Dr. House... A Lesson on God's Grace?

Nathaniel went to bed at 8:00 last night, so Lee and I finally got to sit down and catch up on an episode of House. Last night’s episode was about a priest who was still practicing but had somehow lost his faith along the way. After facing a slew of unforeseen events and misdiagnoses, Dr. House, of course, solves the case (I missed the first half of the episode because I was putting the little one to sleep). At the end, after having previously wrestled with the priest about the existence of God, House, a professed atheist, tells the priest, “Everything that has happened to you can be rationally explained” (or something like that). The priest, who had been near death, and who had claimed at the outset of the episode that he no longer believed in God, incredulously replied, “Still, that’s a lot of coincidences.”

Perhaps the priest's response refers to that ephemeral unspoken and quiet wonder we have whenever events in our daily lives unfold a bit too neatly and precisely. Even for the Christian, the demonstration of God’s sovereign hand in our life on any given day—disguised as a string of coincidences—can be startling—and yet, as quickly as the realization comes upon us, so has its dismissal.

I’ve enjoyed this show in the past, in part, because of the clever dialogue, the non-one-dimensional characters, as well as the sporadic allusions to religion (especially in the earlier seasons). There were certain moments when I was simply relieved to see a secular show on television point to something beyond violence and sex, or whatever meaningless junk there is out there.

Seeing last night’s episode made me recall another scene in a past season, which I’ll share in this blog entry.

In season 2, episode 1, two cases come to Dr. House’s attention—one involving a teacher and the other a convict on death row. Dr. House’s subordinates are concerned about the time he is spending on solving the case of the convict rather than the teacher. Why should someone who is guilty of murder deserve Dr. House’s time? The conversation between Dr. House and one of his subordinates goes like this:

House: Talk to Cuddy. She’s got me going to Mercer State Prison, Capital Sentences unit, I don’t know.

Foreman: Aren’t there better ways to spend our time?

House: Good question. What makes a person deserving? Is a man who cheats on his wife more deserving than a man who kills his wife?

Foreman: Uh… yeah. Actually, he is.

House: What about a child molester? Certainly not a good guy, but he didn’t kill anybody. Maybe he can get antibiotics, but no MRIs. What about you? What medical care should you be denied for being a car thief? Tell you what: the three of you work out a list of what medical treatments a person loses based on the crime they committed. I’ll review it when I get back.

I love this episode so much because House’s sarcasm in the above conversation demonstrates such strong parallels to our misconception of who is “deserving” of God’s grace. Like the workers in the vineyard (Matthew 20:1-16)—rather than looking at our own selves, we’re so busy looking at other people and judging where they're at. But in Romans 3:23, it states: “…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” How ridiculous it sounds in the context of this episode to determine whether someone deserves a chance at life based on what sins he’s committed in his past.

Later in the same episode, the convict perhaps earns our sympathy when he utters the following words to Dr. Foreman:

“Can you imagine your whole life bein’ about the worst thing you ever did?”

But with Christ, it isn’t about the worst thing we’ve ever done. It doesn't matter who we are or what kind of person we were, with Him as our Savior, we are freed from the chains of our ugly past. As it is written in Romans 10:9-13:

“If you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. As the Scripture says, "Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame."For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."

How fitting that this episode is entitled “Acceptance.”