I think there’s a real case to be made for secular entertainment providing Christians with more room for theological discussion than Christian entertainment. Few shows in recent memory are better examples than the topic of this post.
The Leftovers (2014-2017) is an HBO drama series based on the book by Tom Perrotta and adapted for television by LOST co-creator Damon Lindelof. Its premise is startling in its implications: What if two percent of the human population suddenly disappeared? How would such an inexplicable event change people’s perspectives on religion? On the meaning of life? On miracles? On everything?
Co-creator Damon Lindelof said in a Vulture interview: “I want to watch people struggling to feel better … The idea [is], how can I feel good again, how can I feel safe again, how can I love someone again when I feel like they can be taken from me at any moment? Or, like, what belief system should I engage in? How does Christianity sound now?”
The absolute plethora of questions Lindelof asks is enough to sustain a month’s worth of blog posts, but I want to focus on one character that speaks to a prominent Leftovers theme: faith amidst suffering. I will be spoiling the first three episodes of the show, so if you haven’t seen it (and let’s be honest, you probably haven’t. The Leftovers is one of the most underappreciated shows of all time; walk up to one hundred people on the street and I bet only two will say they’ve seen it), then just know you only have three hours of catch up work.
“Two Boats and a Helicopter” is the first season’s third episode. Its title is a direct reference to the well-known story about the drowning man who refuses the aid of two boats and a helicopter, saying each time, “God will save me.” When the man dies and goes to heaven, he asks God why He hadn’t responded to his calls for help. God replies, “What do you mean? I sent you two boats and a helicopter.” This is the setting for an episode of The Leftovers that provides an interesting commentary on faith amid personal suffering.
The episode “Two Boats and a Helicopter” follows the character of Matt Jamison, a pastor of an Episcopalian church. In this episode, Matt is dealing with two questions that most people–Christians and non-Christians alike–have probably struggled with at some point.
- What is the meaning of my suffering?
- What do I have to do to make things right?
I’m going to summarize Matt’s struggles in this episode by going through these questions. Then I’ll dive into some scripture to see how things line up.
What is the Meaning of My Suffering?
The episode begins with Matt preaching to his dwindling congregation. He tells the story of a little boy (we come to understand later that this is a true story about Matt). This little boy is seeking the lost attention from his parents after the birth of his sister. He prays to God about it, asking for attention. Some time later the boy is stricken with leukemia. He fights it and survives. Matt finishes the story with a telling line: “Does he decide that he was punished or that he was rewarded? Will he be angry at having been made to suffer, or will he be grateful for that suffering because it changed him?”
Matt prayed to regain the attention of his parents. Instead, he gained the attention of God. God made him suffer, but it was through that suffering (presumably) that Matt came to develop his faith. It changed him.
Matt tells his congregation another story, this time about a little girl named Emily. She’s been in a coma for nine days after a traumatic accident on the playground. Matt says: “This little boy is asking for attention again now . . . for Emily.” Later that day Matt visits the hospital, only to find an orderly tidying up Emily’s room. Excited, Matt tells the orderly that his congregation prayed for her that morning. The orderly says she woke up the night before. Matt is crushed. This story takes on more meaning when we learn that Matt’s wife, Mary, is also in a coma. Matt has been asking for God’s attention, praying that he would heal his wife. But it hasn’t happened. So for Matt to discover that his devoted praying for Emily didn’t have the magical effect he thought it would? Just another reminder that his cries for God’s attention are going unanswered.
I think Matt wants to believe he is the next Job, allowed to suffer by God so that his faith may be tested. Why else would his church be failing, his wife dying, his friends turning their back on him? What was his suffering if not a test?
What Do I Have To Do To Make Things Right?
When two percent of the world’s population disappeared, some people naturally began assuming it was the rapture spoken of in Revelation. Matt has made it his mission to disprove this theory. He’s shown in the show’s first episode posting flyers that reveal the sins of various Departed people. Adulterer, gambler, murderer, and so on. The Departure could not have been the Rapture, Matt argues, because these bad people were taken and he was not. It’s like he’s proving to himself as much as he is to the community that he is a good person and that he deserves a place in heaven for remaining faithful for so long.
The reason why Matt is so insistent on drawing a line in the sand between innocent and guilty is summed up later in the episode when Matt explains his flyers to a casino employee. “If we can no longer separate the innocent from the guilty, then everything that happened to us, all of our suffering, is meaningless.”
Why would our suffering be meaningless?
If everyone experienced the same outcome after death, then what one does in life has no eternal consequence. In other words, if heaven and hell are myths and everyone is treated the same in whatever afterlife there might be, irrespective of moral stature, personal beliefs, or wrongs committed, then what does one’s ability to withstand pain through faith amount to?
So Matt needs to separate the innocent from the guilty. Instead of letting God judge, he’s taken it upon himself to lay down the gavel. This behavior is rooted in a place of doubt. Doubt in his own salvation.
In episode three, there’s an excellent scene with Matt and his sister, Nora (played brilliantly by Carrie Coon) where she asks Matt if he knows what the Departure was all about. “It was a test,” Matt responds. “Not for what came before but for what came after. It was a test for what comes now.” Nora responds, “Well if it was a test, then I think you may be failing it.”
The reason for Nora saying this becomes clear when you consider that Matt is being publicly ridiculed (in one case even beaten) for putting up pictures and declaring the sins of people being mourned by family members who lost them in the Departure.
Matt believes his suffering is a test, presumably of his faithfulness to God. Everything he’s doing to care for his wife and his church is in service of that belief. He’s trying to pass the test, to make things right through his actions. Like the little boy in his sermon, Matt wants to believe he’s going to be changed by his suffering, that if he fights through hardship like he fought through cancer, things are going to be better than they were before.
If you’ve seen the episode, you know that all the effort he puts in to save his church is ultimately meaningless. The very people he helped conspired to take away what mattered most to him. You could argue that Matt has become so wrapped up in the church, in his purpose and place as a pastor and leader of a cause, that he lets it undermine his faith. In this sense, you could say he failed the test.
But like always, we have to ask: is this biblically true? Does God test us? And if so, does he use pain as a way to draw out our faith?
The Problem of Pain
The story of Job is the obvious example here. You could debate whether this story is meant to be taken literally or not, but the message holds true either way. Like Matt, Job can’t understand why God would allow such suffering to befall him. Because like Matt Jamison, Job is presented as someone of devout faith.
“I am blameless,” Job says in 9:21 before going to say in verses 22-24: “It is all one; therefore I say, He destroys both the blameless and the wicked. When a disaster brings sudden death, he mocks at the calamity of the innocent. The earth is given into the hand of the wicked; he covers the faces of its judges–if it is not he, who then is it?”
God destroys both the blameless and the wicked. If we cannot separate the innocent from the guilty, then suffering is meaningless. Sounds like those two sentences belong together, don’t they? The question Job asks at the end there–If it is not [God] then who is it? Only God has the authority to allow destruction on both sides of the moral aisle.
C.S. Lewis wrote an entire book on the subject called The Problem of Pain. Since God’s creation is not happy, God lacks either power or goodness. Lewis answers this problem by arguing that our definitions of ‘good’, ‘almighty’, and ‘happy’ shouldn’t be assumed to be the same as God’s definitions.
For instance, Lewis makes a distinction between love and kindness. “Kindness . . . cares not whether its object becomes good or bad, provided only that it escapes suffering.” God’s love, on the other hand, is so great that he is willing to labor over his creation, shaping us to more closely resemble who we were before the Fall.
Metal can’t be reshaped without first applying extreme heat. Heat is painful, but faith is trusting that the welder knows the best shape for us to fit into. Like God tells Job in 38:3, “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me if you have understanding.”
Who are we to question God’s methods? As Lewis pointed out in his book, God does not exist for us but we for God. We are His creation. His will be done.
Sanctified
Matt Jamison is a man who expects attention for his suffering. The drowning man in the parable didn’t take the boats or the helicopter because he believed God would save him. He expected something grand, something more divine than an ordinary boat, for his steadfastness. Similarly, I think Matt is expecting some great gesture from God for caring for his church, his wife, the soul of the town. But Christianity is not supposed to be transactional. We shouldn’t think: “God owes me x for y amount of suffering.”
In Matthew 6:1, Jesus tells us, “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.” As it says in James, those who persevere under trial should expect the crown of life, that is, eternal life in heaven. We are promised no earthly reward for being devoted followers of Christ. Persecution is to be expected. In fact, Jesus calls those who face it blessed. Why? Because if we persevere we are destined to become “mature and complete” in our faith and one step closer to becoming the heavenly beings that God created us to be.