We Need to Talk About Kevin

This is actually a Netflix movie that I watched last Thursday evening, and I don’t recommend it at all. Seriously, a disturbing, intelligent,  but  non-enjoyable film that did little for me except there was one 30 second scene that hangs with me, and will probably continue to do so, and I’ll address that in a minute.

The essence of the movie is the depiction of a mother’s life after her son Kevin, an excellent, albeit evil archer, is the perpetrator of a mass shooting (arrows, not bullets), at a high school.  As you can imagine, the mother, whose name is Eva, becomes a pariah in the town, with the community blaming her for the heinous deaths of their children, which is manifested by mocking, threats to her life, open aggression on the street, alienation, and so on. In other words her life is a living hell.  It should be noted that Kevin also shot Eva’s husband and only daughter in their back yard before the school massacre, so as the writer intended, I begin to feel compassion for Eva as she is totally alone. I think back over my life to others that I either know or am familiar with, whose relatives committed shameful crimes, and these relatives were also pariahs now. They were innocent in that they did nothing wrong but are guilty by association. There could be an entire ministry devoted to these people, as well as the actual perpetrators, but that’s a story for another day, since this email is long enough as it is.

Ok, back to my point. There is a 30 second scene where two young men in suits knock on Eva’s door during the afternoon, in order to present the gospel. You can’t really tell if they are Mormons or Jehovah Witnesses since both groups dress up for door to door, but I think they’re Mormon’s since dubs usually show up with mixed gender teams.  Anyway, it doesn’t matter. What DOES matter is the fact that Eva is in excruciating mental and emotional pain, locked in a cage of loneliness and isolation, and the evangelists are presenting her with a stock message and a Bible. They neither know nor care about Eva, and are just seeking to make converts, yes, a worthy goal, but so inconsistent with what Eva needs at THAT moment. Her rejection of the pair AND their message is TOTALLY understandable since there is no love, no connection, and it was clear that these two evangelists had not yet earned the right to speak to Eva, the irony being that Eva needed the love of Christ so badly at that moment and yet while the Bible was there with the answers, the necessary love was not. It was so obvious, to Eva and to me as the audience. I paused and reran it multiple times, and it made me literally sit up in my brown recliner. As mentioned earlier, this scene remains with me and speaks to me as an example of what NOT to do.

People come to Christ in a number of ways and for a number of reasons, some are drawn by God directly to the church, hear the message that is shared by the Pastor, and their eyes are opened. Others watch some televangelist on their Toshiba TV and fall down on their knees in repentance. (Yes, this actually happened to a friend of mine, Doug DeRaadt, one of the most on-fire Christians I know) For others it requires one of God’s servants to approach them, outside the four plus walls of the church, and share God’s love through evangelism, not the type depicted above, but with compassion, and it’s that compassion that lets us earn the right in the recipient’s eyes, to speak with them. Which brings me to the ministry with which I find myself involved.

I did not become involved in Helps because of my love and compassion for people, since that is really not one of my strong suits. In fact, I’m really not sure what my strong suits are relative to Christianity, but I do have the knowledge that God is real, and that we can know Him through Christ, and that we become close to Him through obedience. (I got this last part by reading John chapters 14 and 15, and also through experience over the last 40 years, so I didn’t just make it up.) Anyway, I have knowledge, and out of this knowledge I committed myself to this. Also, Beau Lee asked me to do it.

The problem of course is that knowledge is not enough, I need compassion, and I feel that my lack of compassion is really hindering the ministry.  In other words just because you help with rent, moving, utilities, whatever, and you don’t have compassion then you still aren’t fulfilling the mission. While you may have earned more of a right than the couple mentioned above to share the gospel, it is not as effective as if you gave of yourself WITH compassion.  Of course the problem with compassion is that true compassion takes time, commitment, listening to people that you normally don’t want to listen to, getting calls at night about stuff you don’t want to even think about, let alone get involved with.  Compassion has a price, a worthy one, but a price nonetheless. It also has a reward, in that Jesus said that when you serve the least of these, you serve Him. The least of these live ‘on the bottom’ as Jen Hatmaker says, not just financially, but emotionally, medically, and in the zone of isolation and loneliness.  He also said that if you only love those that are easy to love, than what reward is there, or something to that effect. I’m too lazy right now to look up the scripture, but you can google it if you’re interested. (I think it’s funny that ‘google’ is now an actual verb. I’m wondering how I would conjugate it in Spanish)  In any case, if you and I can serve here, at the bottom, with compassion, outside our comfort zone, way outside,  then that is where God will meet us. And when God meets us here, well, I won’t attempt to attempt to describe it other than way beyond magical.  I so wish I had figured this out twenty years ago.

If you drive from Mount Horeb to Devil’s lake on Highway 78, you will see a Tin Man on the left (west) hand side of the road as you approach Black Earth through the rolling hills. To the mail man or lady, the Tin Man is just a recipient of mail, but to me it is a taunting reminder of the fact that I need a heart. Remember, in Oz, the tin man had knowledge and courage but that’s it.  I have other geographic icons on Highway 78 that speak to me, such as the Ingleside Nursing Home, the Ellestad Comacho Funeral Home, the graveyard on 78 and Springdale, as well as the Krueger Farms grain elevators on Highway 20  in Dike, Iowa, however the only one that really taunts me is the Tin Man south of Black Earth.  Please pray that God would give me a heart of compassion so that I can taunt back. It would also be of great value to the Helps Ministry.

Finally, I have been hearing stories about people handing out cash at church. For those of you guilty of this please know that it has a profound effect on the recipients. They feel loved, probably because they are. Thank you.

Oh, and one more thing. I would like to publicly say thank you to all my cleaning partners who have cleaned for me when I offered to trade, but you refused the trade, you simply took my spot asking nothing in return. This was such a blessing to me so thank you to Kathy Crowe who took my spot last week, my cleaning partners the Brights who ALWAYS do more than their share, as well as  Sheila, Jenny, Jolene, Diane, Paula, Tamara and Steve who have all cleaned for me in 2015.

See you tomorrow and Happy New Year!

/Bill