by Fr Gabriel-Allan Boyd
Whatever you think of Marvel movies as an art form (you can’t swing a cat without hitting someone near you who loathes Marvel’s contribution to the cinematic art form), there is yet one undeniable fact. These Marvel stories have resonated with unprecedented numbers of people. In fact, the story’s arc, strung together between the several Marvel movies of the last few years, has resonated so intensely with people, that many of them were even willing to shell-out their hard-earned money to see the same movie repeatedly...making these movies the highest grossing of all time. WHY? Perhaps we should consider the possibility that there’s something more to what’s going on here than merely people’s questionable taste in cultural expression.
Another fascinating detail about these movies is the new type of villain depicted. Throughout history, the villains in our stories have unconsciously symbolized the things we despise most about ourselves at the time. In the early 19th century, under the backdrop of the Industrial Revolution, Darwinism, and scientific feuds over the use of electricity to re-animate dead frog muscles, Mary Shelley’s villain was a doctor, so obsessed by science, that he was willing to selfishly exploit as many lives as needed, to dominate and subdue creation into doing his will. In more recent years—the Age of Consumerism—we saw the development of Zombies (the walking dead), symbolizing a people so entirely self-absorbed that they lost all empathy for others in their uncontrollable desire to consume.
Now—in our social-media age of self-obsessed, entitled, people who epitomize the ideal, “I am outraged...therefore I am”—these Marvel Movies, show us a significantly different kind of villain than we’ve seen before. This new Marvel antagonist, Thanos, operates under the illusion of a better world achieved by a willingness to sacrifice our own loved ones. His disposal of people isn’t even calculated to surround himself only with people who align with his values. Rather, it’s an entirely random eradication of half of humanity’s population for the sake of saving the world from its imminent ecological apocalypse. In that Marvel Universe of malfunctioning heroes (in other words, individualized celebrity protagonists who are willing to sacrifice millions of lives in order to save the one they love), the evil Thanos uses this malfunction against them, to show them that they’re no different than him, to set them against each other—dis-integrating their unity with each other, making them powerless in thwarting his schemes. He constantly puts the heroes into scenarios where they have to make a choice...between watching someone they love die...or stopping him from destroying half the universe. This new villain, Thanos, delights in seeing each of these broken heroes sacrificing someone they love in order to stop him, because they then become united with him in his willingness to sacrifice his own loved ones to save the world. Ultimately, his plan, intriguingly, involves dis-integrating the world’s population.
Over the course of this last week, we’ve seen many similarly evil things take place. On Memorial Day, we first saw a Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin, in the villainous act of murder (while three other police officers stood by without intervening). Officer Chauvin was willing to use these measures against George Floyd, in order to protect or save some ideal of his own. Who knows what kinds of previous abuses and brutalities led him to the point of thinking that this was a necessary part of his daily role? But we also saw, in protest to his actions, entirely random rioting, looting and violence...a willingness to beat-up or murder any police officers or white people (regardless of their personal beliefs or past history) ...or destroy and steal any property held by someone who “has something that I don’t have.” And likewise, who knows what kinds of previous abuses and brutalities led these people to the distorted thinking that these kinds of measures were a necessary part of their protest. In each of these cases, from the police officer who murdered George Floyd, to the thousands of people who rioted, they were willing to randomly sacrifice the lives of others (even if those others supported their particular cause) in order to protect or save some distorted ideal of a better world. They all had the demonic strategy of dis-integrating people in order to achieve their better world.
In the last of the Marvel movies, we see the story’s arc come to fruition...especially in the life of Tony Stark (Iron Man), who went from being entirely self-absorbed in his first movie to learning to become selfless in the “Avengers EndGame” while still reaffirming his unique identity. Our broken heroes of the Marvel Universe finally fulfill their hero’s journey to defeating Thanos’ schemes, by embracing self-sacrifice—instead of the willingness to sacrifice others. And in their embrace of this heroic role of self-sacrifice, they re-integrate those who were dis-integrated. That’s what people intuitively love so much about these stories. They unwittingly resonate with the ultimate story of God’s heroic role, fulfilled in His Son who self-sacrificially takes the worst of what humanity has to throw at Him in order to conquer death by death.
So, what does that have to do with the Church in Pentecost? Fifty days after the resurrection of Christ, the Holy Spirit is sent upon the Church. And through the giving of the Holy Spirit, selfless acts of love by the heroes of our faith (the Church) are fulfilled. Whenever this heroic role is embraced it results in bringing the world from dis-integration to re-integration with each other and with God.
On the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2) the Holy Spirit was given as a gift to the Church, to empower us—both clergy and laity alike—to become God’s witnesses (μάρτυρες—martyrs, in self-sacrificial/heroic acts of love) to the world (Acts 1:8), to fill our hearts with God’s own self-sacrificial/heroic love (Romans 5:5), and to impart spiritual gifts to use *selflessly* for the common good of others (1 Corinthians 12:7-13), and heroic virtues (Galatians 5:22, 23) to be utilized in our Christian life and witness. Orthodox Christians believe the biblical promise that the Holy Spirit is given in chrismation (anointing) at baptism (Acts 2:38) ...and at our baptism, we’re given the task to grow in our experience of the Holy Spirit for the rest of our lives.
Pentecost isn’t just a feast day in the Church. We use it to remind ourselves of a particular reality within us. The Holy Spirit was given to each of us for a purpose—to equip each and every one of us to enter into the hero’s journey—leaving behind our focus on self-absorbed activities to embrace the selfless
Every heroic journey begins with a call to adventure. At your Orthodox Christian baptism, a particular Gospel Reading was proclaimed, where Jesus extended His call of adventure to you, inviting you into a heroic journey. He says there, “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And be assured, I am with you always, even to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:19-2).
Saint Paul talks further about that selfless call to adventure when he describes the vocation of every single Orthodox Christian. He says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us” (2 Corinthians 5:17-20). The Holy Spirit is given to each of us for a reason—so that we might selflessly enter the heroic life of re-integrating the world to Him…and in Him, to each other.