Avengers

Major spoiler alert! I love love loved the movie Avengers. It was very well done and had cool effects and all, but there was so much amazing allegory I just had to write about it. The movie, if you haven’t seen it (and I really think you should), takes these very special independent superheros and tries to bring them together into a single, functioning group. Each of the characters has special abilities that they have crafted over the years. Most of the time they have used their powers to fight and kill, but most of them have learned in the past to mold their craft into a viable, functional (or hidable) skill in the real world as well. Bringing them together, then, is at first very crazy.

And why wouldn’t it be? You have several people who are used to doing everything on their own, getting everything for themselves, and even sometimes literally avoiding people because of their abilities. And suddenly they’re supposed to become best friends and work together to save the world? Not likely.

To be fair, some of the difficulty arises because their enemy wants them to fight each other. But given the circumstances, some fighting in the group is inevitable. In fact, the initial meetings of most of them involve either a physical catastrophic beat-down, or a targeted verbal attack. Many of them start out trying to destroy each other, convinced that they are stronger, wiser, and better then anyone else, but soon realize each others strengths and their own weaknesses. But even once the initial walls have come down they are still independent superheros used to living life completely solo. Why get someone else to do a job when if you just try harder, or use your abilities differently, you may get there on your own? Why waste time for the first time in your life, learning to trust?

Trusting is a hard word that God’s been trying to work out with me over the past few years. I’m not convinced its going all that well yet. Life teaches us all to trust ourselves- being able to make it on your own is somehow part of the American dream nowadays. No one else could take my med school tests for me, no one else can read my Bible for me, and no one else could deal with the cognitive problems I had after meningitis. But when they happened I was too used to being on my own and figuring things out myself. So even when things would fall apart I didn’t usually ask for help. For instance, most nights for months I didn’t eat dinner after I got out of the hospital. I didn’t have enough physical energy to stand up and stir things, and the few times I tried to cook I forgot how to make things and either ruined a pot or left the oven on for hours and probably almost burned the house down. But instead of asking for help, or trusting someone to work with me, most of the time I just avoided eating dinner. Its only years later that I even realized how dumb that was. But its true in usually less obvious ways in our lives that we can get so used to depending on ourselves that the idea of asking for help or working with others is not even an option we consider.

Which is why I love the Avengers movie. They learn from their mistakes much quicker then I do. It only takes one or two mishaps for them to realize that not only can they not do it alone, but if they do work together, they can do almost anything. Just a few scenes later they are planning and fighting together as if they’ve done it for years. It’s a beautiful picture of what our lives as Christians should be like. Not only do we have God to lean on, but each other. “Two are better then one….Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken” Ecclesiastes 4:9a,12. We were created to hold each other up. And even more amazing is we are each created intricately and perfectly different. We each have unique, wonderful talents and strengths that define us. But the beauty is we weren’t created to work alone; we were made to complete the weaknesses in each other. “Now you are the body of Christ and each one of you a part of it.” “In fact, God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.” (1 Cor 12:27, 18) It’s really only when working together that we can actually move mountains. And really only when we’re working together that we get to enjoy our gifts and each other as we should.

 

“Do not be conformed by the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is- his good, pleasing, and perfect will. For it is by grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourselves more highly then you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgement, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. Be devote to each other in brotherly love.” Romans 12:2-6a, 10a