Sermon for January 7th, 2024
Contents
Luke 4:14-21, 28 (NT p.61)
14 Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. 15 He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone. 16 When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: 18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” 20 And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21 Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
28 When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. 29 They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. 30 But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.
Colossians 2:12-15 (NT p.200)
12 when you were buried with him in baptism, you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead. 13 And when you were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive together with him, when he forgave us all our trespasses, 14 erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross. 15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it.
Faith & Film XII: Wonka
Three Minute Film Summary
Wonka is a prequel to the beloved Roald Dahl children's story, "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory." The film opens as a young Willy Wonka returns home to start his career after seven years abroad. He doesn't have much money, and so ends up in debt to a crooked hotel and laundry facility--where all of the residents/workers owe exorbitant debts they can never hope to repay, making them functionally enslaved to the owners. Here, Willy makes his first friend and follower, an orphan named Noodle. The two of them make chocolate each night, and sneak out of the laundry facility each day to sell chocolate in the town square. The chocolates are magical, and have transformative effects on those who eat them. Willy's presentation begins to draw large crowds, but also the attention of the "chocolate cartel"--the owners of three rival chocolate companies, who tightly control the flow of chocolate in the town, and also control the local law enforcement. They attempt to get rid of Willy, but he eludes them with the help of Noodle and several other enslaved laundry workers, now part of Willy's inner circle. Around this time, Willy also encounters Lofty, a small orange man with green hair who has been stalking him for several years.
Willy and friends finally save enough money to open their own store, but at the grand opening the laundry owner secretly poisons his candy, and so the crowds turn against him, destroying the candy and the store. At this point, the leaders of the chocolate cartel offer Willy enough money to pay off the debts of his friends, if he will leave town and never come back. He agrees, and they put him on a boat to Alaska...which they subsequently blow up as it sails away. Miraculously, Willy escapes the explosion and returns to his friends. Together they come up with a plan to sneak into the headquarters of the chocolate cartel (an underground vault hidden beneath a cathedral), to find a book--an accounting ledger--which which would prove the crimes of the chocolate cartel, vindicating Willy and his friends, while also liberating the vast store of chocolate the cartel has been withholding from the town. I won't give away the ending, since there are a few surprises, but I will say that right before the credits roll, Willy Wonka sings the iconic song from the 1971 film adaptation: "Come with me, and you'll be in a world of pure imagination..." as he strolls into an abandoned castle he has purchased, painting a picture for the audience of what it will look like when he has transformed it into his iconic future chocolate factory.
