Friends
Peace be with you.
This past Monday I had an opportunity to go see the first three episodes of Season Four of The Chosen at the movie theater. Some of you had the opportunity to reflect on this program last summer through Season Three. I joined you for a couple of showings and found the conversation to be rather stimulating and thought provoking. The filmmakers do their best to show an unfiltered portrayal of what happens in scripture with some “fill” and interpretation to clarify what happens. The challenge always comes when we, christians, disagree with each other as to the meaning of something. For instance, I’m wondering how they’re going to handle the Last Supper. Will they make Jesus sort of wink at the camera when he says “This is my body/this is my blood” or will they simply allow it to be what it is? Will they overly emphasize “Do this in memory of me” as though Jesus was saying that the bread and wine are just to be used as a kind of figurative way of calling to mind Jesus’ death on the cross? Will I read too deeply into every vocal inflection and camera angle trying to determine what they are trying to say? (The answer to the last question is almost certainly yes, by the way.)
What is, in some ways, encouraging is having something whereby Catholics and Evangelicals can set aside those labels and just be sons and daughters of God with our brother Jesus and each other. We have something that is reminding us that being Christian is the most important thing of our faith. I fundamentally disagree with Joel Osteen’s interpretation of the gospel but I was horrified when I heard about the shooting that took place at his church last weekend, just like I would hope he and his followers would be horrified at the vandalism of Catholic Churches that have happened in California and New York.
Our world and our country is increasingly becoming more secular. This not only means that the world is becoming more selfish but people’s concept of the value of human life is also decreasing. John Paul the Great warned over and over again, but especially in his encyclical The Gospel of Life, that if we cannot agree that life innately has dignity, then our ideologies will rule and we will be able to justify unspeakable acts toward our fellow human beings. When Christians can work together despite our differences to build up the kingdom, we stand in unity to show that we can value the dignity of the other even as we disagree with each other. We show what true Christian love should look like.