Only Murderers in the Building - Redemption through Trauma - A Christian Review
A ragtag unlikely team of neighbors (Martin Short as Oliver Putnam, Steve Martin as Charles Haden Savage, and Selena Gomez as Mabel Mora) seek to uncover the truth behind the murders in their building. As with most mysteries, there is way more than meets the eye. Each of our three heroes, along with those they meet along the way, bear secrets, trauma, regrets and weaknesses. Yet somehow through their connection to one another, they find purpose, belonging and even healing. These murders come to affect all of them and yet somehow good comes from it.
I want to look at 3 ideas: 1) Finding purpose through belonging and belonging through purpose, 2) How our difference can actually show the good in other’s differences and 3) How trauma might be redeemed and even become redeeming.
At the start of this show our three characters seem utterly alone. One because of a failed marriage, another because of a certain kind of failed pride and another because of repeated trauma and lost friends. They do not seem like people who would get along and in many ways they don’t, yet they find a kind of shared purpose and belonging in one another and in the uncovering of the murder. Already, the trauma has some redeeming simply in creating connection and friendship. Yet, they all become slowly enmeshed in each other’s life.
It is a seeming accident that brings them together in the same elevator and pushes them towards investigating the murder together. As I write this, I can barely imagine what else would ever bring these three very different people together. It is the same way with the church, here are these people, across cultures, across generations, across so many things that should keep them separate and yet the seeming accidental and a shared purpose in Jesus Christ, bring us together and create a greater community through it. The great thing about Jesus Christ is that he gives us continuous connection and purpose across the divides.
At the start of the second season, it seemed as if they were in a standstill in their relationships with no shared purpose, even though the show goes quickly into the next murder. That is because there are a lot of very fickle things that connect us. It might be a shared space, a shared interest, a shared role, but all of these can and will disappear and only go so deep into who we are. Tragedy and struggling together has an extra ability to connect us because it often does dig deeper into who we are, what we feel, how we want to live, etc. Yet nothing can connect us and give us a shared purpose like a singular identity, which is practically impossible without an invitation into a greater identity beyond ourselves - The body of Christ is the place where somehow we can find a shared identity and yet we can also be wholly ourselves as God created us to be.
The amazing reality about this shared purpose that creates belonging, is that belonging then can reinforce or create purpose. Once these three misfit neighbors found themselves researching this murder together, they began to have more purpose. Soon, they wanted to know one another more and help each other through their struggles and relationships, they were listening and becoming present. This is even more the case in the body of Christ, because as we form a new relationship in Christ, we become family. We find that we not only have a responsibility of love, but that we want to serve one another as our child, brother, sister, parent and not just an acquaintance or friend. The great reality is that this new purpose is actually only an extension of our original. As we care for one another and get to know one another, we understand that we are caring for and growing closer to God himself. The show has done well to try to connect some fairly tangential pieces of history, information, experience etc. but the reality in God is that all of our experience, all of our history, all of our relationships have a direct connection with our purpose in God. So we both find our purpose and our relationships continually reinforcing themselves to greater strength, purpose and belonging.
The other great thing about this hodge-podge group in Only Murders in the Building, is that even though all three seem to have great weaknesses (closed off, unsuccessful actor, misguided producer among other things) somehow through their relationship and purpose those weaknesses become strengths. The closed-off loner slowly opens up. The unsuccessful actor becomes the voice of the podcast and begins to experience a comeback, along with a restoration of love and a relationship with his daughter. The misguided producer, finds himself producing the podcast with a new vision and vigor as well as rebuilding trust with his son and investors. This same reality can happen in the church.
In the church, those things that we thought were weaknesses might become our strengths, but even more so. Only Murders in the Building provides us with many examples of reversals, where the reality of a weakness is changed, but in Christ, a weakness doesn’t have to change to become a strength (though God does that too). Paul tells us that it is through our weakness that God shows his strength. Look at the early disciples like Peter, here were fishermen with no intellectual education, who through the Holy Spirit spoke such wisdom and revelation that people were amazed and the wise of the day couldn’t stand before it. Here were tax collectors, like Matthew, who were shunned and shamed in society and yet God made to be visions of his redemption, forgiveness and a new kind of community as they even became its leaders. The same can be true for us. I spoke in a previous review how I believe an addictive personality has a purpose with God, but I could go on to talk about how blindness, dyslexia, accidents, suffering and so much more in my life has become the very way in which God strengthens me and gives me purpose. A big part of this was the way the community helped to recognize, guide and empower me through these and all situations, but prayer, bible reading, and action were essential to these realities as well.
This brings me to the reality of redemption in and through suffering. In the show, we see how, likely, these three were only brought together because of a literal tragedy. We see how it brings them closer to practically every other person, even the killer. We see how new relationships are started or restored. Along with that, we have already talked about how it gave them purpose, belonging and reshaped their weaknesses. Suffering doesn’t always do this, as we see with the original murder that broke up a friend group and put an innocent man in jail. And of course, the murdered does not come back to life, but none the less, there are still redemptive moments in trauma and tragedy.
This seeming contradiction is at the very heart of the gospel. Throughout history, God has witnessed and tried to help a broken humanity, who continually hurt one another, act out in evil, turn away from His love and try to redefine what is good and bad for themselves, rather than what is true. God has tried again and again to redeem us to bring us to new life. His creating Israel was a dedicated effort to create a people who would be his blessings in the world and build a community that was his restoration in the world, but people continued to not live up to their purpose or what is good. God in his grace, mercy and love, continually worked to restore and redeem anyways.
Finally, when the time was right, God came down himself and became human in Jesus Christ, knowing full well that he would suffer, as all humans in this life do and die. He did, but he purposely chose to suffer at human hands, to show us our weakness and evil, so that we might see how much we need to be redeemed and seek it. It was his suffering and the trauma of the cross that becomes a vision both of our greatest weakness and fault, but also of our greatest hope, because there is a vision the greatest love: God so loves us to lay down his life for us, while we hate him and kill him, even though he didn’t have to. If God can redeem death and the worst suffering we could imagine (the cross was literal torture, but there is even more to it). Then how much more can he and will he redeem all of our trauma, if we let him? All of the stuff I have been talking about in the rest of this review is the fruit of this restoration and redemption. A restored life and love means a restored relationship with God and all people, a restored purpose and a restoration and redemption of every weakness - even our evil.
Other questions or topics for discussion:
Each of the characters have a lot of baggage or shadows they are haunted by. How do our shadows or baggage change who we are? Why do we need to find a release in this? How does forgiveness and redemption in God and community help us?
In the first and second season, their podcast meets its rival in the one they idolized. When does rivalry become destructive? When is it helpful? Paul talks about owing one another nothing but love. How might this challenge the way we become rivals?
Secrets seem to be such a part of this world, yet secrets by their very nature hide something. Each character holds their own secrets that help to form the drama of the story, but how do those secrets get in the way? How do secrets keep us separate? How do secrets hide the truth and potential hope from us? Is there a way to move past secrets in this life?
We know that not all relationships are positive. Some relationships can be destructive, even if there are good things coming out of it. Only Murderers in the Building has a few of these. Both murderers in the first season find themselves intertwined with the group. What was problematic in these relationships? What was good? What did they finally have to do? Is there any hope for these relationships? Why? Is this hope going to be realized?
The tragedy brings our three heroes together, but so does their location and closeness, as practical neighbors. We are told in the bible that we need to love our neighbor as ourself. Who are our neighbors? Why are they so important in sharing love? How does presence relate to love?
