By
some definitions, I almost fit into the baby boomer generation. On some lists, I am one of the first GenX’ers. That really doesn’t mean a whole
lot to me, but it does mean that when it comes to television and movies, I have
some wonderful memories. I loved the “Brady
Bunch” and the “Andy Griffith Show”. I
loved “Happy Days”, the “Mary Tyler-Moore Show”, the “Bob Newhart Show”, and
Carol Burnett. I watched the “Big Valley”
and “Gunsmoke”. I saw all the Disney
movies at the theater – “Herbie”, “The Shaggy Dog”, and “The Computer that Wore
Tennis Shoes”. I also remember seeing “Star
Wars” for the first time in the theater.
“Star Wars” has been described as “Western” set in space. I can see that. There are the good guys and the bad
guys. There were gun fights and a
little romance. One of the things that
we loved about these shows is the clear distinction between the good and the
bad guys. Good guys wore white hats and
bad guys wore black. Luke and Leia wore
white, Darth Vader wore black. It was
easy to identify those on the side of right (truth, freedom, goodness) and
those on the side of wrong (deception, control, and pain). We could cheer for victory of good over bad
and we loved when the villain was ultimately defeated.
In
recent months, I have been watching shows like “Justified” and “Banshee”. In these shows, the main protagonist would
wear more of a “gray” hat. Raylan Givens
in Justified is a Federal Marshall and while he is supposedly on the side of “good”,
he is known for pushing the limits of legality to get the so called bad
guys. In the show, Raylan’s arch nemesis
is Boyd Crowder, who is an unapologetic lawless opportunist who demonstrates
anti-social traits, but somehow manages to win the support of the audience with
his intellect, wit, and occasional demonstration of sensitivity (not to mention
his distorted view of justice.) In “Banshee”,
the new sheriff in the fictional town of Banshee is known as “Lucas Hood”, but
is in fact a violent ex-con who was recently released from 15 years in
prison. The local sheriff’s deputies
often try to run the town “by the book”, but the new sheriff is often doing
seemingly impulsive things that violate protocol, but provide a kind of vigilante
sense of justice. As the series
progresses, we realize that Sheriff Hood has had to reap consequences for
double-crossing a crime boss years ago, but has suffered so much that he now
seems to function as much out of unconscious flashbacks of PTSD as from
meditated action. There are other “bad
guys” in the show, but it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between the
actions of the “bad guys” from the actions of protagonist.
In
this “post-modern” world where there are now very few absolute truths, the line
between right and wrong has become blurry.
For those of us who prefer the clarity of black and white the gray of
the post-modern hero can be frustrating or disorienting. As I want to complain about how “gray” the
world has become, I open my Bible. I
read story after story of the great biblical heroes that had moments of
frailty, moments of weakness, and moments of devastation. Just this past Sunday, my pastor preached about David, his life, and his legacy. I
recognize in David my own struggles.
Maybe not my exact struggles, but the humanity of seeking to follow God,
but often falling short of my intentions.
I identify with the words of Paul in Romans 7:19 that the good I want to
do I do not do and the evil I do not want to do, I find myself doing.
David
is remembered as a man after God’s own heart and he has a great legacy. However, he is not remembered without his
faults. He is remembered with them. The existence of his faults does not wipe out
his good. Too often we look at people as
all good or all bad. We long for a day
when people could be categorized into white hats and black hats, but the
reality is that each of us has white hat and a black hat we can wear. While it can be frustrating and disorienting
at times, perhaps the post-modern ideas are not as foreign as I had once
thought. I would love for there to be clear-cut good
and bad guys sometime and I think there is value in having true heroes that
inspire us to be better versions of ourselves.
However, I realize that human beings in the real world are rarely so
clearly defined. We must live with the
ambiguity. We live with the mystery and
seek to be our best and encourage the best in others. We offer love and grace to one another in the
struggle. We should not be complacent
with the gray, but we cannot avoid the human reality.
