The Gospel
According to PIXAR pt 3
“The Gift of
Affirmation”
By Rev Steven R
Mitchell
Mountain View
United Church, Aurora 7-21-2013
Isaiah 65:16-17,
John 21:15-17,
“What
do you want to be when you grow up?”
“What do you want to do in your life?”
“What adventures do you most dream of doing?” Life is an amazing gift. When we are young there seems to be every
possibility available; there’s nothing that can stop us from doing whatever we
wish to do. But as we grow older, life
seems to get in the way and some of those possibilities become dreams of the
past, never attempted, never achieved. As Alan Jackson’s song, “Remember When”
so vividly expresses, we remember not only those things that we have done, but
also those dreams and promises that we for whatever reason have not kept,
either to ourselves and others.
When I was a child,
I wanted to be a Bell Telephone operator like my mother. When I got a little older, I thought I’d
like to be a fireman like my dad. Later
I thought I wished to become an architect, but when I learned that I would have
to take calculus, I changed my mind. As
a young adult I made a few demo recordings thinking I wanted to become a world
famous performer, but when I became married, I switched to become an
accountant, because life as a performer didn’t guarantee a steady income. Life is full of possibilities and it is also
filled with stuff that gets in the way of those possibilities. At differing stages of our lives, we find
ourselves assessing what our life has been and depending on how our
achievements weigh against what our expectations where, we find ourselves
either satisfied or feeling regretful.
In the movie “UP!”
we meet Carl and Elle, Russell a wilderness scout, Dug a talking dog, and Kevin
a female prehistoric bird. The
relationship between Carl and Elle is what creates the story, even though Elle
is only in the first 15 minutes of the movie.
Carl and Elle meet as children and become lifelong companions. Elle is depicted as a round faced, very
adventurous person who is the driving force behind Carl. Carl has a very square face, wears square
glasses, and tends not to take risks.
Elle has a life
dream of moving to Paradise Falls in South America (it’s like America, but
South!) She makes Carl promise to take
her there, where they can live and find all sorts of unexplored
adventures. The club house that Carl
meets Elle at is an old abandoned Victorian house that she has named “Spirit of
Adventure”. When they marry, they buy
this old house, fix it up and live their entire married life in this house,
saving money for their big adventure to Paradise Falls. But life gets in the way; they have to use
their savings for things like flat tires, broken legs, trees falling on the
house. One day Carl realizes that he has
never fulfilled his promise to Elle about taking her to Paradise Falls. Carl purchases tickets so the two of them can
finally make the trip, but Elle’s health fails and she dies, never making that
trip. Carl is left with the guilt of not
keeping his promise to his beloved. When
forced with the option of going to a rest home, he decides to keep his promise
to Elle and equips their house with enough balloons that will fly the house to
Paradise Falls.
To Carl’s dismay he
is continuously being challenged in achieving his goal by the unwanted
companionship of a little boy named Russell, Dug a talking dog, and Kevin a
female bird. Once Carl does get the
house to Paradise Falls, he realizes that it is unsatisfying; he still has that
feeling of not keeping his promise to Elle – of giving her the adventure she
had always dreamed of. As Carl sits in
his chair, he laments his failure to Elle as he looks through her “book of
adventures”, when to his amazement, he finds it full of photographs of their
life together. On the last page of her
book she hand writes a note to Carl, “Thanks for the adventure of my life, now
go have a new one! Love Elle.” With this
Carl is finally freed from his guilt and can now focus on living in the
present.
Scripture says,
“All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” Just what does that mean? Sin is one of those words that I generally
don’t like to use, because I’m never sure what “images” it brings to mind to
the person that I am chatting with. The
movie “UP!” deals with the topic of “atonement” and “absolution”, church words
that the general public don’t often use.
But in order to have “atonement” and “absolution”, you have to have something
to be “atoned” of, which the church calls “sin.” I think this movie has a great message in
looking at what “sin” might be. Carl was
a person who seemed to need to be pushed, specifically by Elle, to take on the
adventures of life. Once he didn’t have
Elle in his life, he became a crusty “old” fart, shutting himself off from the
world around him. But once he found out
that Elle’s life was one of completeness with him, Carl was once again able to
re-enter life and all the challenges it has to offer.
There are many
people who wouldn’t buy into the scripture that “all have sinned” as the church
has come to explain sin. But what if we were to define sin more
broadly with the statement that, “sin is
not living up to your potential.”
Would this not make the scripture more applicable to all of us? I think that if you take a moment to examine
your life honestly and ask the question, “Have I lived up to my potential?” you
would most likely find at least one area that you haven’t. Sometimes these can prevent us from truly
becoming who we know we should be. For
some, they just become gnawing things in the back of our minds that become
small regrets in our senior years, not allowing us to fully appreciate all that
we have become.
The Apostle Peter
is a great story about what can happen when filled with guilt and regret. Peter was a man who loved his teacher, Jesus,
and promised to stand beside Jesus no matter what might come. But when push came to shove denied ever
knowing Jesus. In shame Peter gives up
and decides to return to his former life, giving up on his potential that Jesus
had been cultivating. In the final chapter of John, Jesus comes once
again to Peter and asks him, “Do you love me?”, and then absolves him by
saying, “Feed my sheep”, this happens three times, the same amount of times
Peter had denied knowing Jesus. Once
Peter is freed from his guilt, he then becomes the leader of the new movement
“The Way.” In essence, Peter is able to
continue to develop his potential.
If we can look at
“sin” as “not living up to our potential” then the only way that we are able to
live up to our potential is to overcome what it is that is stopping us in doing
that. Usually these barriers are
expressed in words like “regret” or “guilt”, which are restrictions that we
place on ourselves. Eleanor Roosevelt
once said, “The only way someone can put you down is if you allow them to do
so.” (Paraphrased) More often than not,
we put ourselves down. Absolution is
that coming to terms with ourselves and removing those barriers in order to
start living up to our potential. Carl
did this when he got rid of all the stuff in the house that had been memories
of his and Elle’s life in order to allow the house to fly again and rescue
Russell and Kevin. For Peter, it was
Jesus asking him to remember who Peter was and his love for Jesus and giving
him permission to carry on the work.
What is needed in your life to bring “absolution” so that you can live
up to your potential? We all have the
opportunity, we just need to be willing to let go of what holds up back and
receive the gift of affirmation. Amen
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