How about Bruce Willis as a stringy-haired jokester? Jim Carrey as a charismatic small-town hero? Denzel Washington as a crooked cop?
Last year, some of the major film stars of Hollywood appeared in movies against type, offering the movie-going public a chance to see them in atypical roles. Bruce Willis, who appears as the tough, rough-around-the-edges cop, Lt. John McClane, in three Die Hard movies, easily convinced us he could be the impossibly brave Harry Stamper in Armageddon, or Trey Kincaide, the kick-butt hero in Apocalypse. Nobody even minded when he moved on to play the kindly child psychiatrist Malcolm Crowe in The Sixth Sense, because at least it was a scary movie. But Willis bombed as a kind-hearted bank robber in Bandits.
Jim Carrey's elastic goofiness made his roles in Dumb and Dumber and The Grinch very believable. But many doubted he could pull off playing it straight in The Majestic. We admired Denzel Washington in Remember the Titans, Red October, and the Pelican Brief. But he was awful in Training Day.
Few actors can play both comedy and drama with great success. Only Tom Hanks could convincingly portray, in one lifetime, a young lawyer dying of AIDS, a cool-under-pressure astronaut, a true blue World War II hero, a simple-minded shrimp boat captain, and a suicidal island castaway, all while occasionally romancing Meg Ryan.
Most of us didn't rush out to theaters when Drew Barrymore, known for playing ditzy roles, starred as a struggling teenage mother in Riding in Cars with Boys. Apparently we liked her better as a three-year-old screaming in E.T., or as a high-kicking detective babe in Charlie's Angels.
Could Jackie Chan (or Chris Rock) ever play Hamlet? Would Julia Roberts dare play Maria von Braun? Meryl Streep in Die Hard 4? God as a bad guy? Abraham as an abusive father?
It's this "against type" edginess that makes us uneasy when we think about Genesis 22. Here's a loving God telling a father to stick his son like a pig, drain his blood and leave his body as a fleshy sacrifice to an unseen deity. Doesn't sound at all like the God we know, or the Abraham we know, and how he is described in Scripture as a friend of God and man of faith.
What, in the name of all we call holy, is going on in this story? Talk about a leap away from typecasting. Previously in Genesis, we've watched God believably star in the role of Tender Caregiver who provided a well and a wife for Hagar's son. We loved God in the tent scene with Sarah and Abraham when the All-knowing One disclosed the almost-too-wonderful word that a couple of nonagenarians were about to become parents. We cheered when the Lord blessed Abram with a call and a country.
God is our Rock, our Refuge, our Strength. God is the One who deals bountifully with us whether we deserve it or not. In Scripture, God is the Creator who made light and life, brought worlds into being and cast the stars into the skies.
And then ... this?
"Take your son, your only son, Isaac whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you."
And then there's Abraham. In one scene, he and his friends party hearty in honor of Isaac and in the next scene, he's hauling into the mountains determined to murder that same child. The role is hardly even believable. Abraham offered no argument to God. He disclosed no signs of temporary insanity. Instead, he calmly rose up, saddled his donkey, summoned two assistants and took his son - his only son - up on the mountaintop in search of a nice flat rock suitable for human sacrifice, to satisfy what appears to be a malevolent deity's whim.
All the while, we can't for the life of us figure out how the characters are going to get out of this horrendous situation. And our very souls feel a little queasy as we squirm in our seats and think, "This is all wrong. Since when is God so diabolical? Since when is father Abraham such a monster?" This is beyond lousy casting; this flies in the face of all the great parts we've witnessed God play in our lives and in the lives of others.
While we shudder to think what will happen next, Abraham himself experienced no heart-pounding tension at all. A loving father would have at least expressed a little concern. But Abraham showed no signs of anxiety.
Maybe it was because he knew to his toenails something that we easily forget: God provides. God would provide the lamb for the offering. Someway, somehow God would fulfill the promise to Abraham - something about "as many descendants as the stars in the sky."
This was a test of faith for Abraham, and he passed. As it turned out, Abraham's role in life was to be the ever-trusting servant of God. Trumping even his role as Isaac's father or Sarah's husband, Abraham's ultimate role in life was to be God's faithful servant. And he performed brilliantly.
So maybe God and Abraham did not act against type after all. Abraham obeyed God. God provided for Abraham. Simple. Abraham played his part well because he focused not on the tragedy before him - the possibility of losing his son - but rather, he focused on God's promise. He remembered these lines, God's words to him: "I will make of you a great nation and I will bless you."
Living our real role in life involves remembering a few lines, too. Remember the lines spoken at our baptisms? We belong to God. We are children of the covenant.
Problems arise when we cast ourselves in roles we were never created to play, roles in which we forget our most important lines.
The tough guy role is a favorite. Tough guys don't need anybody. Tough men are always in control. Tough women are always strong.
Some of us play the burdened worrier pretty well. There is so much to worry about. We can't possibly trust that God - or anybody - can help us.
Then there are the hard-charging ambitious types. We have our priorities! We have our goals! Nothing's going to stand in our way! Or the better-safe-than-sorry types. We don't like risks. We don't want to upset anybody. We stay neutral even in the midst of injustice. We keep our mouths shut, because speaking up might get us into trouble.
Living in faith, however, requires us to live against type. God calls us to stretch beyond the roles we've been playing all our lives and try something new. Aren't we bored with our old roles? Try trusting in God for a change. Take on a scary new adventure.
Make a leap of faith.
Try becoming a new character, one who remembers God's promises, one who trusts in God's unfailing love.
Live against type. Focus today not on your problems but on the One who provides in the midst of them.
And watch God cast you in new roles.