Stopping Exploding Ferries of Wickedness

Suggested Reading: Proverbs 28:4-10

In the movie, The Dark Knight, there is an incredibly powerful scene involving a couple of ferries. The Joker has stranded two ferries out in the middle of the water and given the passengers of each ferry a detonator to blow up the other ferry, promising to blow them both up if no one has pushed the button by midnight. The Joker wants to prove that people are selfish and self centered but he also wants to use the ferries to distract Batman from coming after him and to throw the city into turmoil. Batman ignores the ferries, believing the people on those boats will choose to do the right thing, and focuses on taking down the Joker. The people on those boats do choose to do the right thing or, at least, not to do the wrong thing, and were a part of beating Joker at his own game.

There is a Proverb that speaks to that scene. Proverbs 28:4 says, To reject the law is to praise the wicked; to obey the law is to fight them (NLT). By simply doing the right thing, the people on those ferries were fighting back against the Joker, but that same dynamic can be seen throughout life. When people set up prejudicial rules that penalize people for existing, we can fight them by doing the right thing and refusing to treat people differently. When people seek to change the moral fabric of society by redefining right and wrong and painting those who disagree as bigots, we can fight them by living moral lives and loving those who would smear us. When people try to provoke us by stealing from us, cheating us, or lying about us, we can fight them and prove them wrong by refusing to stoop to their level, by continuing to live lives of faith and righteousness.

When the wicked seem to win, it can be tempting to "fight fire with fire," but the nature of the fight means we can't win that way. Just as darkness can only be banished by turning on the light, wickedness can only be fought with righteous living. If someone has been attacking you or your family, don't give in to the temptation to fight them back on the same terms. Do the right thing. Fighting like the wicked only validates them, but righteous living will ultimately defeat them.

Batman, the Righteous Prostitute

Suggested Reading: Genesis 38

One of the compelling elements of superhero stories is the contradiction inherent in a person who illegally acts as a vigilante in order to fight crime and seek justice. Batman is a great example. Often chased by the police for his vigilante activity, Batman is also the only means of defeating many of the super-villains who attack Gotham City. In some tellings, Batman works with the police but it is often a secret relationship because Batman's work is technically illegal. Technically, Batman is breaking the law but he is trying to do the best he can in a desperate world.

In Genesis 38, Judah, one of the twelve sons of Israel, has three sons. His oldest marries a woman named Tamar but then dies. In accordance with the Old Testament laws of levirite marriage, Judah's second son also marries Tamar. But when the second son dies, Judah puts off giving his youngest son to Tamar, afraid the woman is a jinx. When Tamar realizes Judah is not going to follow through with his obligations of providing his youngest son as her husband, she dresses up as a prostitute and positions herself where she knows Judah will pass. Judah encounters her, propositions her, seals the deal, and then goes on his way, never realizing that he slept with his daughter-in-law. When Tamar shows up pregnant, Judah is furious and wants to have her executed for adultery. But when she provides evidence that she is pregnant with Judah's child, he changes his tone. He proclaims, "She is more righteous than I am, because I didn't arrange for her to marry my son Shelah" (Genesis 38:26, NLT).

At times, we see people in their sin and we want to pass judgment on them. A man leaves his wife and we want to judge him for infidelity or for giving up on his marriage. We see a young woman get pregnant out of wedlock and we want to label her as easy or promiscuous. Our child comes home from school with a note about the disturbance they created in P.E. and we want to jump all over them for being a problem child. And while the things these people have done are wrong, we rarely know when they are only doing something wrong because they don't know how to make a bad situation any better otherwise. Maybe that man is leaving because his wife is abusive. Maybe that young woman was trying to avoid losing the only man who ever showed her any positive attention. Maybe that child was defending himself from kids who know how to strike when the teacher isn't looking. Maybe they're all just being selfish. But maybe they have reasons.

The point is that we never know why people make the decisions they do. We never know if we would do the same thing - or something worse - if we were put in their place. So we should avoid judging people just because they do something wrong. Maybe they are just making bad choices. But maybe they are just desperate and need our help and prayers more than our condemnation. Their reasons never make the actions right but we should take a look at their circumstances before we start bringing the hammer down on people who mess up. After all, we can all wind up desperate.

Let's All Be Superheroes

Suggested Reading: Matthew 14:22-33

My son is a massive superhero junky. It doesn't really matter which superhero - Superman, Batman, Thor, DareDevil, Spiderman. He loves pretty much all of them and would prefer to have every movie or television show ever made about every one of them. But he is really not that different from most every other guy I know. Almost all of us want to be some superhero or another. So it's really not that surprising that most Christians want to be like Peter.

Now Peter was a loud mouth who didn't know what he was saying most of the time that Jesus was around but he had moments of brilliance. There was the time that Jesus asked the disciples who they thought he was and Peter boldly declared, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Matthew 16:16). But the time when most of us look at Peter and wish we could be him, even just for a moment, is found in Matthew 14.

Jesus had sent the disciples across the lake so he could be alone to pray. They were still crossing the lake in the middle of the night when Jesus came walking across the waves. The disciples freaked out thinking he was a ghost (which is only natural considering that normal people can't walk on water). When Jesus declared himself to them, Peter, rational thinker that he was, said, "Lord, if it is you, call me to come out to you on the water" (Matthew 14:28).

Ok.  What? Peter was crazy.  The other disciples, the ones hunkering down and cowering in fear, were the rational ones in this instance. People can't walk on water. Peter was the crazy one for believing anyone could walk on the water, much less thinking he could do it too. But Peter remembered something that we often forget: when God is involved, nothing is impossible. So Peter got to do something that none of the rest of us normally get to do. Peter got to walk on water like some superhero.

There are times when God calls us to do something that seems crazy, that seems impossible. When that moment comes, we can either take a chance, knowing that God is great enough to make up for whatever ability we don't have or we can hunker down and cower in fear, always wondering what it would have been like to walk on water. 

When your moment comes, what will you decide? Will you be bound by what is natural and possible? Or will you be crazy and step out on the water, trusting that Jesus will catch you if you fall? I don't know about you, but I want to be a little crazy.