Learning from “Thor: Love and Thunder” About Distraction
The latest Marvel summer blockbuster, Thor: Love and Thunder, lives up to its marketing as a colorful, comedic, action-packed adventure. It’s a perfect example of what the typical big summer movies look like. At the same time, it opens with an extended scene introducing the audience to Gorr the God Butcher, the villain of the movie who is on a mission to exterminate the gods of every pantheon. He sets out to do so because his devotion to a god proves futile, and the suffering Gorr experiences does not elicit an ounce of compassion from the deity his people worship. This disillusionment with deities is something the Marvel Cinematic Universe is spending a lot of time dwelling on recently, and I was struck by the contrast between the serious questions the movie asked and the loud and entertaining romp that it ultimately was.
One of the major themes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is trauma, and how to cope with it. Over the course of the MCU, Thor has witnessed the death of his mother, father, brother, the destruction of his home world and most of the people he worked so hard to protect, along with feeling responsible for not stopping Thanos from “the snap” that wiped out half of all life across the universe. This list doesn’t even include the layers of trauma and suffering that come from this newest movie. Thor: Love and Thunder shows the ways he is (and isn’t) working through this trauma, while also interweaving the disillusionment with deities theme mentioned above, all while there’s a constant barrage of jokes. I felt that Thor: Love and Thunder could have engaged with these ideas if only the rest of the film didn’t work so hard to pull our attention elsewhere.
Thor: Love and Thunder can serve as a reminder for youth workers to resist distractions from their mission, regardless of how fun or entertaining those distractions may be. As we consider our own ministry to students, it’s wise to evaluate whether or not there are ways we fail to hear and meaningfully engage with their deepest questions because we are distracting ourselves and our students with something else?
Jesus, the Never Distracted One
There’s something to be said about the current pace of our culture and the role of technology in shortening our attention spans and causing us to live distracted lives. Even for those of us who think critically about our engagement with media, are intentional about games and limiting the flashy aspects of youth ministry, and what questions our students are asking, we can fall victim to missing out on those opportunities by simply being distracted from our mission. I want to present two encounters Jesus had during his earthly ministry where he could have been distracted but was not, as these reveal a few ways we can miss opportunities to engage.
In Luke 8, Jesus meets a man named Jairus, a ruler of the synagogue whose daughter is sick at home. After he pleads with Jesus, Jesus agrees to go with him and heal his daughter. Along the way, they pass through a busy crowd of people and Jesus feels someone touch him. Even though he is on an urgent mission to see Jairus’ daughter, Jesus stops and fully engages with a woman who had been bleeding for 12 years. While he takes time to stop and heal her, Jairus’ daughter dies. I imagine Jairus’ thinking that if Jesus had only stayed focused on the task he asked him to do first, his daughter would not have died. However, Jesus was not distracted by the urgency of one task (even a very good ministry task) to engage fully with the woman.
In John 4, Jesus is in a different situation. He is not near a crowd, and it’s not busy at all as he waits by a well for his disciples to come back with food from a nearby town. As Jesus waits there, he encounters a Samaritan woman who comes to draw water at a time she can be alone. As Jesus engages her in conversation, we see how he beautifully keeps prodding deeper into her heart. He is not too focused on her initial questions or responses to miss that there are deeper questions to be engaged.
It’s possible for us to be distracted by the events, programs, and “stuff” of ministry that we miss the deep questions our students are asking. In those cases, we’re like the movie that is too focused on getting to the next big scene to dwell on the tough questions. It’s also possible for us to be distracted by our students’ surface level questions and answers that we miss the real questions behind that layer. In those cases, we’re like someone who looks at Gorr’s quest to eliminate the gods and simply sees vengeance instead of the deep hurt, suffering, and doubt that motivate him.
Fully Engaging
Even if we understand our capacity to be distracted and want to fully engage with the questions our students are truly asking, it can still be hard to know how to do that. I want to suggest two ways I think we can start that process, and while they may be simple it’s often the slow and steady progress we make that has lasting impact.
Be a Student of Culture
As a youth pastor theologian, it’s probably safe to say that you enjoy studying Scripture and theology. We see the value in that and how it informs our ministry, and rightly so! At the same time, I think there’s tremendous value in studying the culture in equal measure. Karl Barth is famously quoted as instructing Christians to “keep the bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other.” The deep questions our students are asking are also being asked in the movies, tv, music, and social media that pervades our lives. While our engagement with culture can contribute to our distracted nature, I think that’s because of how often we engage it without a purpose. It’s one thing to watch a show or movie to simply relax, and it’s another thing to shut off our brains. We have to be dual listeners, who study and listen to the culture as we study Scripture and evaluate the culture through that lens. One good resource for this is the podcast Thanos to Theos (cohosted by YPT’s founder Mike McGarry), a podcast about comics, culture, theology, and youth ministry.
Slow Down
I’m someone who listens to podcast and Youtube videos on at least 1.5 speed, and who moves from task to task quickly. So this encouragement is as much for myself as it is for you. I think that if we simply slow down in all areas of our lives we’ll find our ability to engage with our students’ honest questions will greatly improve. Whether we are too busy with ministry events to take time to listen to them, or whether we are distracted in a conversation because we’re thinking about other things, or because we are just too tired to fully engage since we don’t slow down enough to rest well, our busyness does not have a positive impact on our ministries. We need to start with rest. This may mean cutting out one of our regular youth events so we’re less focused on planning, or it may mean not booking appointments with students or parents back to back so we have room to be truly present. However this looks for you, finding one or two ways to slow down is good progress in the right direction.
Ultimately, our ability to set aside distractions and fully engage with our students and their real questions should reflect the gospel. It should communicate to them that they have inherent value and worth as an image bearer. It should communicate to them that the questions they struggle with are valid and important. It should communicate to them that our God is not one who is too distracted to engage with us. Praise God that he fully engaged, to the point of taking on flesh, to communicate his love to us. May we reflect that same heart as his ambassadors to the students he’s placed in our lives.