“Therefore, as God’s chosen ones, holy and dearly loved, put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another if anyone has a grievance against another. Just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you are also to forgive.” (CSB – Read the chapter) ‬‬

Yesterday was a family day, and family comes first. So, with a rare Saturday post, here’s the final post for this week. One of the great things about the Gospel story is that it lies at the heart of nearly all of the stories we tell. That’s why I am able to write up reviews of so many different series and movies from the standpoint of their Gospel connection. Sometimes you have to look a little harder than others, but it’s nearly always there. Looking for these connections allows us to engage with the stories we tell through the lens of what is true. The latest opportunity I’ve had to do this is with the latest entry in the Despicable Me series. Let’s talk about Despicable Me 4.

I love the Despicable Me series. And I’m honest enough to say that it’s mostly because of the Minions. They’re adorable and hysterical. They’re enough of a marketing moneymaker that they’ve carried the series through four installments and even gotten a spin-off series just for them with two entries so far. So, when I got the chance to see yet another movie featuring the cute little guys, I jumped at the chance.

I wasn’t disappointed.

Despicable Me 4 has all the heart and hijinks of the three. All of the original voice cast is back as well as pretty much every other supporting character that has ever appeared anywhere in the franchise. It felt a little like the closing scene of Avengers: End Game. I don’t know if that means this was the last film to be released, but I hope not.

The whole series has been about how Gru, once a world famous super villain, gradually came to have a family of his own and not only reform his villainous ways (mostly), but switch sides entirely to become the hero. Going a bit deeper than that, it’s about how he has learned to grow up, become less selfish, and love someone else with the kind of sacrificial love that Jesus demonstrated for us and called us to practice in our own lives. In that, the franchise just drips with the Gospel story. It’s a message our culture today very much needs to hear.

Each film has added another member of Gru’s family to the story. The first movie got things started with his adopted daughters (offering a nice plug for the foster care and adoption movement). The second saw him get married (to a member of the Anti-Villain League, no less). In the third we met his long, lost brother, Dru, and Gru learns just how important his family really is to him. In the fourth installment, we are introduced to Gru and Lucy’s son, Junior.

The plot revolves around an old schoolmate of Gru’s from his days at Lycée Bon Pas (which translates colloquially into “High School of Evil”), Maxime Le Mal (wonderfully voiced by Will Ferrell) who has transformed his body into that of a man-sized cockroach. When Gru comes to a school reunion in order to lead an AVL sting to arrest Maxime, he swears to use all of how newfound abilities to enact his revenge on Gru, namely, by kidnapping his son and turning him into a cockroach-man as well.

Maxime soon breaks out of prison and the AVL immediately whisks Gru and his family into hiding complete with new identities in a ritzy suburban neighborhood. The neighbors’ daughter, Poppy, turns out to be an aspiring villain who wants nothing more than to be accepted into Lycée Bon Pas, and blackmails Gru into helping her steal the school’s mascot, a honey badger named Lenny, into order to have something villainous on her resumé to boost her odds of getting accepted.

The caper provides good bonding time for Gru and Junior, but accidentally reveals his family’s whereabouts to Maxime. The villain kidnaps Junior and turns him into a baby cockroach as planned, but Gru’s unfailing love for his son helps him overcome his brainwashing, and the reunited father-son duo save the day. In the end, Gru and all the previous villains sing a song together and the credits roll.

The story is cute with plenty of fun Minions antics throughout. It’s not as well-developed as the previous installments (to be fair, most fourth installments in a series aren’t), but it includes all the elements that have made the franchise so successful. We didn’t love this one quite as much as the others, but it was still a welcome indoor family diversion on a swelteringly hot summer afternoon.

The real Gospel connection here comes out of the reason for the cartoonish animosity between Gru and Maxime in the first place. When the pair were students at Lycée Bon Pas, Gru sang the song Maxime had prepared for the talent show, stealing his thunder and his one chance to do something that would elevate his social status among the other villainous students. Maxime spent his whole life nursing this grudge, and after twenty years was ready to unleash terror on Gru’s family because of it.

It was a good reminder of the importance of forgiveness in our lives. Forgiveness is something the various writers of the New Testament talked about a lot. Our world today is so thoroughly shaped by a New Testament ethic that we think forgiveness is normal. Apart from and without that worldview, though, forgiveness is not normal. Apart from the Christian worldview, forgiveness is weakness.

The reason for this should be obvious. When you forgive someone else, you release them from the debt they owe you because of an offense they dealt you. Releasing someone else from a debt is a relinquishment of power. Who does that? This world has always been about accumulating as much power for yourself as you can. Then, you use that power to accomplish what you want in life. If that exercise of power comes at the expense of another person, that’s too bad, but they should have had more power for themselves and then maybe they could have stopped you. Whoever has the most power wins.

This is all precisely the opposite of the Christian worldview. The way of Jesus is not about accumulating power. It is about letting it go. It’s about taking all the resources and power you have managed to get for yourself or that you have naturally, and using all of that for the sake of those around you.

The thing about holding on to power—especially when the means of holding it is I forgiveness—is that we weren’t ultimately meant to have it. God is the source of all the power in the universe. It all comes from Him and rightly belongs to Him. If we try to take it for ourselves, it will gradually poison us. Sometimes the poison takes a long time to do its work, but it always does. Its poison takes the form of bitterness and anger and an inability to love. It results in enemies—even if only perceived ones—who must be defeated at all costs. The price for holding on to this power is steep indeed.

The better approach is what Paul calls us to here. In Christ, we are called to compassion and kindness, to humility and gentleness, to patience and forbearance. And we are called to forgiveness. In fact, forgiveness gets more attention here than anything else. Given how broken our relationships often are, forgiveness may be the most important thing on the list. Forgiveness is the thing that allows the others to happen. If you are not adopting a forgiving attitude toward another person, you’re probably not going to be kind or compassionate or humble or gentle or patient.

Paul says that if you have a grievance against another person—like, say, the other person has stolen your song at the high school talent show—the right response is not to hold that power over them so that you can use it to your advantage at some later date. The truth is that power only works to our advantage if the other person knows we have it over them. How many times do we nurse a grudge against another person because of some perceived offense that they didn’t even know they dealt us? In that case, the power we think we hold is meaningless. Meaningless power like that is even more dangerous to us than meaningful power.

No, the right response is forgiveness. It is forgiveness after the pattern God has set with us. Our debt of sin to God is great beyond measure. Yet in Christ, He has forgiven us entirely. Jesus paid the price, so God pronounces us clean. It’s wildly unfair, but totally to our advantage. And because God has forgiven us in Christ (which means, by the way, that there is no forgiveness apart from Christ), we are able to forgive others fully and completely. We can do that because we know that God’s ultimate justice has been satisfied already by Christ, and He will make all things right in the end. Therefore, we can give the power we gain from offense back to Him so we don’t have to bear the burden of it.

Because of this, we can simply focus on living at peace with others so far as it depends on us (something else Paul said), and loving freely and fully. There are no burdens to bear here. That’s simply a better way to do life. Go see Despicable Me 4. You’ll be sure to enjoy it. Then, if you’ve got something to forgive, do that too. You’ll enjoy the freedom that brings even more.