Oliver Stone, Wall Street and the Eschatology of Home

On this mountain the Lord Almighty will prepare
    a feast of rich food for all peoples,
a banquet of aged wine—
    the best of meats and the finest of wines.
 On this mountain he will destroy
    the shroud that enfolds all peoples,
the sheet that covers all nations;
     he will swallow up death forever.
The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears
    from all faces;
he will remove his people’s disgrace
    from all the earth.
The Lord has spoken.

-Isaiah 25.6-8 (NIV)

I recently watched a good portion of Oliver Stone’s ‘10 film Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.  It’s the only film I can think of in memory where the credits struck me more than the movie.  The tone of the credits just seemed to strike a dissonant chord in relation to all that had preceded it.  The movie is a kind of morality tale, dramatically rendering the relational cost of greed.  I won’t get to into the details.  It will suffice to say (as with any story I suppose) poor choices are made, people are betrayed, and relationships are torn, frayed and severed.  The credits though reveal a happy reunion of family and friends built around a baby’s first birthday party.  A father is reunited with his daughter. Business associates who were at odds are reconciled.  Couples who had split are smiling and holding each other affectionately.  Then it struck me, yes this is a birthday party, but this isn’t a birthday party.  Ok, that may have you saying “huh?”  It seems to me Stone was shooting for something more all encompassing.  The tone of these reconciliations seemed full and final, meant to be juxtaposed against the greed and betrayals that typified these character’s actions in the film.  What we were witnessing wasn’t just a birthday party it was “home”. 

Then I was struck by the sheer transcendence underpinning that concept, and I realized “home” is at its core an inherently eschatological concept.  I realize there’s a lot packed in there, so I will briefly unpack that sentence with the thoughts that have been floating around my head.  I will say the ideas are still freshly forming, but it might be a chance to share how the conceptual sausage gets made… so to speak. 

First I will suggest that home is different from house or shelter.  The use of the word house tends to simply signify a building where people live; nothing special, just a place of residence.  Granted, home can have the same meaning, simply a place of residence, but there is a secondary meaning inherent in home that is absent in house.  Home tends to be used to signify a place of residence where one’s affections are centered.  It intimates a place of refuge or asylum, perhaps even a place of safety and love.  The tone Stone strikes in his credits is the latter.  It’s home, though not the nostalgic longing for the home of our youth.  He pictured a present and future home, a current and future place of asylum, safety and love.  I would suggest the longing for that type of home is something we all share, and perhaps reveals something of the transcendence inside each of us.

One of the core dogmas of historic Christianity is that everyone will exist forever.  We all have a beginning, but no end.  We are all made in the image of the Triune God, and as such are more than just flesh and bone.  We harbor unseen and un-seeable components.  We are made for a life in a world where the seen and unseen intertwined into one whole reality.  According to Genesis, Adam and Eve walked and talked with God.  We live in a world where the relationship of seen and unseen is torn and frayed.  We were made for life in a world that doesn’t exist.  It’s this tension, and the many promises in scripture that this tension will one day be relieved that creates the foundation for our longing for home I think.  We see the world as it is, and conclude that this is not as it was designed, and read the promises of its repair, and look forward to that time when that eschatological home is reality. 

So when we speak of home in the here and now we speak of that temporary place of affection, refuge and love, but I think we also hint at that something that’s coming.  When we think of and speak about home we hint at the concepts that underpin the core of God’s reconciling plans for humanity, and our longing to be reconciled, and safe and loved.  Like I said, very fresh and new ideas to me, and ones I need to expand on, but ideas that encourage me, and perhaps may encourage you as well...