There have not been many television shows as good as the HBO series The Wire. Some, such as Mad Men and Breaking Bad, are in the same league. Others would probably argue for Friday Night Lights (this is a great dispensation for television!). Whatever your poison might be, The Wire and I have spent a great deal of time together. Detective Jimmy McNulty is one of the heroes/anti-heroes of the series whose deft investigatory skills and genuine sincerity about his work are tempered by a high-functioning alcoholism, arrogance, deviousness, and a long line of broken relationships. He is the perfect real-life protagonist who is a jumble of mixed motives and not an impossible paragon of Aristotelian virtue from a Bill Bennett book.
The purpose of this little reflection is not to give the theological ramifications of the entire series but to share one poignant moment that I see as a representative of the common thread in all human longing. This particular moment occurs in Season 5 during McNulty’s dramatic fall from grace following a brief stint in a healthy, happy relationship. He falls off the wagon and becomes the chief instigator of a very serious deception in the Baltimore Police Department. A man at low ebb with no friends and an alienated love-interest.
The scene unfolds as his girlfriend, played by the peerless Amy Ryan, returns home with her children after “going home to stay with mother awhile” (a euphemism… but you know what I mean) and they meet on her front porch. She is clearly upset as they speak (and rightly so… she has been hurt by him immeasurably). In a moment of unforgettable humility and vulnerability, he comes clean to her about the city-wide deception he has been perpetrating. “You know,” he says, “you begin something like this thinking you are some kind of hero and then you realize…” SLAM! She slams the door in his face in incredulous rage and righteousness. The camera pans back to McNulty as he stands there silently, absorbing the justice that he has seen so many times.
You see the same question and answer in Breaking Bad when Walter White (a high school chemistry teacher who turns to cooking crystal meth for money to finance his cancer treatment and take care of his family) is locked in a trunk by a drug dealer. The New Mexico heat makes him delusional and he imagines (as the vicious drug dealer opens the trunk) that he sees his estranged wife trying to embrace him, saying, “I understand.” The vision quickly dissipates and he is thrown to the ground by a monster of a man.
Where can I find a gracious God? That is the question asked here. And it is a question asked by people in the face of the immutability of the givens of life which Ecclesiastes 1:15 says are “crooked and cannot be straightened”. It is a question sneeringly derided by a lot of current New Testament scholarship which finds itself unable (and, frankly, unwilling) to place itself within the experience of the people they study to minister to. It is the question that people consciously or unconsciously ask in their ultimately futile attempts to seduce justice with virtue. It is a question asked by St. Paul and Martin Luther.
It is answered by the Lamb of God on the cross. “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:45 ESV) Thankfully, Mockingbird is a place you can go to hear this answer again and again.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_LLFfFXaUA&w=600]
COMMENTS
8 responses to “Jimmy McNulty, Walter White and the Search for a Gracious God”
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Radioactive post.
Your illustrations, the passionate writing, the beautiful conclusion:
I think this is a model for ministry and connecting.
I've recently been confronted by an enabler syndrom and came to what I think is an aha insight to what man paases off as grace but is really just contractual,it's not free.I think most people instinctively expect grace but get a contract .Gods grace being free, no strings attached imputes a seed of reciprical love where as false grace can only yield a false love that grows into resentment,alienation and hate. Grace takes no effort,the other takes a lifetime of plotting.
Dave,
You are all over it , per usual.
I agree with Paul,
"this is a model for ministry and (most importantly) connecting."
That scene with McNulty is so powerful, almost the climax of his character's story. Question: if she hadn't slammed the door, how do you think he would have responded? Would he have been "changed" in some way? I don't think so. He would have been grateful for sure, but I think he would have gone on being McNulty.
Have you seen Nurse Jackie yet? She strikes me as a very McNulty-esque character: great at her job, a total mess when it comes to everything else, with truly mixed motives (rather than pure self-interest).
Thanks, Paul. That means a lot.
David, that might be one of the best comments ever.
Mike, I appreciate it.
Dave, I think you're right but it would probably soften his heart toward her and re-orient their relationship in a positive manner. Of course, she is not able to give the Holy Spirit, so the transaction is not necessarily a supernatural one. My main thrust, regardless of her response, was the question he was asking.
D- I totally agree and didn't mean to come across as critical. One of the reasons McNulty is such a great stand-in for humanity is that his self-destructive compulsions are so pronounced that his need for grace seems equally endless – he is dying for a gracious God in other words. Beedie would have been a start though.
And as you say, the question is the more important thing anyway.
Dave,
I didn't think you were being critical at all. I was just at work when I wrote that so I had to make it quick and to the point.
I actually think the question you bring up is one that is worthy of a lot of thought and a lot of posts 🙂
David