The Name on the Front of the Jersey is More Important Than the Name on the Back

Here is my sermon from Sunday. The text was Galatians 3:23-29:

Since the summer Olympics are set to start in less than two weeks, a year late and many billions of dollars over budget, and unlike any Olympics we’ve ever seen before. I thought now would be a great time to begin a new worship series which will go for the next four weeks looking at the gospel message, or the Christian message, we can find in films about the Olympics. And please notice that this is not the gospel according to the Olympics, as we have only four gospels we use, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, but the gospel in Olympic films. That is seeing Christian stories or themes, or finding them, in areas in which we might not ordinarily think to look. We start with one of the best, and more recent Olympic films, and that is the film Miracle, about the 1980 US Olympic hockey team who, against all odds and expectations, and 40-year-old spoiler alert, defeated the Soviet hockey team, probably one of the greatest hockey teams ever to play, having won gold at the last four Olympics. And while the film certainly tells the story of that game, and does it extraordinarily well in my opinion, it’s the story of how they got to that point that makes the difference and leads us to what we are going to explore today.

Herb Brooks, played by Kurt Russell, was the coach of the University of Minnesota hockey team and was hired in 1979 to coach the Olympic team after several others had turned it down because they didn’t think they could compete, certainly with the soviets, but Brooks had a different idea, and a different way of constructing his team. He wasn’t necessarily going to take the best players, as he said “All-star teams fail because they rely solely on the individual's talent. The Soviets win because they take that talent and use it inside a system that's designed for the betterment of the team.” The only way they could beat the soviets, he said, was to play the best team hockey they could, not just having the best players they could get. And so rather than having tryouts as normal, Brooks instead handpicked all the players for the team. But that didn’t mean it was easy going because these were guys that had played against each other at the highest levels of college hockey for national championships, and so there was some bad blood existing. Take a look…

You Are A Toy

Here is my sermon from Sunday. The text was Galatians 3:25-4:7:

Today we begin on a journey that will take us through the next six weeks looking at the gospel messages we can find in the movies of Pixar.  Now notice that I am not saying that we are looking at the gospel of Pixar, or the gospel according to Pixar, but instead the gospel in Pixar. I think that distinction is important because we have four gospels already, and last I checked Pixar was not one of them. But we can find important themes and messages in these movies that resonate with us and our understanding of the Christian life, they have things they can teach us. Indeed, one of the things that makes Pixar films so special is not just their attention to detail and storytelling, but that there are so many things going on in them that are so true to life, even if they are normally told through non-humans. And so my disclaimer here is that I have no intention of looking at everything that might be seen or discussed in each movie, but will only be focusing on specific ideas.  We start, perhaps appropriately enough with the first feature length Pixar film, Toy Story. Not only was this their first film it was also the first feature length film created entirely with computer animation, also known as CGI, and it forever changed animated films, and it also has lots of Star Wars references in it.

Toy Story, in case you are not familiar, tells the story of a collection of toys that belong to a boy named Andy, and when humans are not around, the toys come to life and interact with each other. The head of the toys, and Andy’s favorite, is a cowboy doll named Woody, and his world is turned upside down when Andy receives an action figure by the name of Buzz Lightyear. Woody becomes jealous of Buzz, and in trying get Buzz stuck behind a desk so that Andy will play with him instead, Woods accidently knocks Buzz out a window and Woody and Andy get stuck in the home of the next door neighbor inhabited by Sid, a terrible kid who destroys toys for fun, and Woody and Buzz begin an adventure to try and get back to Andy before he and his family move away. Now one of the biggest problems for Woody is that Buzz believes himself not to be q toy, but instead to be the actual Buzz Lightyear. Check out this scene set after Woody has knocked Buzz out the window, and they find themselves lost in a gas station….