"What About Me?"

For those who have not seen all of the show LOST, * Spoiler Alert*

Watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=li1pDiTbh-I

Read: Luke 15:11-32

This is one of the pivotal scenes from the show, and for me it is very rich in spiritual and theological significance. Benjamin finally meets the spiritual being he has been blindly serving much of his life. Serving, but not knowing. Benjamin Linus has never been allowed to directly contact Jacob, but is only given his orders through intermediaries. He is hurt that John Locke, who has been on the Island and serving it far less time than he has, is being allowed direct and unmediated access to the man he has so desperately wanted to know for so long.

Benjamin was given purpose and direction by Jacob, but it was not enough. Benjamin wants to know why he did not get the same access others have. It isn't about Jacob, or the Island, or Benjamin's place in the world, it is all about Benjamin, "What about me?" Isn't that the question we always ask. God requests of us that we fill that role which He has carved out for us, or rather that He thinks we need to play in the world as it is, but it never is really enough. We all turn to God, all the time and ask "what about me?" We don't want a God-On-The Cross, we don't want to have to put our focus on what God wants and needs, rather we want FROM God, we want a God that will vouchsafe our desires, plans and needs in the world. That is the God we want, but it is not the God we get. We turn to God and ask 'what about me?' and God's response is indeed "what about you?" or more accurately "what about them?"

It brings up another scene from the movie RANGO. Rango is complaining to the God-figure in that movie, the Spirit of the West, that he cannot be the hero he wanted to be. Everyone has seen him as a failure and a fake, and he cannot face them after all of that. The Spirit's response is "it isn't about you, it is about THEM." He demands that Rango take the focus off of himself and put it on the needs of others. Jacob is basically insisting that his needs, and the needs of the island, have to supersede the egoistic demands of Benjanim Linus. And isn't that what Christ is really all about? It is about reorienting our view of what God is and what our relationship to Him is about. We stop demanding of God that He take our cross away from us, and we seek instead to help God with the cross He is carrying.

But this will never be enough, not for me, and not for anyone. All the time we will find ourselves turning to God and again demanding that our wants and needs are more important. We will seek a god that will offer safety and security in the world, and hide us from the vicissitudes and horrors. And when that doesn't happen we will ask "what about me". And like Benjamin Linus, when we do that, we take part in the horror that was visited upon Christ. We trade a false god for the One That Is, and we murder Jesus Christ anew. Praise be to God that He loves us beyond our sin, and will always give us a new opportunity to imitate Him, to be with Him, by accepting life for all it really is. The measure of our faith will be how often we take that opportunity and push it as far as it can go. Oh God, please help me do this. Amen.