Movie Recommendation

As many theologians, sociologists, and journalists will tell you, the Christian faith has, generally speaking, lost its sense of community over the centuries of the Constantinian and post-Enlightenment moment (take your pick). Christianity is a private and personal faith for most Christians. There is then little need to see faith as political, that is, social and interpersonal. With the exception of many small, rural congregations, the Pauline vision of the body of Christ (see especially Eph. 4) and the apostle's command to bear one another's burdens (Gal. 6:2) in the community of faith have been largely forgotten, or else they have become a sort of footnote to congregational life to be fulfilled with the occasional church program or function. Especially in large churches, like the one where I serve, it is difficult to foster any sense of community cohesion.

This unfortunate turn in the Christian faith became evident to me again when I recently saw the film A Serious Man. The movie is directed and produced by the magnificent Coen brothers, who have been in charge of some of my favorite flicks (especially O Brother, Where Art Thou?). This particular film narrates the life of a physics professor in suburban Minnesota and the concurrence of troubles that befall him, beginning with a bribery attempt by one of his students. Yet the film goes deeper than simply his troubles. Instead, it delves into how he deals with these problems within the Jewish community (and even how the Jewish community perpetuates some of his problems) around him.

The movie is thoroughly Jewish (the Coens are Jewish, in fact, their surname is an apocopated form of the Hebrew word for "priest"), and sometimes it is hard to follow because of it. For instance, if you don't know any Hebrew, the vocabulary will throw you off for sure. Also, the movie also does not follow any particular moral and does not end in any particular direction (we never get a solid answer why Hashem would allow all of these things to befall this Job-like character). But to my mind, the film attempts to be a microcosm of Hebrew scripture- it embodies the tension and portrayal of reality of life as the community and its individuals seek to find God working in their complex world.

But aside from the metaphysical intricacies of the movie, I was struck by how the Jewish community was portrayed. There is a distinct interconnectedness between all of the Jewish characters. Despite all of the catastrophes that occur, and even despite how these catastrophes are due to the moral failure of some of the Jewish characters, they never question leaving the community and God. Instead, they keep seeking truth and fellowship among each other.

I wish that Christians were that patient and loyal to their community. For Christians, we feel like we do have the option of leaving the church and leaving God if we don't find what we are looking for. But for Jews, their identity is a gift and something they cannot wholly forsake (although I do know some folks who claim to be Jew-ish). In the Christian faith today, our community is seen as optional. So I ask- How can we recover a true sense of unforsakable community?