Sandra Unger draws us into the imaginative world of the movie Wall-E to challenge consumeristic habits that are destroying our home. Then she introduces habits that will shape us to be a people who offer an alternative way of life, one that brings beauty and goodness in the midst of darkness.
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Zoom In, Zoom Out
• Sandra Unger
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In this sermon, Sandra Unger interacts with Wall-E, the 2008 animated science-fiction movie about an isolated trash-compacting robot named Wall-E on a deserted future Earth. In 2805, the Earth has been abandoned by humans who left it covered by mountains of garbage resulting from consumerism gone wild. Then Wall-E meets Eve, a robotic probe who has been sent back to Earth to search for life. Upon finding a living plant, the two robots go on an adventure to bring the humans back to rebuild the earth.
There are two worlds going on, which require us to both zoom in and zoom out.
World #1: (Earth) When we zoom in, the earth has been destroyed by an overwhelming quantity of trash, extreme consumerism and social destruction in the form of screen addiction. When we zoom out, we can see the same thing going on in our lives today.
World #2 (Spaceship): Zooming in reveals one person riding on a hover chair staring at a screen. Zooming out shows that everyone is repeating this screen addiction.
The two obvious points are:
- We are ruining the earth by our level of consumption, use of fossil fuels and lack of care for the environment.
- We are fragmenting society by our extreme dependence on and addiction to screens.
In response to these two points, we need to go deeper than platitudes about what we should do to fix the earth. We need to identity things that we can actually build into our life that will change our habits. Sandra offers five things for us to consider.
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- Crowd out complaining and add in thankfulness.
- Crowd out the evil around us and replace it with showing love.
- Crowd out busy-ness and add in people.
- Crowd out anxiety and add in persistence.
- Crowd out despair and add in hope.
These are five habits we can develop to help us embrace love in the midst of what is going on in our world. They shape us to be Kingdom people while we live as a contrast society that stands out as a light in the darkness. They are small, doable steps we can take that will make a difference in our lives and in the lives of those around us.
We miss the chance to show what God’s people have to offer today’s Western culture when we are mired in stress and fear of the culture. And sometimes, we add to that stress and fear because we have not developed habits like those listed above. In the book Resident Aliens, Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon write, “As a society of unbelief, western culture is devoid of a sense of journey, of adventure, because it lacks belief in much more than the cultivation of an ever-shrinking horizon of self-preservation and self-expression.” The church exists today as resident aliens, an adventurous colony in a society of unbelief.
Hide Extended SummaryTopics: Creation Care, Culture, Gratitude
Sermon Series: Reel to Real
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The MuseCast: September 8
Focus Scripture:
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Philippians 4:11-12
I have learned to be content no matter what happens to me. 12 I know what it’s like not to have what I need. I also know what it’s like to have more than I need. I have learned the secret of being content no matter what happens. I am content whether I am well fed or hungry. I am content whether I have more than enough or not enough.
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I loved the message today (Sunday, Sept. 6th); I pray in my life for the opportunity to work with Hospice Care as a Massage Therapist and share the skills I have been gifted with.