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We are now in our final week of our sermon series on recognizing gospel themes in Disney Pixar movies. We have explored justice through the lens of A Bug’s Life, family in Finding Nemo, and courage in The Incredibles. For our last Sunday we will be talking about love.
When you say that you are in a relationship with someone, what exactly do you mean? When I say that I have a relationship with someone I am trying to convey that I love them, they mean something to me, I care about them. Its what I mean when I talk about my relationship with my family, or friends, or you as part of this wonderful body of Christ.
Perhaps one of the greatest Disney movies to express different types of love is Up. Released in 2009, it spins the tale of an elderly widower - Carl - who is struggling after the death of his lifelong love, Ellie. Carl is left with questions about how his life will matter without Ellie and what can he do to honor her life and memory? In the midst of his grief, Carl finds himself in the middle of a neighborhood that is under construction, and after a disaster run in with a construction worker, Carl is ordered by the court to leave the home that he and his wife shared together and move into a retirement home. Refusing to do so, Carl formulates a plan to surround his home with balloons and lift it right off of its foundations, taking it with him to the place he and Ellie had been saving to go to their entire lives, but never quite made it to, Paradise Falls in South America.
It is unmistakable in the movie that Carl and Ellie deeply love each other, but the problem in the English language is that we say that we love everything -we use the same word love to describe how much we enjoy ice cream as we do to say what type of relationship we have with a person. The English language misses the nuances of the word love. In Greek there are actually four different words that can be used for love that translate as affection, friendship, romantic love, and charity. C. S. Lewis explored each of these loves in his book The Four Loves, based off a radio presentation he gave in 1958. Lewis was trying to explain what we mean when we say that “God is love”. That love is so much more than a romantic feeling, and God’s love goes even deeper than the Greek understanding of love, because love is complex.
The type of love Ellie and Carl had was eros or romantic love. The love that creates and builds families. But romantic love is not just about seeking pleasure, but rather about connecting with another person for a sake bigger than yourselves. But as Christians we believe that our eros or romantic love is rooted deeply in an ever bigger type of love, agape, or the very love of God.
Many children throughout the years have memorized John 3:16 - For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, so that everyone who believes in him may not parish but may have eternal life. This verse describes God’s agape love for us, also called charity. The type of love that is unconditional, even when we screw up and in all circumstances. This is the greatest love that can exist, and is the love that God showed us not only in our creation but also through Jesus‘ sacrifice on the cross. A few years ago I was leading a Bible Study at Mansfield University and one of the young men attending described agape love this way - we cannot do anything to make God love us more, and we cannot do anything to make God love us less, for the love of God isn’t based on us, but is a self-giving of God’s own spirit. Agape love is self-sacrificing, and can be seen as the highest form of love that anyone can ever give to another.
The apostle Paul today in his letter to the Romans speaks of this deep, unconditional love of God for us that was manifested through Jesus Christ. If the God who loves us like this is for us then who is against us? No one.
One of the pieces of Up that I appreciated the most was the very beginning that showed how Carl and Ellie fell in love. Throughout the snippets of time, it was shows that Carl and Ellie’s life together was hard. They suffered a miscarriage and then could not have children of their own. They tried time and time again to save up for a trip to Paradise Falls only to have life happen with pressing needs. Watching those 3 minutes of film remind me of the truth that life is hard. The apostles understood that life is hard. But Paul, in the face of all of that, declares that the everlasting love of God is stronger than anything we may face. For nothing and no one can separate us from the love of Christ. That is the good news brothers and sisters!
There is another relationship in Up that speaks of another type of love, Phileo, or friendship. While Carl is trying to lift his house off of the ground he runs in Russell, a young boy who is a Wilderness Explorer in need of his merit badge for helping the elderly. Russell inadvertently becomes a stowaway in Carl’s house. While Carl initially is quite harsh towards Russell they become friends through their mishaps and adventures. This type of friendship, deep and lasting friendship, seems far too rare in today’s society, but is needed.
When you say that you love someone which of these sentiments are you trying to express? And when we proclaim that we love Christ or seeing Christ’s Kingdom expanding, what are we trying to communicate? And how do we grow in love for this community so we can passionately reach out to it for the sake of Jesus Christ?
As Christians we believe that we have a relationship with God that propels us into relationships with other people. In fact, we serve other people because of our love for God. We even love and serve people that others may deem to be unworthy, because our love for Christ beckons us to do so. But this isn’t always easy. It isn’t always easy to love God and love our neighbor. It isn’t always easy to love a family member who doesn’t believe what we believe, or that neighbor who is across the street that we keep inviting to church but they just won’t come.
We need to start praying for God to give us the love of Christ in our hearts. That agape love that is unconditional. One way that I have found to grow in love for our neighbors is to walk around praying for each house. You may not know what the family inside is going through at a particular time, in fact you may not even know the family that lives there, but praying that God would bless them. Not because they did something good or if they go to church. But praying that God would bless them and that God’s love would embrace them. Praying one neighborhood at a time that God’s love would become known so the Kingdom can spread.
It sounds really simple, but the act of praying for others can be hard. It requires us to set aside our own agendas and let our hearts be broken open for others. And the longer we pray, the easier it will be for us to see with the heart of Christ. See that we are part of the same family, created in the image of God, and let our hearts be captured by affectionate love for our brothers and sisters, even if people do not realize that they are part of the family of God yet. And because we are each other’s family, even if people do not realize yet that they are being pursued by the relentless love of God, we need to treat them well. Because God takes our relationships seriously. And Jesus redefines our relationships. No person we encounter is to be taken for grant it.
Relationships matter. Whether they be family relationships by blood, church family relationships, neighbors, friends, or spouses. Relationships matter because God uses them to shape our hearts and reach out to others. And relationships are never to be taken for grant it. We all have somebody in our life, in fact a lot of some bodies, that we were given to reach out and love. To let our love radiate to them because God loves them. Even if we can’t quite grasp or display the agape love of God, our loves allow us to proclaim God’s sacrificial love. Allow us to speak about our faith. And allow us to remind each other that God designed us to be a people who have somebody to love. Amen.
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