God, Story, and Netflix

A news report on TV caught my attention as I sat in the LaGuardia airport terminal a few weeks ago awaiting my flight out of New York. The segment analyzed a new entertainment phenomenon, one that I’ve often found myself sucked in to.

Netflix. The popular online media service has, it seems to me, redefined the entertainment industry by offering thousands of television and movie titles to users for streaming at an affordable, monthly rate. Brilliant! Or is it? Here’s the question the news report posed to viewers – why do we unhealthily binge-watch TV shows on Netflix?

The reporter in the segment interviewed average Americans on the street, asking them whether or not they spent several hours at a time on Netflix, which TV shows they obsessed over, and why they did. Their answers confirmed the reporter’s concerns.

During the report, a research specialist compellingly told viewers that binge-watching quality television drains the binge-watcher of the excited anticipation for the next chapter – for the story’s further development. The specialist argued that the binge-watcher strips him or herself of the opportunity for wonder, reflection, musing, and imagination when “marathoning” shows on Netflix. And I think he was right.

So, why do we do it? Why do we binge-watch? Why do we want to be so caught up in the drama of an exciting or noble or romantic or scandalous story that we would spend hours watching in one sitting?

The specialist suggested that we long for escape, but I rather think we long to “enter into” something. I think we long for a story. We long for a story that gives us purpose beyond the perceived mediocrity or monotony of our lives. We long to be ennobled by a purpose beyond ourselves. We long to be entranced by a real lover or made carefree by a true friend. We long for the meaning we discover on the road to somewhere distant or new or hopeful. We long for the "Good" to be truly good, so that injustice and evil are plain to denounce or rectify. And we want all this to last. We’re looking for a story we can binge on – a full and lasting and integrated experience of life that multiplies our sense of wholeness and drives us toward a satisfying finale.

I think we’re looking for the story of God, the story into which we’ve all been invited. But this story isn’t predictable. It’s the best kind of story – one that has an unexpected twist in the middle. Like this new “mid-season finale” trend that popular TV shows have been embracing, the story of God has a mid-season finale that’s left us all on the edge of our seats since it aired.

The story of God has God-in-the-flesh at its climax, Jesus Christ. In Jesus, God judged the evil of the world and “disarmed” it, as scripture says. In Jesus, God put his story of healing the broken world back on track by disarming evil, freeing people from its oppression, and forgiving people of their culpability. From the cross until now, people who’ve trusted God and live in his narrative by faith in Jesus have been on the edge of their seats as they enter into his story of redemption – finding themselves at once both restored and being restored.

The wonder of the Christian story is that God eradicates our hopelessness and redefines us by his costly, self-giving love in Christ. As reinvigorated people of God, filled with his Spirit by the promise of Christ, God sends us to be people who, ever dependent on his grace, extend self-giving love.

You don't have to sit on the couch and watch this story unfold from a distance; God invites us right into the heart of his restorative plan for the world through Jesus. This is better than Netflix.