Bank holiday Monday and we were in a queue stretching out the door and down the side of the cinema. Two screens were showing the film at 8.00pm and two more at 8.40pm of this multiplex. It was a sell out. They had come in their hundreds to enter the latest edition of The Matrix trilogy (The Matrix Reloaded - cert. 15).

For those who’ve not entered the matrix before a brief recap. Human beings have been subdued and now exist in pods created by machines so that their neural cortex can be used for battery power! From these they are plugged into a vast virtual world, where what they think they are feeling and seeing is really only a computer simulation of reality - the matrix. Their brains are fooled and they think this is real. A number of rebels have broken free and make raids into the matrix with the apparent aim of wanting to recover what has been lost - reality and freedom.

Too much kung fu kick boxing for my liking and plot lines that make you wonder if it’s a spoof at times, but the film creates an opportunity. It has put ontological questions on the agenda for millions of people, especially young people, or at least created an opportunity to raise these.

Talking with a young woman who grew up under Communism and says she has no religion, the film gave a way in to the foundational questions of why we are here, where are we going and what is the point of life, the universe and everything! I will be very interested to see the age spread of the 72% who ticked Christian on their census forms when that analysis becomes available and to knowing what the younger end would understand by that - who have had little contact with churches and don’t know what Christmas and Easter are about. The Matrix gives us an opportunity to have a chat with them.

Interestingly there is worship in The Matrix Reloaded. At one point all of those who have been freed gather in ‘the temple’ and words of thanksgiving are spoken by someone resembling a cross between a tribal high priest and the announcer at an open air rock festival. It’s not clear who the prayer is aimed at and then the ensuing worship is like a rave. But then Wesley took the popular tunes of his day and turned them into 'A list' hymns, so it is not beyond the realms of fancy that rave-style worship could be seen as a reload of that. The important point to bear in mind is where is this prayer and therefore our worship directed? Prayer directed towards ourselves leaves us ultimately locked inside the Matrix, whereas redemption comes through breaking free and celebrating that freedom.

It seems that people can’t break free themselves. They need someone to do this for them. And there is a Messiah figure as Thomas Anderson, aka ‘Neo’, penetrates the depths of the Matrix. He has followers, or comrades, who believe he is ‘The One’, one of whom is called Trinity, and they head on a collision course with the agents of the matrix. (I once baptised a Trinity on Trinity Sunday. It turned out she was named after this character and her mother had no idea of the religious link!)

The Matrix can be a symbol of many things. It can be a symbol of shallow materialism that is not bothered by ultimate questions and spirituality. It can be a model of the quest to break out of systems that oppress and suppress. It can be a representation of styles and structures of religious faith that would bind rather than loose, that would reject rather than welcome. The challenge and questions can be directed to the churches as much as they can to those on their edges and those who would place themselves outside. The trilogy is a search for the authentic and this is the opportunity the films present.

Our readings touched on this with Jesus quoting in the second (Luke 4:14-21) from the passage in Isaiah that formed the first reading (Isaiah 61:1-11). The Spirit of the Lord was upon him to proclaim liberty, freedom from being locked into a system that was oppressive. The film shows a desire for redemption, for the recovery of what has been lost, and for the true meaning of life to be revealed. It's not difficult for a connection to be made.

The Matrix trilogy (part 3 is due in November) will not bear being made into a complete re-working (reloading?) of the Christian gospel. That would be stretching things too far. It does, though, provide a starting point for a conversation on faith and from the size of the queues outside one multiplex on a bank holiday, we can take it that a large number of people will be open to that conversation.

© Ian Black 2003

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