How to Share Your Faith Using Ocean's Thirteen
Ocean's Thirteen finds Danny Ocean and his crew back in the casino heist business. This time around the plan being hatched is a 'charitable heist' - but revenge is clearly as important to this band of thieves as the potential monetary payoff.
Revenge is a complicated human emotion. Everyone alive has at some point felt its tug. Often the injuries that have triggered our desire for revenge are deep and long-lasting. So it's easy to justify our feelings and our actions and nurse our anger into full-blown outrage - our hurts are real and our cause feels justified.
After all, even the Bible promises that you'll reap what you sow. Check out these verses in Galatians 6:7-8:
Don't be misled: No one makes a fool of God. What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others-ignoring God!-harvests a crop of weeds. All he'll have to show for his life is weeds! But the one who plants in response to God, letting God's Spirit do the growth work in him, harvests a crop of real life, eternal life.
Those who go around using and abusing others like Willy Bank does in Ocean's Thirteen 'deserve' to get what they have coming to them, right? Instinctively we believe that in a just world, selfish, evil ways should be judged and punished. Something in us cries out for justice and when we watch movies like Ocean's Thirteen, we find ourselves rooting for Ocean's band of brothers who set about to take matters into their own hands and dish out their own version of 'just rewards'.
Yet when Jesus addressed this issue of 'just rewards', his response was radically different. Rather than encouraging his followers to serve as God's avengers, Jesus challenged them to 'turn the other cheek' and 'go the second mile'. And in the most astounding event in human history, Jesus, though God's Son, walked this road himself. Setting aside the glories of heaven, he chose to take the punishment for human sin and extend forgiveness and the free gift of salvation to a sinful human race fully deserving of punishment. For those who trust in him with their heart and soul, he offers grace instead of judgment, and provides forgiveness instead of vengeance.
And as his followers, he calls us to exchange revenge for forgiveness as well.
For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. (Mt. 6:14-15)
So take this challenging truth that Jesus lays out before us regarding revenge and forgiveness and use it as a conversation starter to share with your friends the amazing message that God offers to hit the delete button on all our sins. Here are some ideas to help you move the conversation toward God talk:
- Have you ever set yourself up as judge and jury over someone else?
- Why is it so easy for us to harbor bitterness and want revenge when we believe we've been wronged?
- What do you do with those feelings when you experience them personally? Share what you believe in light of Jesus' teachings on forgiveness.
- Do you think there is a final judgment after you die where there will be rewards/punishment for your choices and behaviors during your lifetime? Share what you believe and explain that Jesus died to wipe out the eternal consequences for our sin. For help with this, check out the Soul Fuel article Dead Man Walking.
As Ocean's Thirteen unfolds, in one sense Willy Bank is getting what he deserves. But the Good News is that in the spiritual realm, we are not saddled with getting what we deserve. Forgiveness is freely available, all because Jesus took the hit for us - we can escape getting what we deserve through grace!
