Message: How do you “Manifest” faith?
Show the official trailer (https://youtu.be/I1hNAIzkQWY) of the 2018 NBC show Manifest, trending on Netflix.
Have you watched the 2018 NBC TV show “Manifest”? My family was so excited when Season 3 of Manifest was finally added to Netflix this fall so that we could watch it as a family viewing night. There are 13 episodes in each season, so that made 13 nights in September of us sitting together, watching a show that fascinated and challenged us.
Manifest begins with 19 passengers on Flight 828 from Jamaica to New York, all of them with a different, complex backstory. The premise is that their plane completely vanishes enroute, only to reappear five-and-a-half years later, still in flight. For the passengers and crew, the only time that had passed was a normal flight, interrupted by some intense turbulence. For the people on the ground, Flight 828 has been missing for five years. Families and loved ones of the passengers have moved on entirely, for better or worse. The show is full of biblical references and themes. Through circumstances at the airport in Jamaica, the Stone family, including young fraternal twins, is split in two. Before that happens, the grandmother quotes her favourite Bible verse, Romans 8:28:
“We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to God’s purpose.”
The plane’s reappearance causes massive disruption for the passengers, their friends and families, and society, with many flashbacks that slowly unfold the story. The passengers also experience what they call “callings”- internal promptings — voices and visions — which urge and ultimately propel them to engage with other passengers they have not met before, and together, move a little deeper into the greater mystery in each episode.
From the first episode to the last one in season three, Min-Goo and I have immensely enjoyed the show — especially paying attention to what the characters call “faith”. (It’s a job hazard we share in common!) Manifest plays on the juxtaposition of faith versus science. Michaela and Ben represent opposite sides: Michaela, an NYPD detective, believes that faith explains the mystery of the flight’s disappearance and return and the inexplicable things that are happening to them, including the voices they hear that compel them to act. Ben, mathematician, a man of science, on the other hand, is convinced that there must be an earthbound explanation for everything. Is this an experience, a phenomenon that can be explained by science, by the laws of physics? Is this an extraterrestrial event, or is there some type of divine intervention going on here?
Michaela becomes the believer, and Ben becomes the skeptic. Ben’s background as a mathematician drives him to pursue the numbers in search of answers. Michaela, who once drew personal significance from her mother’s faith but has lost her own faith, begins to believe again.
Over all, as someone who watched and completed the entire series so far, (I am looking forward to the next three seasons in the future!) I see who the writer is in his own story. The creator and director, Jeff Rake, says in an interview, “As a Jewish writer, I’m inspired by Jewish themes of redemption, second chances, and tikkun olam.” The phrase Tikkun Olam, translated as ‘repairing the world’, is a common phrase amongst liberal Jewish people that reinforces the commitment to social justice. It is the belief that we need to be responsible not only for our own and our family’s moral, spiritual, and material welfare, but also for the welfare of society, the whole community on earth, including the responsibility for all creation in the world. That’s tikkun olam, repairing the world, embracing the whole rather than our individual needs, living the intention of compassion, generosity and loving-kindness.
I like to find the element of faith in a movie or TV show and understand how it is narrated and depicted to the general audience. In Manifest, faith is manifested as something that people are called to because there is “extra” to explain and explore beyond the domain of science. Supernatural. Extraterrestrial. Science primarily works with the earth-bound evidence that can be materialized, measurable and repeatable in human control. On the contrary (especially in the perception of faith in Manifest), faith requires us to “leap” to believe; leap to put ourselves forward even if in such moments we cannot grasp the meaning of the action and the situation, how it is unfolding, how everything is connected; even if we do not have answers, trusting that all things work for good in God. In Manifst, faith is blind.
It is really up to each of us how to understand faith, how we make sense of it to ourselves and navigate our world and life with it. But I wonder if the conventional perception of faith, (believing in the existence and the work of a supernatural God) might cause a crisis of faith, because there is such a gap between believing “all things work for good” and the real trauma that happens in our lives. Bad things still happen in good people’s lives.
Nobel-winning physicist Niels Bohr said, in 1958, “The common aim of all science is the gradual removal of prejudices.”
What is the common aim of faith? I would like to suggest that the aim of faith is the gradual removal of fear. Faith is the confidence and courage that our mind, body, spirit generate when we are able to move more deeply into the truth, leaving behind our fears (or embracing them), the shadows we try to avoid, all the things we detour around rather than confront (or integrate). Faith is trusting our place in relationship to the world — the universe — with hope and confidence that we can face and vanquish our fears with integrity.
Thus faith, like science, essentially entails the process of gradually removing prejudices about ourselves, others, about God’s people and even God.
I would like to sing a song of faith, the faith that nurtures our sense of companionship in the world. There are times in our lives when we feel there’s only me; To do a task, I have to put myself forward — courage, leadership, skills, knowledge need to come from within myself. In that moment, we are assured that we are not alone. Faith as companionship teaches that it’s not just me versus the world, but God who is within me, God who binds us as friends, God who opens our eyes to see beyond our fears, God who changes us, is with us and accompanies us like light through a kaleidoscope that spreads through everything and spins with everyone in God’s illuminated circle.
I believe this is what Jesus tells his disciples in today’s reading, “Therefore do not worry, saying, “What will we eat?” Or “What will we drink?” Or “What will we wear?... But strive first for the kingdom of God and God’s righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”
Today, how is your faith manifested? We are living in hard times; faith is not just an accessory, but a necessity. On this Thanksgiving Sunday, I pray that the gift of faith be our gentle companion; help us move deeper than fears and worries; strengthen us to tikkun olam, restore the world to be hospitable for all creation.
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