As I mentioned in my previous post, I am planning, over the next few months, to offer some spiritual reflections on the full filmography of Tom Hanks, as viewed through the lens of a Christian theology. And one of the first things that stands out when you start to think theologically about the movies of Tom Hanks is just how big and diverse a body of work they comprise. He is widely recognized as one of Hollywood’s most prolific actors, and the recognition is well-earned.
It’s not just the quantity of films, either, but also the wide range of quality. In the last year and a half, my wife and I saw some of the most poignant performances captured on film, and also some of the worst. That two of my favorite films of all time (Forrest Gump, Joe vs. the Volcano), and two of the awfullest movies I’ve ever seen (The Da Vinci Code, Volunteers) all starred the same actor says a lot about the range of this particular actor’s career. My strong impression is that, after he reached the point where in his fame where he could easily weather a flop, he started choosing his scripts based on his own personal interest in the story or the character, whether or not the project had all the ingredients of a hit. This has led to some fascinating gems that might otherwise not have been made, but also some nearly unwatchable movies.
As a small life lesson, the full Tom Hanks filmography illustrates how the whole of a person’s life is always greater than the sum of its individual parts. If the value of Tom Hanks’s career were calculated as a simple equation of “hits” minus “bombs,” it’s quite possible he might only break even (I’ve not done the math, but my strong hunch is that there is an equal representation of both on the list of his acting credits). Yet, when viewed as a whole, there is something about the full body of the man’s life work that transcends each individual success or failure.
Because his life’s work has been so well-captured on film, of course, it’s easier to notice this “something bigger” that emerges from the whole, but once you’ve seen, it encourages you to consider your own life’s work in a similar light. It can be tempting to dwell on either the successes and failures of life as though each one defines us or determines our worth on its own. One of the things you realize when you watch the full career of a prolific actor like Tom Hanks, however, is that the meaning of a life never really boils down to a single achievement or failure. The meaning of our lives, rather, emerges out of the entirety of our efforts—the good and the bad—and as such it transcends every individual homerun or strikeout.
On its own this observation is wise, maybe, but not profoundly spiritual, or explicitly Christian. It becomes so, however, when you connect it to Christian concepts like grace and discipleship, holiness and forgiveness. Because the Christian life places such a strong emphasis on living in obedience to the teachings of Jesus (Matt 28:20), working out our salvation with fear and trembling (Phil 2:12), and having a righteousness that surpasses the Pharisees (Matt 5:20), it can be tempting to assume that our lives as disciples of Jesus can be evaluated in simple terms of our moral successes weighed against our moral failings. It’s equally easy to suppose that those individual “works”—for the good or the bad—in some way define us as either a success or a failure, spiritually speaking.
But if the life’s work of an actor with the scope and range of a Tom Hanks is greater than the sum of its individual films, this is infinitely truer for the life’s work of a sincere follower of Jesus Christ, someone seeking authentically to live their lives in his footsteps. When viewed though the lens of God’s grace, the meaning and the value of our lives as disciples emerges as a whole that beautifully transcends the individual steps forward or backward we may make in seeking to follow Him. And only God himself knows what will be revealed in the end, when the full filmography of our lives is viewed in its entirety, and we stand before him to receive our reward.
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