Movie reviews on movies with spiritual import.

City Of Ember

City of Ember

We went to see City of Ember as a family and here’s what we thought:

While the movie didn’t have as much spiritual import as other movies we’ve seen, there were definitely a good number of elements in the movie that were notable. Enough that it’s probably too much to cover them all here. But some of the spiritual meaning in the film (and therefore the application) really couldn’t be ignored. In fact, in a lot of places, it’s rather hard to miss. You can go to any movie ratings place on the internet (such as PluggedinOnline) and get a run down of the details in a movie. This is only about what we saw in the movie as it applies to spiritual things.

You can read the following and consider them as “spoilers,” or… You could read them if you want to prepare your heart and mind, if you haven’t seen the movie yet, to see some things that maybe challenge you a little bit in your walk with God and your view of the Kingdom and what God wants in a church. :-)

• In the passing down of the mayor’s box, at some point, the chain was broken and the box intended to allow them to leave Ember and live Real Life was lost.

There are a number of things that could be said about this, but clearly not too long after the apostles died (and even while they were alive, scriptures seem to give some evidence of this), the “chain of daily Life in Jesus” was lost. “Church” became “codified” and regimented and boxed into a set of accepted “do’s and don’ts.” The “daily in public and from house to house” nature of the church, where everyone truly lived together as Real Family (and not just in “theory”) was lost. What was intended by God in that kind of church environment, which the gates of hell cannot prevail against, was lost.

• Assignment Day: Everyone gets randomly “assigned” their jobs in the city by pulling numbers out of a bag without regard to really much of anything: gender, relevance or anything else.

A ton could be said about this scene. But for one, it seems sometimes we think that if “everyone is participating” then this is good. “As long as people are participating in something…” But that’s not really how the New Testament church lived, is it? Even men who were just “waiting on tables” and “feeding the widows” were carefully chosen based on the “outcome of their way of life.” It had to be apparent to all in the church (eg. “chose from among you seven men who are observably full of…”) that only men full of God’s Holy Spirit and Wisdom could participate in even waiting on tables. The early church took very seriously “how it built” everything, as Paul encouraged in 1 Corinthians 3:10-23 that we should be careful how we build. We should consciously choose from the best material that will last. It’s important.

One of the “bad building practices” that was exhibited in that scene other than the sheer randomness of it (just because we aren’t literally “pulling numbers out of a hat” doesn’t mean that we aren’t just “pulling numbers out of a hat” sometimes!) was… Lack of regard to gender. The girl initially ended up with a job that really should have been given to a boy, and the boy ended up with a job that could have been done by a girl. In the end, it all worked out, but they had to work it out on the side.  But “how we build” things is so important.  The early church didn’t build very much at all like we do today in nearly any area you can think of (eg. “teens”, “leadership”, “worship”, etc.)

Lot’s more in that scene, but we’ll leave it to you to consider it further. :-)

• The generator for the city is very obviously failing and going to eventually go out. Doon Harrow correctly sees this and doesn’t understand why everyone else doesn’t see it. He keeps saying “Something’s wrong!” And he cares enough to try and do something about it.

Again, lots and lots that could be said here, but in brief… Doon could see something was fundamentally wrong not only with the city, but also the attitudes about the city and the generator. Most people didn’t seem to “notice.” They just ignored it, thought it would “go away” eventually (when no one was really working on the problem or even acknowledging that there was one!!?), made excuses for it, and created “coping mechanisms” (eg. shot up flares) instead of getting to the root of what was clearly a foundational, fundamental, underlying problem that couldn’t just be ignored or falsely believed to just “magically ‘get better’.”

Doon could see there was a problem. A lot of other people seemingly couldn’t or wouldn’t. Doon cared. He took action and did what he could. He wasn’t trying to be a “hero” or “better than everyone else.” He knew there was danger. It was life or death. When he realized there was another life available to him, one that was actually intended for him and really everyone else, that there was a way out, he went for it. He couldn’t consider “going back” and “pretending.”

• The ritualistic “chant” on Assignment Day and the words they chanted.

“Ours is the only light in an otherwise dark world” they sang. There were other songs like this sung in the film. Our traditions and rituals can fool us, can’t they? We can sing songs that don’t match the life around us and fool ourselves into thinking everything’s okay and that we even have something to offer. The city’s falling apart, and no one seems to notice or care. There is “hidden sin” in the city. The mayor — the leader — is secretly stealing and hoarding food from everyone else in the city. There is collusion. Power plays. Manipulation. Lying going on (“I love my city and I would never dream of doing anything to harm anyone in it.”). All unaddressed. But we can all still sing “We are the light…”??

Addressing the issues doesn’t have to be ugly. “Love rejoices in the Truth” and “times of refreshing come from repentance.” It’s a good thing. It’s bad and people end up hurt when it’s not addressed. It’s not loving to allow things like that to go on. We can say something. Jesus said we should say something — to try and help and care.  Incidentally, the children in the movie, when put to it, couldn’t act like everything was “okay.”  They stood up for the Truth no matter what the cost was because they realized that the cost of NOT doing that was even higher.

• The girl imagines (later she finds out she imagines correctly) that skies are “blue” even though she’s never seen a “sky” before.

A great example of what it means to “walk by faith” and to “see into the unseen.” To See Jesus as He really is even though our physical eyes cannot “see” Him nor our hands “touch” him. Jesus said “blessed are the ones who believe even though they do not ‘see’” with their physical eyes or with physical evidence, but instead see with the Eyes of the Heart. This is what it means to be able to “call things that are not as if they are.” This is how “the men of old SAW a city whose builder and maker is God.”

Is that “ability” reserved for only a few “special people?” You have to “see” (pun intended) it differently than that! ;-) That was a great scene in the movie in about a 7 second span. There are Realities bigger than just what is “obvious” around us. The girl could see that. She “fixed her eyes” there, again as it says in Hebrews 11. (That was at least partially the reason why they could see so clearly that “something’s wrong” when others couldn’t.  They saw “the city” as it really was and not as they were told it “should be.”)

• “There’s far too much to do here to worry about ‘out there’.”

That was a quote from someone in the movie. The person who said it was “nice.” She was helpful and kind. The problem with what she said, however well-intended (which it most certainly was and almost always is), is that HER DESTINY, the THING SHE WAS BORN AND CREATED FOR was the very thing that was “out there.” They weren’t born for or created to live in a hole carved out thousands of yards below the earth’s surface.

Her quote and her choices reminded us of those who sometimes really care, yet even though they know for sure something’s seriously wrong (eg. the generator is getting worse and worse and is eventually going to go out), continue to try and make things work around them. That seems “good” but… bailing water out of the ship doesn’t fix the hole in the ship.  The fundamental problem remains unchanged.  The point is, it was ironic and sad that the answer to all the problems she genuinely cared about and was trying to fix was in the “out there” that she was so dismissive of! God didn’t call us to “fix” things and just “do the best we can until Jesus comes back” and hold “status quo” (which, if the movie was summarized in two words, those could be it.) The answer to the problems she cared about was the very thing about which she was so dismissive.

• Doon keeps saying over and over again, “There’s got to be a way (out)!”

We’ve touched on this some, but it’s worth touching on it again. Doon was the epitome of “giving God no rest until he establishes Jerusalem and makes her the praise of the earth” (Isaiah 62:6-7) He wrestled. He looked for solutions. He cared. That kind of attitude IS the Kingdom. “The journey IS the destination.” When we see lives around us that claim Jesus but don’t look a lot like Him, or situations we know about that grieve God’s heart, are we doing anything about them? Are we “wrestling to present every man perfect in Christ?” Do we wrestle in prayer? Do we find ways to “encourage one another to love and good works?” Really! And not just something “thrown out there” and hope for the best? Paul said, “I’m not aimless; I don’t fight as one beating the air.” He was purposeful, imaginative, creative, prayerful, etc.

Doon and the girl kept trying to “put the pieces together” in the map, turning it every direction, even analyzing the fonts on the map… whatever they could do to try and make sense of it. We can do that for each other. “What if I did THIS? Would that change this situation I know about in this person’s life or in that household? What if I said THIS?” A good bit of the “one another” Christian life is just being in the trenches for one another like Doon and the girl were, trying to make a difference, even in the face of opposition. (And we WILL be opposed if we really live that way, as Jesus said. Often that opposition comes from other people. That’s just the way it seems to be, as in the movie.) This attitude is also necessary in not thinking somehow “we’ve arrived.” But rather we seek to “find out what the will of the Lord is” in specific situations and in our own lives and to “determine God’s good, pleasing and perfect will.” There is a progression there. Spiritual life isn’t about “a set of beliefs” or a “belief system.” It’s an adventure in finding and becoming like Jesus and helping others get there as well if we possibly can. That’s “church” if it’s anything. :-)

• Girl: “Did you ever think there was a way out?”

Did you ever think that what God ultimately intended for us was “beyond all that we could ask or imagine?” That our experience, if we had to “describe” to someone else, our Christian life and walk with God, what “church is” would honestly be described to someone else as “beyond all that I could ask or imagine!” God’s not trying to create some utopia, and the girl wasn’t asking about one in the movie. She was simply asking the question, “Did you ever think that our lives could be and were intended to be radically different than what we know now?”

A number of “quick hitters” with little explanation for you to think about:

• People just continue singing on their special “Great Day of Singing” while the city rumbles and generally is exploding all around them. Kind of “the show must go on” thing there. Things can be falling apart, but…

• Girl: “What are those boxes for?” Her question was highly discouraged and frowned upon by the mayor who had quite a hidden and selfish (“my kingdom”) agenda.

• Mayor stops at the door, puts on a fake smile, and then walks out to greet the people. Religion is about putting a face on things. Anyone can smile for 2 hours during a pre-planned ceremony. The mayor’s real life however was quite another story.  You couldn’t live like that in the first century and get away with it.  Why?  Because they lived as Real Family, in one another’s homes and lives on a daily basis.  As God intended. :-)

• Dad: “The generator hasn’t failed us yet…” Doon: “Dad! The generator’s falling apart!” Again, it’s easier and more convenient to simply settle for “what’s always been” and “well, it’s doing a pretty good job.” Doon correctly didn’t see it that way. He saw what was happening around him correctly. His dad didn’t, simply because of the very perspective he owned and expressed.

• “The builders will come and fix all this!” “When Jesus gets back, He’ll fix all this!” The parable about the “wheat and the tares” is not about the “church” — Jesus said the “field is the world.” There’s nothing in the Bible that gives any indication that we’re to put our “wagons in a circle” and wait for Jesus to come “fix it all.” Rather “the spirit and the Bride say ‘Come’!” We can “speed his coming” and “the Bride has made herself ready“ and is “without spot or wrinkle” when it’s all said and done. We are to “demonstrate the manifest wisdom of God… NOW.” Lots more verses like that. None that indicate “Jesus is going to have to come back and fix all this.”

• Someone said “We should stay here and fix our problems!” But what if “staying here” IS the problem? :-) I mean, seriously?!?

• “Yes, take the box to the mayor! Let him fix it!” It’s hard to know what to do sometimes. Little did she know the mayor was up to his eyeballs in essentially secret sin. In an environment where “a little leaven leavens the whole batch,” where there exists mixture, it’s hard to solve problems. It’s hard to know who to trust. In this case, going to the mayor only made things worse. (The point is the confusion and the inability to fix problems; not to insinuate all leaders are like the mayor in this movie. Many are not. But that’s the point. It only takes one…  And just because someone “calls” himself a leader, doesn’t mean that he actually IS a leader, according to the Bible…  The fruit of a real life transparently lived and poured out, and not mere “knowledge,” is a good start.)

• Mayor: “Today we commission a task force to investigate the blackness. Today we the people stand united against the darkness!!” Mmmm, sounds good. Sounds “official.” Programs. Committees. Task forces. The first century never operated that way. They operated at a grass roots level like Doon and the girl were doing which is simply lives taking real care of and really loving other lives.  The church isn’t anything else, and all our “official everythings” isn’t solving the problem, if we are willing to be honest about the (lack of) fruit.

• Dad: “If you have the Truth, you have to pursue it!” Maybe one of the best and most meaningful one-liners in the whole movie.

• Girl: “The builders would have made it simple.” It really isn’t that complicated. The early disciples lived very simple, but honest and real lives. They had none of what we “have” today, and yet the expression of the world around them was “they are turning our world upside down!” To enter the Kingdom and to bear it’s fruit, Jesus said, we have to become children and simply abide (abide means “live there.“).

• Related to the above, when Doon and the girl reach the surface, the room in which the builders lived had simple “one another” advice on the walls, signaling the simplicity with which they lived. Life in the Kingdom isn’t complicated. “Let your yes be yes…” “Love one another…” “Take no thought of your life, what you will wear, eat, etc… your heavenly Father knows…” “Abide in me…” etc.

• As the children were getting out of the city, it was clear the “answers” where there all along. The tracks for running the boats, the control room, the boats themselves… People went past them every day, even used them, and never asked the simple questions like “Hey, what are these tracks for?” No one asked “Hey what’s this room for?” No one noticed because they were too busy going through the motions, doing what they were “supposed” to be doing. (That’s one of the reasons why Jesus said the “traditions of men nullify the word of God.”) The answers to the problems around us are usually RIGHT THERE, but we can’t see them because we are blinded by our traditions and the way it’s “always been.”

There’s more, but that’s enough for now…

The final thing to note more as a question than a statement is… once the children got out of Ember and realized there was a Real World to live in, do you think they could ever go back and “pretend” and just “live in Ember” as if there wasn’t a better place to live? No.  Once they found out the Truth, all they could do was try to leave notes and tell others. But going back to “live in Ember” was really out of the question. It wasn’t a “we’re better than everyone else” thing; it was just a Reality thing. :-)  Everyone has to See it for themselves and make their own choices.  That’s Jesus’ Way!  Everyone has to have his/her “own oil” and their own “revelation that flesh and blood did not reveal” interaction with God themselves.

Enjoy!