Sermon Tone Analysis

I prayed for all of you this past week, and I hope that some of you walked in here today as free men and women!

Perhaps no literary form is better adapted to the subject [of faith] than the form of fiction.

From the essay “Faith and Fiction,” Frederick Buechner

And no other fiction has influenced popular culture among youth and young adults more than Stranger Things.

I once heard someone say, “Tell me the facts and I’ll learn.

Tell me the truth and I’ll believe.

But tell me a story and it will live in my heart forever.”

Stories stick to our hearts like velcro.

Even the Apostle Mark, one of Jesus’ disciples, recorded in his letter to the early church:

'Jesus used many similar stories and illustrations to teach the people as much as they could understand.

In fact, in his public ministry he never taught without using parables.'

Mark 4:33-34

Jesus told stories to velcro God’s truth onto human hearts and minds.

Stories of all kinds - and of all mediums - connect our hearts into deeper truths.

All truth, ultimately, belongs to God.

God is a God of truth, and every truth bears witness to its creator.

Yet, not all truth saves.

For example, 1+1=2.

This is a true statement, and it bears witness to God as one of order, but this truth statement can’t restore your life and give you grace, nor show you love.

Saving truth, on the other hand, saving truth is truth that leads to new life and reconciliation to our Creator.

Saving truth opens our mind to understand God’s work for us in Christ, and sometimes these truths about God show up in the most unlikely places.

I was astounded by the numerous metaphors for deeper, biblical truths about God in Stranger Things.

And those with clear eyes to see into this series, understanding these parallels could potentially create opportunities for conversations about God with others who also love this show.

Stranger Things is the most popular streaming television show in history, and if you haven’t seen it, then may I introduce you to your next binge:

SHOW PREVIEW

Stranger Things is a science fiction horror drama set in a 1980s fictional rural town called Hawkins, Indiana.

Anyone here made in the 80’s?

Located nearby is the Hawkins National Laboratory, a secret research facility operated by the United States Department of Energy, which masks itself as a lighting company, but covertly performs experiments into the paranormal.

When unexpectedly, the lab scientists inadvertently opened a secret portal into an alternate dimension they call "the Upside Down,” which is a world just like ours - it looks just like ours, it feels just like ours - but it is a world of death and decay terrorized by a monster who ‘steals, kills, and destroys’ John 10:10 from wherever it roams, including from our right side up world.

Hint, hint: this a metaphor for our world.

The series begins when the monster roams into our ‘right side up’ and steals away a young middle school aged boy named Will Byers into the Upside Down.

Days into the search for Will, just as volunteers prepare to give up on him, his mother mysteriously notices the lights flickering in her home.

Desperate for any sign of hope and wondering if this could be Will trying to communicate with her, she contrives a way for Will to make contact, and he responds.

Though she neither sees nor hears her son, Will’s mom is so convinced, she believes with all of her heart, soul, mind, and strength that what she experienced through the lights was Will, and it was real - and that she didn’t imagine it - but that, indeed, her son is alive.

(Which by the way, I am never going to feel comfortable around Christmas lights again).

She believed this, even when the ‘Hawkins Lab’ claimed to find Will’s body.

She believed this even when her oldest son, Jonathan, Will’s older brother, confronted her about her strange behavior.

Take a look:

PLAY SCENE 1

What faith of a mother!

Truly... the element of Faith holds every theme together in Stranger Things.

A mother’s love…

A brother’s search…

The bond of friends…

While researching this show, I came across an article published by a Jewish magazine concerning the topic of faith, saying:

“What Will’s mother and friends experience isn’t only the challenge of convincing the rest of the world that they’re right about the fate of one boy; what they’re really up against is explaining what faith is and how it works to people who’ve lost the capacity for transcendence.”

Tablet Magazine

Meaning people who are tethered to concrete reality.

Will’s mother - you and me - even though we may doubt, as Will’s mother did… ‘Am I crazy, I know I sound crazy, but I heard him, Jonathan,’ she says…’ - Will’s mother kept her faith in what she experienced as so real and so true.

This scene reminds me of what the Apostle John recorded at the very end of his letter when Jesus spoke to his closest followers just before he ascended into Heaven, saying:

“Is it because you have seen me that you believe?

God’s blessing on those people who don’t see, and yet believe.”

John 20:29

Stranger Things is a metaphor for faith, believing in what you cannot see and staking your life on it.

Soon Will’s brother, Will’s friends, and the greatest Sheriff of all time, Sheriff Hopper, all come to believe that something extraordinary happened to Will, and from then on, the fight turned away from each other and toward one mission uniting them all together, amidst their differences and personalities.

But at first they fight alone, uncoordinated and relying only upon themselves.

Early on, Will’s brother, Jonathan, and Will’s friend’s sister, Nancy, team up together to beat the monster and free Will, believing they can accomplish this mission by themselves.

Nancy even goes into the Upside Down on her own apart from Jonathan, which nearly resulted in her life.

Even though they trusted each other and believed in one another and believed that they could find Will, on their own they failed.

Hint, hint another parallel: we need each other.

We need each other.

We can’t go this world alone, nor can we free ourselves from the Upside Down.

We need each other for support, encouragement, building one another up, just like in this conversation between Jonathan and his mom.

PLAY SCENE 3

The Apostle Paul teaches in is letter to the church in Ephesus located in the region called Asia Minor, which is now present-day Turkey - that our battles are not against God, but the evils of the world:

Hint, hint: the monster is a parallel for the evil one.

The Apostle Paul wrote:

Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.

Put on all of God’s armor so that you will be able to stand firm against all strategies of the devil.

For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.

Hint, hint another parallel: the Upside Down is the dark places.

Therefore, put on every piece of God’s armor so you will be able to resist the enemy in the time of evil.

Then after the battle you will still be standing firm.

Ephesians 6:10-13.

The mighty powers in this dark world is the Upside Down; the terror of evil is the monster, the thief who comes to steal, kill, and destroy.

On the one hand, the Upside Down feels so familiar to us, doesn’t it?

In the Upside Down, there is chaos, there is death, there is injustice, there are wrongs, sickness, power-plays, the Dolphins losing again and again and again.

The Upside Down is our world.

Yet, on the other hand, in our world, there is goodness and beauty, there is order, there is freedom, there is healing of sickness, righting of wrongs, mercy and justice, there is love, there is God’s goodness flowing forth throughout our world, there is God’s grace, there is majesty and wonder in this one world.

To say our world is one or the other is to miss the true state of our world.

Our world has witnessed the victory of Jesus, but has not yet been given the spoils.

We have been redeemed, and we are being restored.

We are in the already, but the not yet.

We are living in the right side up and the upside down.

Until the final restoration of all things, the evil one will continue to steal, kill, and destroy and “prowl around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.” 1 Peter 5:8

Yet, even then, Paul teaches: Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.

Put on all of God’s armor so that you will be able to stand firm against all strategies of the devil.

Though our world is still upside down, yet being made right side up everyday, Paul says, you can live here and now in such a way that resists the is set free from the monster and set free in Christ.

In Stranger Things, Will’s three friends find a young girl named Eleven, who possesses supernatural powers and intercedes on their behalf to save them.

Sounds like someone else we know.

:)

Throughout the series, the boys nickname Eleven, “El.”

In the ancient Hebrew from which the Old Testament was written, the name “El” meant “God.”

Truly, for all of us, El has interceded on our behalf through El’s son, Jesus Christ, who endured the cross to forever rescue us from the Upside Down and forever save us from the evil one trying to devour us.

On the cross, through the power of his resurrection, Jesus atoned for our sins.

Jesus paid our debt of choosing to live as the gods and goddesses of our own life and did justice on our behalf so that we may enjoy right now, beginning today, the very satisfaction that God promised to us from the very beginning.

Elsewhere, in another letter that Paul wrote to a church in Colossae, close to Ephesus in the same region, Paul said:

God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins.

He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross.

In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities.

They no longer wield any power over you.