Seven Pounds, Sense of Guilt and God's Grace

I like this flick. It brings to surface a side of human nature that often is neglected in typical Hollywood movies. The plot revolves around a man called Tim Thomas (Will Smith) who because of multitasking (driving and texting) found himself in a car crash. Seven people who were passengers in his car died. Everyone died but him.

He then tried to live his life so radically different after the crash. He quit his job as an aeronautical engineer, then chose 7 people to whom he would be doing something good; donating what he has to them freely, voluntarily with no strings whatsover attached. These noble acts he did as his way to pay his 'penance', silent the roaring sense of guilt within him.

He donated his lung lobe to his brother, Ben.
He donates part of his liver to a child services worker named Holly.
He donated a kidney to George, a junior hockey coach.
He donated bone marrow to a young boy named Nicholas.
He donated his beach house to Connie Tepos
He donated his corneas to Ezra Turner, a blind meat salesman who plays the piano.
He donated his heart to Emily Posa, a self-employed greeting card printer.

To help the last two individuals, Ezra and Emily, Tim has to literally die. Hence, this movie has a sad ending. Tim fills the bathtub at a motel he stays (he is now homeless as his house is already donated) with ice water to preserve his vital organs, climbs in, and then commits suicide by pulling his box jellyfish into the water with him.

If you are confused what the title "Seven Pounds" refers to (as I was before), someone suggested that it is derived from the expression "pound of flesh" which in its original meaning refers to a terrible burden or debt which has to be repaid by whatever mean. Originated in Shakespeare's play Merchant of Venice, 1596. In this case Will Smith's character feels that he has to pay a pound of flesh for each of the seven lifes lost in the car accident for which he felt that he caused.

I think this is a powerful movie. Interestingly, it was mostly reviewed rather negatively. A reviewer at New York Times, for example, wrote the following:

An I.R.S. agent who wants only to help people. This is a nice, small joke that provides a few grace notes of levity in what is otherwise a lugubrious exercise in spiritual bushwa. For all its pious, earnest air, “Seven Pounds” cries out to be remade as an Asian horror movie, so that the deep, creepy grotesqueness of its governing premise might be allowed to flourish, rather than to fester beneath the surface.

As it is, the movie is basically an inverted, twisted tale of revenge. Ben Thomas, Mr. Smith’s character, is in essence a benevolent vigilante, harassing, stalking and spying on unsuspecting citizens for their own good, and also to punish himself. Why such misery should also be inflicted on an innocent, affirmation-hungry audience — and also on the marvelous Ms. Dawson, who plays one of Ben’s victim-beneficiaries — is another matter entirely.

But maybe I’m approaching this in the wrong way. Maybe “Seven Pounds” isn’t a spiritual parable about redemption or forgiveness or salvation or whatever, but rather a collection of practical lessons. Don’t drive while using a BlackBerry. Fertilize your rose bushes with banana peels — sorry, that was a spoiler. But please, whatever you do, don’t touch the jellyfish.

I’m serious. Don’t.

I think the above reviewer missed the entire plot. On the contrary, the movie powerfully portrays how it feels to live with a strong sense of guilt. It haunts someone and stubbornly comes back at us without fail throughout our lives. Perhaps the clearest way to really know the most basic foundation of our life is our reactions to failure. How do we handle failure and deal with a sense of guilt. In that movie, Tim spent his entire life trying to redeem himself and seek forgiveness to be able move on, but he can't.

This tells something about us. As fallen creatures we all made mistakes. We can't escape from that sense of guilt. The greater the mistake, the more haunting the feeling we have as a consequence of that mistake. Have you been forgiven? Have you experienced God's unconditional forgiveness so that you can move on? Or are you still beating yourself up?

As Christians, we can say that our foundation is the grace of God. But in reality it may not be that grace of God. But the quality, the purity, the intensity of our commitment to God. In the final analysis, it's still resting on your performance. It's still resting on you. It's still resting on something beside God. We will never experience the grace of God if we always treat it as a challenge to be a more committed person, a more faithful person, a morally better person. We need to stop trying, and start resting on the the grace of God.