dead I called for help,
and you listened to my cry.” Using words that combine the images of a violent storm (again), and that of a drowning, Jonah implies that he was near death, and realized there was still a chance to call out to God and be saved. He prayed, “I, with shouts of grateful praise, will sacrifice to you.
What I have vowed I will make good.
I will say, ‘Salvation comes from the Lord.'” Jonah has repented of his own disobedience, and promised to follow-through with the mission God initially sent him on: to go to Nineveh.

So God allowed him to be vomited onto dry land. He had prayed the sinner’s prayer, he’d said the right words, and even meant them, and God had delivered him. All’s well that end’s well, right?

Well, what if Jonah’s trip to Nineveh is the right way (direction) but the wrong way (style and purpose)? Have you ever done the right thing but for the wrong reasons? Maybe you apologized because you thought you “should” but you didn’t really grasp what you did wrong. Maybe you showed up in church because someone forced you to rather than coming because you wanted to know who holy God was. Maybe you worked on doing good because it felt right but not because you saw the example of Jesus and wanted to respond. We’re faced with doing the right and wrong thing all the time, but sometimes we end up “in the grey.”

Let me tell you: there is no grey in our understanding of Nineveh. It is ALL black. If Vegas is tagged with “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,” then Nineveh is “what happens in Nineveh is too terrible to tell.” Every kind of illicit activity, perverse behavior, soulless actions and selfish desires happens there. But for Jonah, it’s not just the activities, it’s that the people there the group of people he finds the most repugnant from an ideological, religious, political point of view. Nineveh is all about  destructive pleasure and absolutely repugnant to the prophet who is supposed to be a person of God who is called to bear the news.

Still, Jonah went. He spent the first day there preaching that in forty days, Nineveh would be overthrown. He doesn’t get real descriptive. He doesn’t say what exactly will happen, just ties what’s about to happen to God’s judgment of their behavior. He doesn’t even make it past a third of the city but soon, the whole city is aflame with a desire to repent, to turn away from their destructive behaviors. Even the king, who we’re to understand is the worst of the lot in terms of murder, and pleasure-seeking evil, orders everyone to “call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.”

Call urgently on God. Remember who did that just a few chapters ago? Yeah, Jonah. Jonah in the belly of the great fish. Jonah who was repenting just a minute ago. And here’s a whole city, a revival, calling out to God for mercy and rejecting their evil, selfish ways.

And God saw that they repented and chose not to bring judgment on them. God saw that a group of genuinely sinful and misguided people were actually convinced to turn from their behavior to embrace God. That repentance happened for individuals and for the community.

That’s reason for a wild, rip-roaring celebration, right? Everyone will be proclaiming the victory of the good news and the souls that were saved!… Everyone except for Jonah, that is.

Jonah 4:1 says, “to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry.” Jonah’s understanding of knowledge of God is bipolar! He says that he knows God is gracious and compassionate, but he thinks that it was a waste of time to have sent him to Nineveh. Jonah is happy that God would accept his repentance, but he doesn’t expect that God would actually accept those people over there. They’re too bad, too rotten, too unlike him to ever be included in the same group, aren’t they?

With a bit of a pout, he throws himself down on a blanket outside the city under a shelter, and sits back to see what God will do. So God gave him object lesson number two: he grew a plant to give Jonah shade one day and sent a worm to chew it up the next. Again, God asks, is it right of you to be angry? And again, Jonah says that he’s so angry at God’s compassion that he wishes he were dead. Jonah is so upset with God’s grace that he literally wishes he wouldn’t exist! Rather than celebrating his role in the victory of God’s kingdom, he would rather not exist!

Poor Jonah, he still just doesn’t get it. But hopefully, we will get it. We have to if we’re going to succeed in this life and the next, if we’re going to grasp joy and understand what God’s kingdom is truly about.

(Ending #1)

There’s a fun story about the theologian Karl Barth stories where he was riding a street car in his home city of Basel, Switzerland. He took a seat next to a tourist, and the two men started chatting with one another.

“Are you new to the city?” Barth inquired.

“Yes,” said the tourist.

“Is there anything you would particularly like to see in the city?” asked Barth.

“Yes,” said the tourist, “I would like to meet the famous Swiss theologian, Karl Barth,” was the reply. “Do you know him?”

Barth answered, “As a matter of fact, I do know him. I give him a shave every morning.”

The tourist got off the street car at the next stop, quite delighted with himself. He went back to his hotel and told everyone, “I met Karl Barth’s barber today.”

We sit next to Christ all the time, and yet fail to see that it is really Jesus himself.

Let’s make sure that we don’t miss the lessons hidden in the belly of this fish story.

Consider the repentance of Jonah, from the foxhole of the fish to the desert extremities of Nineveh. Jonah absolutely has moments where he can see God’s grace and mercy, and he wants to be part of it. He rejects his old ways, literally turns in direction, and heads the right way. But his attitude, cultured in the fox hole of the belly of the whale isn’t actually different. He’s still the rebellious, angry, me-centered Jonah he was before. Jonah is in fact a lot like me.

Do you have any bad habits? Things you promise you won’t do again, because you know they’re bad for you? “I’m going to exercise, I’m not staying up too late, I’m going to be more positive.” Oops, those are all things I’ve tried to be better at. Some days I succeed, some days I don’t. It’s a whirling dervish, a wave line of my life’s turning away from things I shouldn’t for awhile, and then cycling back into them when stress, boredom, hunger (!), or whatever, pulls me back in.

My faith can be like that, too. Some days I’ve got it; I’m on fire, focused, prayed up, and ready to conquer my demons, my obstacles, and my foes in Jesus’ name. I’m locked in, on target, and aimed right where I’m supposed to be. And then sometimes it feels like the smallest pebble can send me off course. I don’t usually have all the wheels fall off right away, but a couple of bumps later, and I’ve forgotten the change in attitude I set out with.

Maybe you know what I mean. You are reading the Bible, praying, seeing life like a challenge, not a problem. Then a bad night’s sleep or two, the extra assignment at work, the squabbling with your spouse or your children (or both!), and suddenly, the thing that you’ve been holding off, some addiction or problem, and suddenly you’re in the belly of the whale again.

The good news is that God doesn’t give up on us. Whether it’s a burning bush, a great fish, or the death of Jesus on the cross, God is forever communicating his love and mercy to us. Too often, we get stuck, stuck where we’ve been, stuck in who we think we have to be, unable to walk away from our own self-inflicted evil, and think that God must’ve given up on us the way that we’ve given up on ourselves.

The truth is, shame is part of the human condition! But the greater truth is that Jesus died on the cross so that we would be forgiven of our sin, to leave our sin behind, so that our lives with God would be better RIGHT NOW. The sooner we kick all of our baggage to the curb, the better off we’ll be. There is no reason to wait, to test God’s mercy and grace any longer. Instead we should claim the promises of God’s love like the Ninevites did and truly repent.

Hear the good news today: “Christ died for us while we were yet sinners; that proves God’s love for us” (Romans 5:8). Imagine the story you’d have to tell if you believed that.

A great big giant fish story, about how God’s grace saved a sinner. Even one like you.

(Ending #2)

For Jonah, it’s his pride, because it hinders his ability to embrace the repentance of the people of Nineveh, and the nature of Jonah’s faith. It is too often the way that people of faith interact with each other and their world. Jonah doesn’t believe that the Ninevites are really repented because HE’S not really repented. He figures they’ll just fall back into it and God will send him back to preach the message. The grace God has shown him along the way isn’t grace he’s acquired to show to others. And secretly, in his black pruny heart, he also wants the satisfaction of watching the city burn, like the ability to see the tragedy is something that would actually entertain him. When it doesn’t work out the way he wants it to, he’s disappointed, like he actually knew better than God what should happen in the situation.

Jonah’s problem is one that we all face. It takes WWJD, “what would Jesus do,” and warps it into something terrible and problematic. See, the phrase is “what would Jesus do if he were me?” It’s not “what would I do if I were Jesus?” It’s not a clean slate to have all the powers of the God of the universe but to recognize that if Jesus was living your life WITH WHAT YOU’VE GOT and trying to live that out as best you can.

Jonah doesn’t get to play God, even though that’s what he hoped for. He doesn’t even get to play at being a follower of God for more than a few hours before he’s off doing his own thing again. Jonah doesn’t recognize that he can’t reach the end of God’s grace and mercy: it’s overflowing, excessive, ridiculous.

But the good news here is that God keeps coming, by voice in the night, by stormy sea, by great fish. And he keeps calling us back to him, over and over and over again.

If I could write an epilogue to this story, I’d start by recognizing that Jonah’s prayer in the fish is recorded here, and no one knows what he said except for God. So if it’s recorded for us, work with me here even you non-literal readers (hey, I’m one of them!), then the reference to what happened in the past is because Jonah lived to tell about it.

Not in the belly of the fish. Not in some hovel outside of Nineveh.

Jonah returned from the what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas of the Middle East circa 1500 B.C. and told his tale to his friends, to his children, and passed it down.

And you don’t tell that story, painting yourself that way, if you don’t get IT.

I think Jonah gets it. I pray for his soul that he does! Because if Jonah can get it, the man who God wanted to use so badly that he sent a storm, and a great fish, and a plant, and a worm, and a whole city of converts, kept messing up, and God didn’t give up on, then guess what?

God hasn’t given up on us. Even when we’ve sinned, and repented, and sinned, and repented, over and over and over again.

God doesn’t give up on us. Even with all the stuff we know we’ve done, and wanted to do, and maybe still will do.

But when God forgives us it’s for us, and it’s so we can forgive others. It’s not a closed circuit, but a turning on of the faucet, so that God’s grace would flow into us, and overflow, and cover others, too.

If we’re really in God and of God, it’s time we forgive ourselves, and each other. It’s time we forgive and pray for others, whether it’s Paula Dean, or George Zimmerman, or De’Marquise Elkins.

Imagine the story you’d have to tell if you believed that. Imagine how game-changing, life-changing, community-changing a story you’d have to tell, that would seem spectacularly irregular.

A great big giant fish story, about how God’s grace saved a sinner. Even one like you.

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Orphan Black: Who Are You? (TV Review)

Posted on July 16, 2013 by Jacob Sahms

BBC America’s Orphan Black delivers some shockingly good moments in its first ten-episode season. Starring Tatiana Maslany as streetwise hustler Sarah, and a number of other clones, the show begins with the startling suicide-by-train of one of the clones, Detective Beth Childs, right in front of Sarah. Sarah slides into her persona, seeking out enough money to flee her current life, and finds herself engrossed in a mystery of conspiracy and identity.

I’ll admit it: I didn’t make it through the first episode on my first run through on live television. But the second time around, I charged through and found myself intrigued by the family dynamics of Sarah, her gay brother (Jordan Gavaris), her foster mother (Maria Doyle Kennedy), and Sarah’s estranged child (Skyler Wexler). Sure, there’s a global conspiracy about cloning people going on here, and it’s all the more mystifying in its timelessness (when is this??) “The family who fights together stays together” could be the mantra, but the way that they rally together to unravel the puzzle or drag Sarah deeper provides for some interesting drama.

Don’t think it’s all talky drama though. You’ve got the conspiracy about the clones that has us guessing about why they’re living among us, what their purpose is, why it’s a secret, and who’s killing off the clones. You’ve got the investigation of Beth’s shooting by Internal Affairs, and the subsequent struggle for money (by Sarah) with her partner on the police force (Kevin Hanchard). And you’ve got the balancing act Sarah has to pull as she plays Beth and tries to determine who she was/is in the first place.

Orphan Black plays out like a Philip K. Dick story that’s been transported to the small screen by Paul Greengrass. In high definition, it’s darkly beautiful. But it’s all about the struggle, isn’t it? Who is Beth, or who are any of them? Who created them and why? Aren’t those the questions that we all ask ourselves? Who am I, why am I here, what is my purpose? Thankfully, I can cross of one of them from my Judeo-Christian background: God created me. And from that point forward, I can answer: I am a child of God who was created to love God and love others. I can answer the rest of the questions because I know the answer to “who made me?” Even the answer I could say from an earthly standpoint, that I was created by my parents because they loved each other and wanted to show love to another, isn’t something Beth can answer. She’s rudderless.

When it’s finally announced that an unearthed, dead clone was “just one of a few, unfit for family,” we can see that the family dynamics of Sarah’s adoptive family and that of her creator(s) will be important to the soul searching that will follow. This is science fiction at its finest, uncovering experiences of human existence and playing them through a fantastic lens, then rolling them back for us to recognize that this is just as much about us as it is about entertainment.

Orphan Black gives us the opportunity to examine those questions for ourselves, before Beth gets to them. But even after the show credits roll on the first season, we’re left asking, “where do we stand, and why are we here?” We could spend the rest of our lives searching to complete those answers.

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