Tuesday, April 1, 2014

A Jesus Kind of Church -- by Greg Albrecht

No Country for Old Men
"The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." —Luke 4: 18-19
Out in the endless, desolate desert of west Texas, a hunter looking for antelope stumbles on a crime scene. Abandoned cars and trucks are pock marked with bullet holes, and a half dozen or so dead bodies are scattered around.

In that odd and somewhat glib euphemism used by the media, it's apparently a drug deal "gone wrong" (if indeed there was ever a "right" drug deal!). Examining this massacre, as flies hover around the bodies, the hunter finds a suitcase of money which provides the motive for all of the violence that follows in the 2007 movie, No Country for Old Men. The movie follows the trail of the money, in a telling and apt metaphor of the violence that often accompanies greed and lust in contemporary American life.

Tommy Lee Jones plays a Texas sheriff about ready to retire. He spends most of the movie trying, without much success, to stop the bloodshed the money causes. No Country for Old Men considers America's bloodlust for the fast and easy fix, the get-rich-quick schemes that enamor and trap so many.

Click here to read more...