Sermon for January 24th, 2016
Contents
Psalm 139:1-18, 23-24
1O LORD, you have searched me and known me. 2You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. 3You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. 4Even before a word is on my tongue, O LORD, you know it completely. 5You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. 6Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it. 7Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? 8If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. 9If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, 10even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast. 11If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night,” 12even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you. 13For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well. 15My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. 16Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed. 17How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! 18I try to count them—they are more than the sand; I come to the end—I am still with you. 23Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. 24See if there is any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
Faith & Film IV: Inside Out
There's a meme going around the internet that goes something like this:
In 1995, an innovative new film studio, Pixar, burst onto the digital animation scene with a movie that asked a simple but profound question: What if toys had feelings? (Toy Story)
The film was wildly successful with children as well as adults, and so in 1998, they followed it up by asking a similar question: What if bugs had feelings? (A Bug's Life)
In 2001, using the same formula, Pixar asked the question: What if monsters had feelings? (Monsters, Inc.)
In 2003: What if fish had feelings? (Finding Nemo)
2004: What if superheroes had feelings? (The Incredibles)
2006: What if cars had feelings? (Cars)
2007: What if rats had feelings? (Ratatouille)
2008: What if robots had feelings? (WALL-E)
2009: What if old people had feelings? (Up)
2012: What if Scottish people had feelings? (Brave)
And just when you thought there was nowhere else to take this question, in 2015 Pixar finally asked the inevitable: What if FEELINGS had feelings? (Inside Out)
Film Summary
Inside Out is a film about Riley, an 11 year-old girl, and the five personified emotions inside her head--Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust--who are also the influencers, organizers, and guardians of all her short-term, long-term, and core memories.
Riley's family moves from Minnesota to San Fransisco, starting a series of events that causes Joy (the predominant emotion in Riley's life up to this point) to begin to lose control of things, and which also causes sadness to take a more prominent role, much to Joy's frustration. The struggle between sadness and joy that goes on in Riley's head eventually causes both of these emotions to be supressed--or rather, as it is depicted in Riley's head, the characters Joy and Sadness are sucked out of the control room by a giant vacuum tube and deposited somewhere in the deep recesses of Riley's subconcious mind. At this point, Anger, Fear, and Disgust take over, complicating Riley's life and her relationship with her family. As Joy and Sadness journey back to "headquarters" they learn to work together and appreciate each other, while outside, Riley is learning to come to terms with her new life and the new emotions it creates within her.
Strangers in a Strange Land
Immigration is a prominent theme in all of our movies this year, and this one is no exception. Riley's emotional turmoil is caused by her family's immigration to a new home. Symbolically, two of her core emotions also find themselves far from home in a strange place where all the rules are different and unfamiliar. At one point, her remaining emotions hatch a plot for Riley to run away from her family back to Minnesota, where most of her happy memories were formed.
In our world, it's worth noting (and remembering) that leaving one's home and immigrating to a strange new place is an emotionally difficult thing to do. It's typically not something people do for fun, just on a whim, or without significant heartbreak. I think that's why God, in the scriptures, consistently takes the side of the immigrant, and reminds his people to always treat them kindly. Wherever you stand in the current debate our country is having about immigration, I hope that as Christians, we let kindness and compassion be the emotions that lead us and inform our thoughts, our words, and our actions.
