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Ravi Zacharias Revisited; WandaVision; The Bachelor

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your sunday drive christian podcast

The fallout continues after Ravi Zacharias’ sexual abuse is confirmed. In a new episode of the Your Sunday Drive podcast, we talk about the related issues, trying to come up with some hopeful takeaways for how we can heal and do better in the future.

We also take a few minutes to look at our current pop culture favorites, including WandaVision and The Bachelor, noting not to neglect pop culture’s role as a primary way people interact with philosophical and social issues.

Come along for Your Sunday Drive – quick conversation about current events, politics, pop culture and more, from the perspective of a couple of guys trying to follow Jesus.

Hosts: Matt Hill and Nate Polzin. Presented by the Church in Drive of Saginaw, MI, as often as possible. Please visit churchindrive.com and facebook.com/thechurchindrive

The Holy Fool of ABC’s The Middle (or: What Would Sue Heck Do?)

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not sure if you watch
ABC’s The Middle;
if not, you might consider it

it’s just a family sitcom,
but a pretty good one,
especially if you
watch with your kids,
which is how we do it
and how it’s intended, i’d say

it’s in its 9th (and final) season,
so i’ve been thinking
a bit about it,
especially about how
there’s something
particularly significant
about the character of
Sue Heck

over the years,
Sue became my
hands-down fave on the show;
compared to the
frazzled downtroddenness
of Frankie,
or the
practical indifference
of Mike,
or the
charmed nonchalance
of Axl,
or the
odd aloofness
of Brick,
there’s something
unique/
special/
different
about Sue

she’s…
romantic;
quixotic;
a true believer
when it comes to life

where others frown,
she smiles;
where they dismay,
she hopes;
where they doubt,
she trusts;
where they lay fallen,
she gets back up

i mean, seriously:

of course,
this type of
(supposedly)
overnaive/
overgullible/
overhopeful/
overidealistic/
character is oft made
the butt of the joke
by other characters,
and this holds
true for Sue, too

“that Sue,”
we laugh with them,
“always failing,
but never giving up –
she’ll just never get it!

what a fool!”

but that’s just it:
she’s not a fool;
she’s so much not a fool
that, truly understood,
the other characters –
characters not like her,
people not like her –
perhaps need to
consider for themselves
where that moniker might
truly fit best

Sue Heck is,
actually, truly, what’s called
a holy fool:
in the words of a
Russian hymn,
someone whose
“imaginary insanity
[reveals] the insanity of the world”

( i want to say so much more
about holy fools rn –
about Jesus Christ himself,
about Paul (who called himself
“a fool for Christ”),
about the Hebrew prophets,
about the myriad incarnations
of holy fools in art
(Don Quixote, Prince Myshkin,
Solaire of Astora from Dark Souls) –
but time is short;
if you’re interested, Google a bit;
also, check out this great piece:
“The Holy Fool” by theburkean )

in other words,
though her
perpetual smile
seems foolish,
it really only
shows us to be foolish
for smiling less

though her
unstoppable optimism
seems foolish,
it actually shines light
on our too-easy
doubting and despairing

though we want to say
“just stay down,
just give up,”
the fact that
Sue doesn’t
only makes us the fools
for saying so
in the first place

in biblical language,
we might say
Sue’s foolishness
exemplifies love,
for surely she
“bears all things,
believes all things,
hopes all things,
endures all things;”
and, surely,
living like this can seem
pretty silly,
pretty out of place –
pretty foolish –
in the warp and woof
of the day to day
of this world

but, we’re saying:
that doesn’t mean
that it actually is 

in fact,
we’re saying:
it may be
actually the opposite

and,
indeed,
doesn’t this all
seem to fall
pretty well in line
with the God who
goes down a “failure,”
the God who dies “like a fool,”
scoffers and mockers afoot,
but then gets back up
and comes back to life –
because of love –
despite the “insanity,”
despite the ridiculousness,
despite the foolishness 
of the story?

🙂

 

TV Screened: The Muppets (1:1)- It’s Not Easy Being ‘Human’

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muppets-tv-show-abc-2015-trailer

ABC’s new comedy, The Muppets, premiered this week. The show is a mix of nostalgia, bringing to mind The Muppet Show (1976-1981), and a modern day drama. Using a page out of the writer’s room of Modern Family or Parks and Recreation, The Muppets follows the crew of a late night television show, Up Late with Miss Piggy, in a mockumentary.

Just as in all the other Muppet related television shows and films, the Muppet characters are treated just as human as the humans. In the first episode, Fozzie goes to dinner to meet his human girlfriend’s human family. The Muppets come complete with their own set of human emotions and human drama.

Perhaps too human for some viewers. According to the family values group, One Million Moms, and other evangelical leaders, The Muppets “will cover a range of topics from sex to drugs.” You read between the lines correctly. The group, who is advocating that viewers boycott the show, was doing so without actually watching the show. The predictions about what the show would be like were all based on the marketing they have seen, saying on their website, “It appears that no subject is off limits.”

The group goes so far to suggest that the 8PM half-hour family comedy will cover the issue of abortion: they provide no evidence to this claim.

Executive producer Bob Kushell told TVLine.com, “Jokes can work on two levels.” That’s true in the first episode so there’s no denying that. When presented with a drug reference regarding the band, Kushell says, “That’s a joke where the adults in the audience get to put two and two together,” while the kids watching have “no idea” what Kermit is suggesting.

TV producers and writers are tasked with portraying human realities to a human audience. And as the Muppets have done for decades, they help us see who we are in a clearer sense.

The truth is, it’s not easy being human.

In this realm of the Muppets universe, Kermit and Miss Piggy have broken up. Kermit is the Executive Producer of Miss Piggy’s show. And there is tension between the two on a personal level, only made more complicated by a disagreement over Elizabeth Banks being a guest on the show.

The focus of this first episode is on Kermit as he strives to overcome the breakup with Miss Piggy. He realizes, perhaps forgetting that the mockumentary cameras are following him, “If you take dating out of the equation, she’s a lunatic.”

And we realize that if Kermit wasn’t Kermit, we might conclude that he’s a jerk (read, “human”). But because he is the “it’s-not-easy-being-green” frog we have all learned to love, we know that Kermit is the Muppet most equipped for atonement.

THE MUPPETS - "Pilot" (ABC/Michael Desmond) MISS PIGGY, KERMIT THE FROG

It turns out that Kermit has forgotten the real reason for Miss Piggy’s uncomfortableness with Elizabeth Banks. It has to do with the day they broke up. When Kermit remembers, he cannot believe that he forgot such an important moment in both their lives.

Upon recognizing that he messed up, Kermit apologizes for his part. And the work of reconciliation can be done between the two. It is hard work, to say the least, for Muppet and human alike. But it is work that has been laid out before us by the One who took up his cross for the sake of humanity.

The writer of Ephesians says, “The Messiah has made things up between us so that we’re now together on this, both non-Jewish outsiders and Jewish insiders. He tore down the wall we used to keep each other at a distance . . . . .Christ brought us together through his death on the cross. The Cross got us to embrace, and that was the end of the hostility.” (Ephesians 2:14, 16, the Message).

In other words, through the Cross, Christ reconciled us to one another and to God. Through the Cross, there is no need for us to be separate, to have centuries of animosity between us. The hard work has been done for us, we simply need to remember what we have done, and seek to make it right.

Just another lesson from a frog named Kermit.