Megamind

  I had wanted to see Megamind since I saw the first preview--I still have faith in Will Ferrell movies, even though there hasn't been too much to keep that faith alive recently.  It looked like an original, funny movie, and I wasn't disappointed.  Megamind had more twists and turns that I had expected, and every ten minutes it felt like everything was turned on its head, only to change again--it would be interesting to see this all on a storyboard, to see all the twists plotted out.  There was a lot in here for a 95 minute movie.

  The crucial struggle in the movie is between good and evil.  It is set up in the beginning as a classic hero movie, a battle between the villain and the hero, but then turns on its head as the hero is killed and the villain is left to his own devices, quickly growing bored with chaos.

  As the movie evolves, I realized that the struggle wasn't so much between villains and heroes, but rather within the villain, Megamind.  He had to make the choice about whether he wanted to be bad or good, and it wasn't an easy choice for him.

  Isn't this the battle we all fight?  Don't we all waffle between good and evil, between doing what we know to be right and doing, as Paul writes, not the good I want to do.  (Romans 7)  Alexander Solzhenitsyn captures this in The Gulag Archipelago:  Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart, and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. Even within hearts overwhlemed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained; and even in the best of all hearts, there remains a small corner of evil.


  We so desperately want to be good, to be faithful, to live a life dedicated to Christ alone.  And yet, in the midst of life, we have so many moments where we fall short.  How critical it is that we recognize that we are sinners, and yet that we are redeemed by Christ, and set here to be a Kingdom focused people, a people living for Christ.  It doesn't mean we have to be perfect--what it means is that we have to be honest about our successes as well as our failures.  We begin living into our eternal life here and now--we won't get it right, but with the Spirit's help God will transform our feeble efforts into something miraculous for the Kingdom.  Sanctification is an ongoing process--are you will to continue to step out in faith, and trust that God will be at work in you, through you, in the world?  We cannot win the world for Christ on our own, but we can focus our life on ensuring that everything we do is a small effort to join in God's redemption of all of creation.