“Red” is in “Shawshank” for murder, a crime which unlike that of most of his contemporaries he is willing to own, perhaps too willing but that’s a subject for another time. He is “The only guilty man in Shawshank.” It is a deed that has cast a long shadow over the remainder of his life. Well, much as we might like to push the uncomfortable fact aside Moses would be able to empathize with “Red.”
Moses too committed murder in his youth. Yes I know we can make a case for dressing it up and making it look respectable so that we can protest that his crime is not the same as Red’s. After all, Moses was “Refusing” to be called the son of Pharoah’s daughter.” Turning his back on the privileges of power to be his people’s deliverer. Therefore his crime was committed in the name of defending the Israelite from the Egyptian – almost righteous anger then. So then the question becomes why did he run away? And, having run away why did he stay away? We can only conclude that he decided in his own heart that he had disqualified himself by his reckless act
Moses, like Red encounters wilderness, the wilderness of as oppose to the wilderness of Shawshank – and his response to such wilderness mirrors that of our resourceful prison lag. Just as Red becomes the “Can do” man of Shawshank, Moses too sets out to reinvent himself. His previous self-righteous actions have ruled out one identity so he sets out to self-righteously invent another one or, if you prefer, to find a new way to justify himself.
Just have a look with me at the dialogue between the Lord and Moses at the burning bush.
Exodus 3:10ff reads – “Come I will send you to Pharoah that you may bring my people, the children of Israel out of Egypt.” But Moses said, “Who am I that I should go to Pharoah and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt.”
At first glance we may wish to argue that the above dialogue demonstrates that Moses has at least been cured by the wilderness of his sin of presumption – but take another look.
40 years before Moses killed the Egyptian in a search for identity, having concluded if I’m not the son of Pharoah’s daughter Who am I.
Having fled from Pharoah concluding “I’ve disqualified myself from being God’s man for his people he has spent the next 40 years asking the same question, “Who am I?”
Moreover, he hasn’t just asked the question – he has also taken it upon himself to answer it as the opening to Exodus 4 reveals.
“The Lord said to him, what is that in your hand?” He (Moses) said, “A staff.” And he said “Throw it on the ground.” So he threw it on the ground and it became a serpent and Moses ran from it.”
Moses had reinvented himself in his quest to answer the question Who am I? He had taken on the identity of shepherd, a despised class, the lowest of the low we might say but an identity nevertheless.
Do you see the parallel to “Red?” Red, what have you got in your hand? “That rock hammer you wanted – that picture of Rita Hayworth – that privilege of “Outdoor detail.” All seeming blessings but in truth, for him at least a curse because they served to reinforce him as the “Can do man” thereby ever increasingly entombing him in the vileness of Shawshank.
Red/Moses have each spent years in the wilderness but their respective quests are still self-orientated, self-focused, still wrapped up in Who am I. Whether your conclusion to the question Who am I is that you are somebody or nobody is not the point – both are entirely consumed with self to the extent that they miss the call of God which is I Am!
Both Moses and Red had bought into an idea that is highly prevalent in our world and perhaps especially our churches today – namely the idea that God is the God of self-improvement, self-awareness, self-advancement if you will – the God of Who am I?
Shocking, not to say offensive, as it might seem the I Am of God speaks of something altogether different. The I Am of God speaks not of self-improvement but rather self-replacement! That’s the great truth of the Apostle Paul’s declaration of Galatians 2:20 – I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me.”
Moses and Red both have to come to the realisation that they are neither required nor able to, or for that matter even entitled to reinvent themselves. You cannot improve the flesh it has to die and the believer’s life is crucified with Christ in order that it might be replaced with the I Am of God’s life.
Therefore any attempt to reinvent or commend ourselves to God must meet with the same response as Moses received at the burning bush of Throw it on the ground because we cannot truly experience divine life until we become sufficiently horrified and disillusioned with our own.
What about us? How does the question find us? What have we got in our hand? The church accounts? Sunday’s sermon? Our looming 3 rd year university exam? The deal our boss expects us to clinch? An editor’s deadline to reach? If any of those things represent our attempt to commend ourselves to God then we too must here God’s call to Moses to “Throw it on the ground.”
Let me leave you with one last thought in readiness for next time and it’s this – have we grown old to the scandalous nature of God’s love? Moses and Red considered themselves disqualified by an impetuous act of youth – an act of murder no less – yet subsequent events are going to suggest that they were not. The problem being that in most of our eyes there is a lingering sense that they should have been. However, to conclude such is to place them back under the realm of the Law and once we do that we by default place ourselves under the law and therefore back onto the hamster wheel of feeling obliged to justify ourselves before God – a justification the scandalous love of God does not either require or allow.
The world according to Red 2 - Performance based acceptance
Written by Jon Batham AKA Red My wifes London school held a non-competitive sports day in 2006 I can still just about remember such occasions from my own school days. While I accept such an idea is appealing to some peope, to someone with sport embedded within his God-given DNA, a non-competitive sports day has never been an thought. Looking back to my own school days, a bit of a stretch I admit, memories come flooding back of my days in the Sack Race. I was a little vertically challenged prior to my teenage years to use the in vogue politically correct expression. So imagine my delight in the year that I was ten when we used small sacks made from hessian for the big race day. Short though I was I could get my feet right into the corners of the sack and consequently sped to victory. To my horror, the following year they used massive potato sacks into which I almost disappeared and I trailed in almost last hero to zero in the space of a year. Perhaps thats why my wifes school had its Non-competitive sports day! However, to me its political correctness gone mad but as we shall discover there is a good reason why such a philosophy has been enabled to prosper and the reason is the prison of Performance Based Acceptance/Identity. Nowhere is this syndrome better illustrated than through the eyes of in the 1994 film classic Shawshank Redemption.
The World According to Red Redemption beyond Divine Parole. If youre looking for a DVD for rental this month can I plead with you to revisit the top video rental movie of 1995, namely Stephen Kings Shawshank Redemption. Before those of you of a sensitive disposition stop reading, appalled at the mention of a horror writer in the pages of a Christian website consider the following: 1. God is the creator and he is the author of creativity and the arts ever before any efforts of the enemy to hijack proceedings 2. Gods omnipotence is such that he is able to use whomever he chooses to speak into the lives of whomever he decides we are speaking of a God who raised up Cyrus to lead the Israelites back to Jerusalem and a donkey, no less, to speak to Balaam, not to mention Saul of Tarsus, the persecutor of the church to reach and revolutionize the Gentile world.
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