“Dear Evan Hansen” is a coming-of-age story that follows a socially awkward and anxious high school senior who struggles to fit in. Following a tragedy, Evan gets caught in a web of lies which forces him to choose between telling the truth (something he doesn’t do well) or allowing his lies to hurt the people he cares about. If he tells the truth, he’ll be able to stop the damage his lies have inflicted on the family of a recently deceased boy, Connor. If he continues on his path of deceit, he’ll live under the false guise of a hero as he romantically pursues Connor’s sister, Zoe. As the walls of the room start closing in on Evan, his often-distant working and single mother, Heidi, finally catches him red-handed. 

Evan’s Dad left the family when he was just a boy and has been absent ever since. It’s not hard at this point to put the pieces together and realize that Evan’s desire to be known stems back from never being accepted by his father. The focus now turns to Heidi, who explains the day Evan’s dad left through the song “So Big / So Small” by Rachel Bay Jones.

After recounting Evan’s final goodbye before his Dad left in his truck, Heidi readily admits her inability to be the parent she wanted to be. 

And the house felt so big, and I felt so small

The house felt so big, and I—

And I knew there would be moments that I’d miss

And I knew there would be space I couldn’t fill

And I knew I’d come up short a billion different ways

And I did

And I do

And I will

And yet, her steadfast love for her son hasn’t faded. She remembers her son asking her at a later point, “Is there another truck coming to our driveway? A truck that will take Mommy away?”

Even when her son has broken her trust through lies, deceit, and motives of selfish gain for his own comfort, Heidi reminds her son of who she is:

But like that February day

I will take your hand, squeeze it tightly and say

There’s not another truck in the driveway

Your mom isn’t going anywhere

Your mom is staying right here

…

No matter what

I’ll be here

…

When it all feels so big

‘Til it all feels so small

We’ve all become accustomed to a conditional love that says it will stick with us if we continue to behave, check the boxes, or not mess up past a certain point. Brokenness runs deeply in each of our personal and familial histories. It’s easy to feel like the rope of grace we have been given is either too short or too frail, eventually and inevitably snapping, leaving us ousted from the love and commitment we so desperately want and need.

For Evan, it was an actual father who left. For me, it was a broken friendship that left me feeling like a failure. Maybe for you, it was a spouse or significant other who abandoned you when you couldn’t hold up your end of the bargain. Or a friend group that gave you the cold shoulder when your utility ran its course. Whatever it is, we’re all afraid to be “on the outside looking in…” to reference another song from the soundtrack. 

In the story of the prodigal son, in Luke 15, we see the heart of Jesus towards us weak and weary sinners and outcasts. In the story, the son who had once comped his father’s money, spit in his face, and squandered it all on foolish and carnal gains, now returns in desperate hopes to beg for a place to sleep and be fed in his father’s house. He probably felt like his rope of grace had snapped long ago. But what happens next is nothing short of breathtaking:

It says: “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate.”

It’s hard to put into words just how radical this kind of love is. The directionality of this love, from father to son, could not be overturned by any amount of lies, deceit, and terrible life choices that the wayward son could concoct. Unlike the failed parent who leaves us and forsakes us, God, though he catches us red-handed time and time again as we blunder through this life, sings the song of the cross over us, reminding us that, with him, “There will never be another truck in the driveway. I love you simply because I love you, not based on what you’ve done or not done, but by my own sacrifice. Come inside, the party has already begun. And it will last forever.”

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“Bread, again?”
I say this to myself today, as I prepare to administer communion on Sunday.
It’s the day of my sweet mother-in-law’s visitation, which means I have to interact with people and in so doing realize that her death is real.

People ask me for prayer for their healing and the healing of the ones they loved. I can’t manufacture healing with magical words which enable my will to usurp the will of God.
I feel odd calling what happened the “will of God.” God hates death. God’s will is to reconcile all things in Christ.
Yet there is nothing that happens outside of God’s watchful eye. He ordained the death of Christ; how can I say that my mother-in-law’s death is outside of his will?
There I am, thinking theology again. Shouldn’t I have the answers to these questions?
People come to me for answers, yet what I have to give them is bread.

This week a 14-year-old boy was murdered on 37th and Bryant.
On Sunday I will show up to church not with answers to our problem of violence, nor with a strategy for the Christianization of the Northside.
But I will show up with bread, again.
This work is difficult. It’s not difficult because writing and preaching are difficult. It’s not difficult because the days are too long.
It’s difficult because the days are not long enough.
I want to change the world.
I want to change the Northside.
But things seem to be getting worse.
And all I have been given is bread.

Is this my calling?
Surely there is an answer, a 5-point strategy, or some ministerial trick I haven’t learned.
“Surely the Lord can’t be calling me to minister to the exiles for 70 years?”
I ask myself this question like I am better than Jeremiah and like the people in my church are more important than the remnant of Judah.

So maybe this is it.
If I live as long as my mother-in-law, I have 28 more years.
That is before retirement age.

If my calling is to suffer with people who are suffering, I will suffer.
If my calling is to pray for prayers that are not answered, I will pray.
If my calling is to be horrified by increasing paganization, I will be horrified.

Lord, please make this not my calling.
But with my Savior I say,
“Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.”

Either way, I will hold the bread out to all who are suffering, praying, and horrified with me.
Until the day comes when You hold the bread out to us, and we share it together.
On that day there will be no suffering, nor will there be horror. All there will be is open-eyed prayer to our Savior who will speak to us face-to-face.

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I’m a fairly competitive person, but my drive in competition is often fueled by a fear of losing rather than a love of winning. In fact, if you tune in to the internal Spotify playlist I have playing to motivate myself, you may be reminded of Full Metal Jacket’s Gunnery Sergeant Hartman.

Most days, I feel like I only know how to push myself by berating and belittling myself. If I win or perform well, sure, I’m happy, but maybe it’s more a sense of relief from not losing. Fear of failing next time looms behind every victory. This same cloud hangs over my professional career – particularly in sales. After closing a deal, I’m slow to celebrate the win and instead spend time sighing that nothing blew up in my face. The momentary relief doesn’t last long though, because the next opportunity to screw up could be right over the horizon.

While I aspire to be this crazy athletic stud and super successful businessman, my fear of coming up short and failing means that I don’t go all out. I‘m afraid that if I leave it all out on the field or in exercise terms “go to failure” there will be no place to hide if I come up short. Put differently, by refraining from pouring myself out, I can hold on to my delusions and keep my fantasy alive.

Some days I feel like I’m running all over trying to keep the cracks in my fantasy from spreading and having my ideal self come crashing down. It’s on days like this when my internal playlist is the loudest and loops for hours, not just when working or exercising. If I spill water while doing the dishes, I’m a failure. If I forget to get an item at the grocery store, I am an idiot. If my car is low on gas I am a f***ing idiot-failure who can’t get anything right. Those are just a few of the classic hits.

By my own ideals, I continually fall short. The standards I have for myself prove to be a curse upon my life and self-condemnation repeats over and over in my head. When reading Scripture, I identify strongly with Moses, who had no shortage of anger management issues. I wonder if my internal monologue is similar to the anger and frustration he felt when he first brought the law down to the Israelites and found them worshiping an idol they made for themselves: 

Moses said, “It is not the sound of a victory shout, and it’s not the sound of a shout of defeat, but it’s the sound of singing that I hear.” As Moses approached the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, he became angry. He threw the tablets from his hands and shattered them at the base of the mountain. Exodus 34:18-19

Whenever I read this story, I see myself on both sides. I’m the one angry about the failure, and I’m the one chasing after false gods. But recently, I’ve begun to hear a new and better playlist, but it took failing and dropping out of a marathon to hear this new music. 

Marathons take months of committed training: getting up early to beat the summer heat, long runs every weekend, and an insatiable appetite. During training runs, I fought to switch the playlist in my head to something more encouraging, “You can do this! Just have fun.” But hollow cliches rarely do anything for me.

When race day finally came around, in the most anti-climactic fashion possible, I suffered an injury and had to drop out of the race after only seven miles. As I hobbled to the spot where my wife and daughter were supposed to be cheering me on to my glorious victory, my failure was on full display and my anger was in complete control.

“God, why would you shame me like this in front of my family? Why the hell did I try to do this in the first place?”

Deeper and deeper I spiraled as I limped for what seemed like a marathon in itself. And who were all these happy people on the side of the road with their stupid signs? I now know with certainty that the “press here for boosters” sign does not work, at least not for me.

But as I turned the corner, I saw my daughter waiting for her dad. 

In terms of the race, she didn’t have a clue what was going on. She wasn’t wearing a stopwatch to track my splits. She was just looking for her dad, who she loves. As I stepped off the road and limped towards her, she threw her sign on the ground. Then she trotted towards me and gave me a hug. My daughter was oblivious that race officials put “DNF” (Did Not Finish) next to my name. If you asked her what the winning time was that day, she wouldn’t be able to answer. None of that mattered to her.

I didn’t realize I was hearing from Jesus that day, and I especially didn’t think he was answering my angry questions, but he was – he was there in that moment when my daughter threw down her sign and hugged me.   

Like Moses, and like my daughter, Jesus also throws down tablets. Do you remember that strange sequence in the Gospel of John where we’re told Jesus is writing in the sand? In John 8, the Pharisees drag a woman caught in adultery before Jesus and demand that He pronounce sentencing against her. Just like with the stone tablets, Jesus etches writing into the ground – but we’re only told about the activity, not the words themselves. Or are we? In the story of Moses, God has to rewrite the tablets a second time after they are broken, but now, with Jesus on the scene, He writes a new and personal word, “neither do I condemn you.” At that moment, Jesus is shattering the commandment, but unlike Moses, He is doing so out of love – substitutionary love. The adulterer deserves to die according to the law, but Jesus is going to cover that debt himself when he is shattered on the cross in our place.

On this side of failure, I am learning to trust God when he says “it is finished.” Every day I need to ask him to shatter the albums of my old classic hits because I keep going back to them just like that Top 40 Hit from middle school. I am learning I can give him my fear of failure because he says, “I love you no matter the outcome. You can run because it doesn’t matter how you perform…it doesn’t matter.”

Whenever a coach says, “Now go out there and just have fun,” everyone knows it’s a lie because if you want to stay on the team, you know you have to perform. But I think when God says it, he actually means it. I am beginning to see fear’s grip loosen, and I can’t help but smile when I think of Jesus, Moses, and my daughter throwing signs on the ground never to be picked up again.

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***Spoilers galore (and a little cussing) from Knives Out and Glass Onion.

Our family loves the Knives Out story. Mystery. Intrigue. Justice. Grace. Recall the plot. The patriarch, Harlan Thrombey–fully in control–orchestrates events that not only include his own death but simultaneously protect his beloved nurse, Marta, from incrimination. And, oh yeah, he bequeaths all his riches to Marta rather than the Thrombey kin. Why? His children and grandchildren are selfish, greedy, arrogant, reckless, heartless, and ruthless. It’s easy to root for the nurse while wanting justice (i.e. no inheritance) for the patriarch’s immediate family members. 

Now consider Glass Onion, the second Knives Out mystery. Recall the plot. Helen pretends to be her deceased twin sister, Andi, in hopes of identifying her sister’s killer. The entrance of Andi, ‘er Helen, ‘er “Andi” for her island reunion weekend confounds her sister’s so-called friends. As Blanc unfurls the backstory, we uncover the group’s dysfunction as well as the killer’s motive and identity. 

Mystery. Intrigue. Justice. … Grace?

Watching Glass Onion makes you wonder who you are cheering for. Miles Bron manipulates with money. His disruptor friends will “lie for a lie” before deciding to “lie for a truth”…which, despite this transformation, means they’re still liars. 

What about Benjamin Blanc – is he our hero? Before exiting, he becomes complicit (!) in criminal destruction by handing Helen an item used to destroy the Glass Onion – and the Mona Lisa! Even Helen, the formerly quiet, rural, 3rd-grade teacher, shirks justice in favor of retribution on her own terms. 

This film gives us some good laughs, an exciting adrenaline makeover with a thick plot twist, and a creative mystery that resembles the very title of the movie, but something is missing. At the end of the day, I finished the movie longing for something the first film provided that this one didn’t. 

Consider the last line of Glass Onion compared to that within Knives Out. In the former, Benoit Blanc asks, “Did you get the son of a bitch?” to which Helen replies, “Yeah.” Helen’s story is one of retribution. But in Knives Out, after all the horrendous mistreatment by the family toward Marta, she asks Blanc, “This family, I should care for them. Right?” Wow! The family’s treachery will not be met with revenge and this story will not end with Marta getting those SOBs. In short, Marta somehow (supernaturally?) tells a different story than Helen. 

Christian theology teaches a message of low anthropology. This means that, despite our best intentions, we can be just as selfish, greedy, arrogant, reckless, heartless, and ruthless as the Thrombeys or Miles Bron or any one of the “s—heads.” We may not blow up buildings but we light fuses with our biting criticisms. We may be spared the sense of resentment against a loved one’s killer but who isn’t familiar with resentment toward a parent? A spouse? Your child mid-tantrum? Benjamin Blanc solved the case but couldn’t solve the human condition. He soberly and yet fittingly concludes this “just stinks”… kind of like an onion. 

In stories and in life we long for a hero who doesn’t just look at our circumstances with a diagnosis. We long for one who addresses and even resolves the “just stinks” nature of the human condition. The Bible tells the story of one who came to do this very thing.  

Recall the plot. Jesus diagnoses the brokenness of our world, those parts of life which just reek, and brings resolution – even declaring, “I am making all things new” (Rev 21:5). God the Son–fully in control–orchestrates events that not only include his own death but simultaneously protect his beloved–his church–from incrimination. And this gift is not only for the Martas of our world, those described as having “a good heart.” An invitation is extended to the most selfish, greedy, arrogant, reckless, heartless, and ruthless Thrombeys of our world. In his story, Jesus doesn’t stop at mystery, intrigue, or even justice; he ends with grace…for you and for me.

What is more, this grace transforms us. Those who have been given an inheritance, scandalously, apart from their work and expectations, tend to consider others in a new way. They, like Marta, instinctually start to ask, “This person, I should care for them. Right?” Yes. Because Jesus has cared for us at the highest of levels.

What a story Jesus tells! Mystery. Intrigue. Justice. Grace upon grace. Our family loves this story.

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