The Gospel
According to PIXAR series
“When Love Enters”
By Rev Steven R
Mitchell
Mountain View
United Church, Aurora, CO 7/7/2013
Based on Luke
19:1-10 and movie WALL-E
Every
couple of months the board members of Ecumenical Inc meets. For those of you who are not familiar with
what Ecumenical Inc is, it is the corporation in which Mountain View was formed
under. At the beginning of the 1970’s
the Presbyterian Churches of the USA, the United Methodist church, and the
United Church of Christ came together and planted three ecumenical churches,
The United Church of Montbello in Denver, Columbine United Church in Littleton,
and Mountain View United Church in Aurora.
The purpose for these meetings is to check in with each church and give
support to each other’s ministries. One
of the topics which arose in this last meeting was that of the “Love language
of the culture” and how the majority of today’s churches do not understand that
language, which hinders our ability to connect with today’s culture.
There is a strong
sense of frustration within our churches that today’s culture isn’t concerned
with “church”. We don’t understand what
people are telling us when they say they are “Spiritual” but not
“Religious.” When we hear this
expression we often assume that they are rejecting Jesus or more importantly
they are rejecting our basic religious understanding. This is just one small example of what we
mean by the differences in a particular cultures “love” language. This summer we will be exploring how some of
this love language is being told through pop culture, specifically through the
media of movies. We will be exploring
through some of the PIXAR movies how our beloved Gospel stories are being
retold through a language that is not spoken or overtly used in church.
This week I wish to
focus in on the topic of what happens when
love enters into a person’s life. The
movie that I want to use as the example of how the love language of the culture
is being used is from the movie WALL-E and how One of the Biblical scriptures
that can easily be used as a related story is the story of Jesus’ encounter
with the tax collector, Zacchaeus as found in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 19.
As the movie WALL-E opens we quickly learn that
humanity has finally managed to make the earth so uninhabitable that everybody
had to board a huge space station and live in outer space while robots like
WALL-E were left on earth to clean up the debris so that sometime in the future
humans could return to mother earth. One
day another robot shows up with a directive to locate any signs that earth
might be ready to be re-inhabited, her name is EVA. WALL-E soon falls in love with Eva (who is
totally unaware of his affections because of her total focus of mission or her
directive) and offers her a newly found treasure: a green shoot of a
plant. Having found what she is looking for;
Eva goes into involuntary shut down.
WALL-E doesn’t understand what has happened to her, but devotes himself
to her care during her time of inactivity.
As the original space probe that delivered EVA comes back to collect
her, WALL-E follows her by stowing away on the probe which goes back to the
human’s space ship. On board, WALL-E
finds a ship full of overweight people driving armchairs, talking to each other
only via video screens and eating their food out of giant Slurpee cups. Computers run the ship, keeping the humans
alive and pacified. When WALL-E arrives,
he single mindedly pursues EVA and helps her complete her directive, despite
opposition from the head robot, the Autopilot, who seeks to maintain power by
preventing the spaceship’s return to Earth. The
Gospel According to PIXAR. Chapter 1 pg5-6
One of the major
themes of this story is how everyone who comes in contact with WALL-E has their
lives dramatically changed. WALL-E has a
simple love for every person or robot that he meets, giving love and not
expecting anything in return. When
WALL-E meets a little robot, MO, charged with clean-up, WALL-E extends a hand
of friendship. WALL-E gives a sense of
value to the robots that are considered misfits and needing to be altered. When WALL-E accidently breaks the video
screen on one of the human’s chair, it allowed the human to realize a much
larger world outside of their chair, giving new meaning to a very mundane existence.
In the Gospel of
Luke, we can read how the life of Jesus also changed the lives of those people
he came in contact with. Jesus and
WALL-E portray the same one directional style of love – that of giving without
expecting anything in return, which draws people like Zacchaeus to realize that
there is more to life than just his prime directive of making money.
Zacchaeus had heard
about Jesus and in order to see who this Jesus was climbed a tree to get a view
of him. When Jesus saw Zacchaeus up in
the tree, Jesus told him to come down and invited himself over for dinner. This may seem very presumptuous to invite
yourself over for dinner, yet it is in breaking bread where deeper relationship
building can happen. From that time with
Jesus, Zacchaeus came to understand that he had been missing out on living a
life that was richer than what he had understood, just like the human in the
chair realized a whole world beyond their video screen.
The movie WALL-E
gives several examples of what can limit our ability to see life in a much
broader picture. For EVA, she had tunnel
vision because she was totally focused on her “directive”, of finding carbon
based life on earth; once WALL-E entered into her life, his love for her broke
her tunnel vision allowing her to fall in love with WALL-E. Take just a moment and think about what
“directives” are in your life that gives you tunnel vision and curtail your
ability to experience life instead of just existing?
With WALL-E’s one
way love, people and even robots lives were changed. Zacchaeus’ life was dramatically changed
because of Jesus’ acceptance of him.
When Jesus first met Zacchaeus at the sycamore tree, Jesus didn’t say, “Zacchaeus,
I want to eat dinner with you tonight, but first you need to change your
ways.” In fact, the story never shows
Jesus confronting Zacchaeuses life style or profession as a tax collector. Jesus, just simply say’s, “Tonight I dine
with you.” Jesus’ one way love is the
same today. As we come to the table of
the great love feast, Jesus doesn’t require anything of you other than to join
him in this meal.
Earlier this week I
had an amazing conversation with a member of our faith community and our
conversation touched on the “expectations” that too often the church places on
those whom we interact with. We can
provide this for you, but we expect…., we will welcome you, but you must act a
certain way. We want you to be a part of
the family, but first you must… The
ripple effect of one way love is an amazing thing. We read it page after page in scripture, we
can see it in movies like WALL-E. When
Mountain View talks about our mission, one of the things that we need to
continually keep in check is our “motives”.
We need to be like WALL-E was to EVE, giving love with no expectation of
receiving it back. Jesus went to the
cross and died, not requiring anything of us, other than an invitation to join
him, to become friends with him. For
Zacchaeus, his life changed dramatically once he experienced the love of
Jesus. I believe if we continue to grow
into extending “one way” love, like Jesus and WALL-E, we will have a powerful
effect on those we meet and help others begin to experience life not just exist
in life. Amen
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