From The Desk of a Geek:
Your Friendly Neighborhood Hero
After assisting Tony Stark in Captain America: Civil War, Peter Parker is ready for the next big mission. He’s prepared to quit school, leave Queens, and become a full-time Avenger.
Giving directions to lost old ladies and foiling bike bandits aren’t enough for Peter; he wants to make his mark on the world and use every ounce of his ability all the time.
In Spider-Man: Homecoming, Peter calls the head of security, to let him know that Spider-Man’s skills are being underutilized and he wants to do more.
I can relate to Peter. I want to be doing great things. I want to help everyone, care for everything, be everywhere. I’ve bitten off more than I can chew at times, and I can tell you, it’s a quick way to choke. We often wear the moniker of “keeping busy” like a badge of honour. When asked what we’ve been up to, “nothing” just doesn’t cut it as a response.
If life isn’t overwhelming, it must mean we’re failing. And if we’re not doing something that impacts the masses, it’s not worthwhile. Tony Stark knows this isn’t true, that sometimes we need space and time to grow. He knows exactly what a frantic life is, having spent the majority of his time sleep-deprived and dabbling in everything from building dozens of suits to equipping S.H.I.E.L.D. with his latest inventions.
He doesn’t want Peter to follow in his footsteps by taking on the world. After Peter messes up pretty bad, he says this to Tony Stark,
“I was just trying to be like you. And Tony's response....
“I wanted you to be better.”
Peter impacts many lives and does tremendous good in his neighbourhood through small deeds. Returning people’s bikes and stopping car thieves might seem like useless things compared to what Spider-Man is capable of, but those things make a difference to the innocents involved. Peter doesn’t consider the importance of his small acts of service at first, perhaps because he wants the fame of Iron Man, or maybe because he simply wants to be part of a bigger picture.
But it’s during his time as a high school student in Queens that he learns what he is capable of, how to best protect others, and how valuable people are as individuals.
We can take inspiration from Spider-Man by biting off a chewable amount of work and valuing friendly, neighbourhood acts of service. Rather than striving to maximize our efforts in as many things as possible, we can take a step back. We can still strive to be our best, but if we focus on fewer things, we can give them our full attention. Focusing on a few lives to impact may be more fruitful than stretching ourselvesthin trying to impact as many people as possible.
Within Christianity, something called “Protestant work ethic” has dominated modern thinking. It says that we should be as busy as possible doing all kinds of good things and making sure we follow all the rules we can in all the ways we can.
I don’t think that’s actually what Christianity should be like. In the Bible, Jesus is often approached by Pharisees who want to know exactly how to behave to be righteous. Rather than adding more laws to their strict rule book (there were over 600 commandments under the Law of Moses),
Jesus simplifies them: love God and love your neighbour as yourself (Matthew 22:37–39).
The directive to “love your neighbour” suggests that one person is worth our time. In the Bible, a man named Ebed-melech rescues the prophet Jeremiah from a well Ebed-melech only shows up in scripture this once; he lets the king know where Jeremiah is and fetches some rags for the prophet to put between his armpits and the ropes as he’s lifted out. After being in water for so long, Jeremiah’s skin would be tender to the point of tearing, so the rags would prevent injury. In the grand scheme of the Bible, it seems odd that this seemingly insignificant detail is recorded, yet Ebed-melech’s small act of service is important enough for him to be named.
His small act of kindness is a friendly, neighbourhood sort of act—one that Jeremiah and his armpits no doubt appreciated.
At the end of Spider-Man: Homecoming, Peter sets aside his fancy suit, the title of Avenger, and the adoring press to take care of his neighbourhood by giving it his undivided attention. He walks away from the opportunity of a lifetime to make a lifetime’s worth of difference to a few people.
If we strive to be the kind of people who use all our resources in doing simple things well, in letting one or two people know they are loved and cared for, we are making a valuable difference. We are exhibiting Spider-Man’s, and indeed, Christ’s kind of love when we make sure there’s a little extra wrapping to soften a difficult situation.
Maybe if each of us works hard at making the simple things important in our lives, others will too; if enough of us focus on the simple, we might even achieve the extraordinary.
Our friendly, neighbourhood kindness may just spread throughout the world.
Lonnie....
