The Sopranos Gospel

I have a confession to make. I loved the Sopranos. Absolutely loved it. I think it is one of the most interesting and creative series that has ever been on television. The characters were fascinating, the dialogue was captivating, and the storylines were totally unpredictable.

The Sopranos was also, however, one of the foulest, most profanity laced, sex filled and immoral shows to ever be produced. There were strippers dancing on stages, people being "whacked", illegal business transactions, affairs, lying, deceit, and debauchery of all kinds.

Needless to say, the Sopranos wasn’t a show for everybody. The nudity, violence and language may cause stumbles for some people. Consequently, if you struggle with lust, don’t watch this show. If you struggle with profanity, don’t watch this show. If you struggle with murderous inclinations… please stop reading this blog, forget you every heard of me, and turn yourself into the authorities.

If I’m being fully honest here, then I would have to admit that there’s a part of me that was attracted the darkness of the show. Seeing people living such a lifestyle had a certain draw about it. Yet that element of the show wears off pretty quickly. If that was the only fascination with the show, I probably wouldn’t have watched it for more than one season.

The Sopranos was so intriguing because it often forced me to examine my own life. These characters, who were so utterly different from me, still shared some of my human traits. Their lives were nothing like mine, and on the surface, we should have had nothing in common. Yet, almost every week I saw something of my life mirrored in theirs.

To understand this, let me set up a scene from a particular episode….
In one of the last seasons, it became public that a character named Vito was gay. Vito was a Captain in the family, meaning he was leader of a crew. This was considered a dishonor to many of the people in the "family". Fearing for his life, Vito fled town, leaving his whole life behind, family and all.

The scene I want to discuss took place in the back office of The Bada Bing. For those of you who don’t know the show, The Bada Bing was a strip club owned and operated by the mafia. Tony Soprano was sitting at his desk, discussing the Vito situation with another family Captain. Now keep in mind, these guys have killed people, cheated on their wives, stolen fortunes, done just about everything illegal you could imagine, AND they were having this discussion in a strip club.
The Captain sits back in the chair and suggests to Tony that it would probably be best if they "whacked" Vito. Essentially, he wants Vito killed because he’s gay. Tony is not too thrilled with the idea, not because he’s a nice guy, he’s just being cautious. That is when the Captain looks across the desk and says something along the lines of, "Tony, we’re Catholic, and what he’s doing is a sin!" (That is a paraphrase from memory, not an exact quote)

Did you catch that? This guy, who has his own laundry list of sins, wants to justify MURDERING Vito because of Vito’s sin! This scene stopped my heart for a second. I realized I was just like that guy (not Vito, the other guy). I recognized that I had a tendency to scrutinize other people’s sins while ignoring my own. Sometimes I tried to justify the judgment. I convinced myself that the scrutinizing was only because I "cared".

It was a lie. A big, fat lie.

I’m not saying I didn’t care. I do care for my family, friends and coworkers. But that wasn’t the reason for my judgment. I was being judgmental because it made me feel better. It made me feel superior. That really hurt to admit. Talk about a blow to my ego. At this time in my life, I had just started Bible College and taken a large step in following what I believed was a calling from God. I was feeling pretty confident in my walk with Christ. Maybe too confident. This television program showed me what I hypocrite I was.

Here’s what’s even more interesting about the situation: Jesus warns us of this problem. In Matthew 7:3, he tells us, "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?" This is an extremely well known verse. I’ve probably read it dozens of times. However, it took an episode of the Sopranos for the scripture to make sense. It took one of the foulest, most un-Godly shows on television to make me realize my own sin.

Maybe I’m a little twisted… Maybe I’m a little weird (okay, I KNOW I’m weird)… But I think that is cool. I love the idea that we can find glimpses of God in the most unusual places. Even in the Sopranos. It just reminds me that God can speak to us through very odd circumstances and unusual people. Often, the key in life is simply being open to finding God.