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"The Matrix Reloaded": The individual versus the many
By Steve Lansingh | In the first "Matrix," the character of Neo was revealed to be the chosen One, a human being who could transcend the synthetic reality of his world and would bring freedom to the billions of souls still plugged into the illusion. He is a prophesied savior; he is, as one character says, "My own personal Jesus Christ."
"The Matrix Reloaded" continues these parallels; when Neo returns from a mission to his home in Zion, the last human city, he attracts a flock of devotees who want blessings and who bring offerings. A particularly zealous teenager smothers him with attention and thanksgiving. He bears it patiently, but it is clear he is struggling with his role. He is reminiscent of the Jesus depicted in "The Last Temptation of Christ," who didn't always know what he was going to do or say next. Neo is also like this version of Jesus because faces a similar temptation: he is being asked to choose between his love for just one person and his love for the world entire. Just as the movie Jesus was tempted to abdicate his saviorhood to live the simple life of a husband, so Neo is being forced throughout the movie to choose between his mission and his love for Trinity.
This tension has a keen emotional resonance with me. Most likely we all feel some lack of balance regarding our love for our families and our love for the world beyond. One needs only to look at America's fenced-off houses, with each family operating as a self-sufficient unit, to see how invested we are in our loved ones at the expense of sharing our wealth of experience, possessions, and attention with the rest of the world. At the same time, I am painfully aware of how so many Christians give of their time at the office and at the church in hopes of making the world a better place -- only to see their families fall apart.
For a long time, I was pursuing a mission. I wanted to make a difference in people's lives through my writing -- only to realize that the things I could get down on paper were much tougher to live out in life. I wanted to inspire my readers to change, but I realized I needed even more to let the Spirit of God incarnate these insights in my own life. This turned me inward, toward myself, toward my wife, toward God. It has led me to invest my love in just one person, to spend time growing deeper and deeper into a more full realization of the love of God. But I feel guilt over this shift nevertheless. I feel extremely blessed to have such a rich marriage, but does that help the greater populace? What happened to my mission?
I feel much like Neo when the Oracle tells him, "You've already made your choice. You need to understand why you made that choice."
(SPOILERS AHEAD -- While I don't reveals the specifics of any scenes, I talk about choices the characters make in the movie that should be considered spoilers.)
The tension between loving the individual and loving the many is an old one, and Christian history would seem to point us toward the many. The Apostle Paul encourages the Corinthians not to marry so that they may devote their full self to the Lord's affairs; a married man has his interests divided. Likewise, the Catholic tradition of priests remaining single is based on the idea that his full attention be given to the congregation instead of being balanced by a family. Even the vast majority of the saints, those who are upheld as models of the faith, were unmarried.
Yet current Christian experience would seem to point toward the individual. Among lay people in particular, marriage and children are expected these days. Sermons are regularly geared toward parenthood, marriage, domesticity, and getting one's house in order. A leader is deemed trustworthy insofar as he or she can manage a household. Families are considered the building blocks of the church, and much of our energy and resources are focused on creating these solid foundations.
Is the discrepency here between right and wrong? Between one era and another? Between leadership and laity? More to the point, do we have to choose either Christian leadership and investing in our family? Can a balance be found between the individual and the many? Or would that simply make us fail at truly loving either?
Often, the movies will vicariously let us have both. In the climax of 1978's "Superman", the Man of Steel races around the world saving lives only to let Lois Lane die. So he turns back time, saves her, and then zooms around saving the others. Presumably someone else had to die who he'd saved the first time around, but we are not troubled with that information. In last year's "Spider-Man", the webslinger is faced with the choice of saving a tram-load of kids or saving M.J. He does both. In both cases we are able to cheer our super-human heroes for doing what we cannot, but these examples also underscore the inability for a mere human to have both.
In "The Matrix Reloaded", Neo has to choose only one. He chooses Trinity. But what is particularly interesting is why he's able to make that choice without a troubled conscience: the revelation that, ultimately, he is not the messiah he was taught to believe. (This is one of several satisfying twists that deepens the story presented in the original film.) By taking away his savior complex, the movie gives him a choice between something he can only do superficially (free the human race) and something he can do concretely (rescue Trinity).
The exhilarating rush I felt during Neo's rescue wasn't just the product of kinetic filmmaking. It was an emotional release from the guilt I had been carrying for devoting so much of myself to just one person. I've long tried to free myself of this burden by dissecting it logically, much as I've done here, but it took a character I could identify with, making the same choice I had, to truly discharge this emotional tension. Neo lays down his messianic crown and dooms the residents of Zion to death. Or, more accurately (because I am sure that the final Matrix film will not see humanity obliterated), he places his trust in their survival into the hands of others. I, too, feel I can pass the weighty baton of saviorhood on to God, who in fact is the only one fit to carry it.
I understand now why my regard for many had led to disappointment while my regard for my wife had led to fulfillment: I wasn't trying to save my wife, just trying to love her. That is all a person can do. If I want to continue to writing to the world -- to show them something of God, to help them understand, to "free their minds" in Matrix lingo -- it must be from a place of love and compassion, not from a motivation to change people.
The line between the two is not always clear. Maybe the confusion stems from first experiencing love through our parents, who try to shape our character; we begin to equate loving someone with molding someone. (How many of us think we know better than others how their lives should be lived -- siblings, parents, spouses, friends, pastors, businessmen, politicians, moviemakers?) Paul Tournier, author of Guilt and Grace, offers a clear distinction to help us unravel our motivations: Love has little to do with pulling people out of the depths of their weaknesses and more to do with coming alongside others in our weakness.
We become "a companion in waiting for grace," Tournier writes, as together we find our humility before God. "I come nearer -- to the Kingdom as well as the man -- only in so far as I recognize that I am as guilty, as powerless, as inferior and as desperate as he is." This is a process that takes time. We cannot immediately sidle up to other people and bare our hearts before God together. Once I accept this -- that I cannot lavish so much time and attention on everyone -- it becomes easier to believe that lavishing it on one person is not a selfish act.
I do not mean to disparage the ministries of so many who have forgone the pursuit of home and family in order to serve people outside their immediate circle; my brother is one of them and I love him for it. In the end, I think the choice between the many and the individual is not an adherence to one doctrine or another, but a matter of staying under the individual direction of God. Utimately, even Paul must tuck within his argument the concession: "I wish that all men were as I am. But each man has his own gift from God."
Brandon
I no longer have a Messiah complex. I can't save the world. I can infect MY
world (remember the story of Lazarus? The poor man was at his doorstep daily),
but I can't change the world all by myself.
God has "little Jesuses" scattered (like seed) all over this globe. Each must
do their part where they are at. That's how we will reach the many.
Rich Kennedy
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READER RESPONSES
I was taught growing up that we as Christians are supposed to be
"little Jesuses."
It would seem to me that the only way that we can successfully serve
God is to occupy ourselves with what we perceive around us. The moment that we
become obsessed with the big picture is the moment that we begin again to
succumb to the ancient temptation of "being as gods" and/or attempt to do for God
what He has either already done, or provided for. This sort of thing is a burden
we are not designed to bear.