He's Loyal To The End

Here is my sermon from Sunday. The text was John 15:9-17:

Today we continue in our series on the gospel in Pixar, and a reminder it’s not the gospel of or according to Pixar, by looking at Toy Story 3. It’s very rare to have the third film in a series be as good as the original, especially if there was no plans to make a third film when the series began, but Toy Story 3 is one of those films.  This film also holds a special place not only because it was the first film we took our daughters to see in the theater, but also because it totally ruined me and fills me with guilt anytime we get rid of a toy, especially a broken toy that ends up in the trash.  But, Toy Story 3 tells the continuing story of Woody, a cowboy doll, and Buzz Lightyear, a space ranger action figure, and the toys they live with, although now diminished in numbers as Andy, their owner has grown up, and no longer plays with them. Andy is leaving for college, and in cleaning up his room, in a mistake by Andy’s mom, the toys, except Woody, end up out on the street as trash. Woody, who had been put into the box to go to college with Andy, knows the truth and risks himself to go out to save them, but they don’t believe what Woody has to say, and are happy to instead jump into a box of other toys to be delivered to Sunnyside Daycare.

When they arrive everything seems great, but they don’t know that the facility is actually run by a dictatorial toy, by the name of Lotso Hugging Bear, who smells like strawberries, but who controls things for his own interests and protection. Woody, still trying to get the other toys to understand that it’s a mistake that they belong to Andy, can’t convince them to go with him, so Woody leaves the daycare and ends up at the home of Bonnie, a little girl who loves to play with her toys, while the other toys remain and are ravaged by the toddlers who don’t know how to place with them nicely. As Woody is preparing to leave Bonnie’s house to go back home, he is told that Sunnyside is a place “ruin and despair,” and so Andy goes back to rescue his friends and bust them out in order to get them back to Andy’s house before Andy leaves for college, and in doing so Woody risks his own freedom, and perhaps his life in defense of his friends.

Fear Not

Here is my sermon from Sunday. The text was Matthew 14:22-33:

In the third chapter, all the way back at the beginning of the Bible in Genesis, after Adam and Eve have eaten the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which was not actually an apple nor where they deceived by Satan, but after they eat, they hear God walking in the garden calling for them, and they run and hide from God. After God finds them he asks what they are hiding and for the first time in scripture we hear about fear. “We were afraid and so we hid from you,” they tell God, and the relationship between God and humanity is forever changed.  Something else important happens when fear gets introduced, and that is that blame and scapegoating also get introduced as a direct result. When God asks why they are afraid, Adam says don’t blame me, the woman made me do it, and Eve says don’t blame me, the snake made me do it, and the snake just shrugs his shoulders, which is probably the real reason that God removes its appendages and makes it crawl on its belly. Fear and blame and refusal to do something all come together at exactly the same time.

Today we embark on a new sermon series looking at what I am calling the nots of Jesus, fear not, doubt not, sin not, judge not, worry not.  These are the nots not only because Jesus says don’t do them, but also because they are issues that might cause us to tie ourselves in knots.  Andy Stanley has called these instructions the N Commandments because he said that Jesus considered them so important.  While I am not going to argue their importance, which is the reason I am talking about them, I am going to argue his use of the term commandments, because when Jesus was asked what is the greatest commandment, he said “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength,” and that the second in just like it, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  And then on his last night, according to the gospel of John, he said “I give you a new commandment that you are to love one another as I have loved you.” So unlike the commandments, which are lists of things you shouldn’t do, Jesus normally talks about what you should do, how you should be living your life, like the golden rule, which says “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” That’s a positive statement of behavior, rather than a similar statement given by Rabbi Hillel who said “Do not do to others what is hateful to do.” So rather than being about what we should do, instead it’s about what we shouldn’t do.  And that certainly seems to be much more what we hear about from the church, or from Christians today, is a series of thou shalt not, or I cannot, so I thought it might be appropriate to look at some of the do nots that Jesus taught, which seem very different from what we might normally hear, and how they lead us to fulfilling what Jesus says are the greatest commandments.