REEL THEOLOGY SERIES: REFLECTING ON THE MOVIE INSIDE OUT. THE HUMAN ADVENTURE January 17, 2016 (Jennifer Ferguson)

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1 REEL THEOLOGY SERIES: REFLECTING ON THE MOVIE INSIDE OUT THE HUMAN ADVENTURE January 17, 2016 (Jennifer Ferguson) (See the opening movie clip from the movie Inside Out) Inside our heads and our hearts live all of these emotions...they are what make us human. And sometimes we don t like to feel them very much...they can be painful and overwhelming so we can shut them all down and become numb, walking through life like robots, trying not to feel. I ve often thought that that is where addictions come from, a desire to stop feeling our feelings. Or sometimes our emotions can overwhelm us and we allow one of the emotions to take over and dominate our lives and we lose balance. We have all been or met people who are like Sadness...always kind of blue, seeing the negative in every kind of situation, having little energy for life, allowing the painful moments to deplete our spirit. Or we have allowed Fear to take over our lives, we white-knuckle it through life, anticipating every kind of disaster to appear and entering every new experience like a nervous wreck, approaching life with worry and anxiety, and therefore not enjoying a new moment. Or sometimes we let Disgust take over our lives, like the character in the movie we are a little green with envy, always comparing ourselves to someone else, suspicious, we become quick to criticize, and are critical and judgmental about a situation or people before we have even given it or them a chance. And sometimes we allow Anger to rule the day, our faces get red and we grit our teeth, and our eyes flash and we easily blow our tops, furious with all the injustices we encounter. And then there is the wonderful emotion of Joy, that feeling of bliss and gratitude and wonder and happiness that fills us in those sacred moments when our hearts feel like they are going to explode and we cannot keep from smiling, those moments

2 when we experience completeness and all feels right with the world. A whole person is the one who allows and honours each of these emotions at the appropriate moment and holds all of these emotions in a beautiful and delicate balance. The life of Jesus demonstrates a life of emotions in balance. Jesus allows himself to know Joy the wedding feast at Cana where he keeps the party going turning water into wine; the laughing Jesus when he pulls the children to him and picks them up and places them on his knee; the close friendships and times with the brother/sister family of Mary and Martha and Lazarus, the mystical wonder he experiences with his closest students Peter, James and John when they go up the mountain and experience the mystery of the transfiguration together; the incredible joy he experiences at every healing-- the bent woman, the hemorrhaging woman, the man born blind, the leper, the centurion s daughter -- when he restores them to wholeness and they are allowed to return home and be reconciled with their families; the stories of joy when the father welcomes home the son he thought he had lost; the time Jesus tells the disciples that there is more joy in heaven over the one person who decides to turn their life around for the good. There is much joy in Jesus who is accused of being a drunkard and a glutton, obviously a man who enjoys his groceries and wine with dinner. Jesus enjoys the simple pleasures of life and focuses on relationships which give him the greatest joy of all. And Jesus also allows himself to feel the other emotions of life he allows himself to be touched by the Sadness of life s endings in the Garden of Gethsemane, to weep over the death of his dear friend Lazarus, to be moved by the city of Jerusalem that stones its prophets and refuses to listen to their wisdom, to be deeply moved by the faith of the Caananite woman and the naked man tormented by the demons of mental illness. Jesus allows his

3 heart to be touched by the sorrows of life and knows what it is to feel that separation from God at the end of his life when he cries out from the cross: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And Jesus also knows what it is to be Disgusted. He is disgusted by the judgemental attitude of the self-righteous who are quick to put heavy rules on others, who think themselves better than another, who are full of complaints about this person or that person. Jesus is disgusted with those in power who refuse to share their wealth equitably. And Jesus disgust intensifies to Anger when he loses it and turns over the tables of the moneychangers as they seek to exploit the poor at the Temple by charging them exorbitant interest when all they want to do is buy a pigeon to sacrifice it and make their sins right with God. Jesus is outraged by the injustices of the religious who condemn and punish the sick as unclean. Jesus condemns the political systems that dominate and oppress. And Jesus also knows what it is FEAR when he tells the disciples not to tell anyone that he is God s anointed one, the one who will liberate the people, when he begs God in the Garden of Gethsemane to not let him suffer; he is afraid of torture and pain like anyone else. Jesus was a human being who felt and experienced the wide range of human emotions that we all do he knew the joy and the sorrow, the disgust and the anger and the fear that accompanies the human adventure and he honoured it all. But the message of the movie and the secret to a whole life arises with the question: Who is in charge at your headquarters? In the movie, Joy is the one who wants to be in charge of Riley. And while she leaves room occasionally for Disgust and Fear and Anger which all protect Riley, for the life of her, she can t figure out the purpose of Sadness and so she tries at every opportunity to keep Sadness from touching any of Riley s core memories. But Sadness plays an important role in our lives, the gift of Sadness, the

4 allowing of the tears is that they draw others toward us and create moments of closeness and intimacy, they deepen our relationships and make them authentic and real. It is when Riley finally allows herself to be sad, to grieve the loss of friends and the familiar, that her family can draw her close and hold her in their shared grief, Riley learns she doesn t always have to be up. So I invite you to ask yourself two questions this morning to ponder throughout the coming week who is in charge of your headquarters? Joy is at the helm of Riley s brain...who is at the helm of your thoughts? Is it Joy or is it someone else that you allow to take over your life does Fear run your life, or Disgust or is it Anger or Sadness? Because if one of those emotions is in charge and running our life we aren t going to have a very positive human adventure. Or maybe you discover that like Jesus you are in balance, there is equanimity and you allow yourself to feel what you feel at the appropriate time and life feels whole and that is wonderful. And the second question is the question that Dawna Markova who wrote the book I will Not Die an Unlived Life when she had a near death experience was asked by her Spirit Guide or Jesus or an angel or a divine figure of some sort; she says she only heard a voice ask her this question: Have you had enough Joy yet? Even though Joy learns that all of the emotions are important for Riley to have a full human experience, even Sadness, Joy is still very much in charge, she is the leader. Joy is always looking for the positive, for the good, she is always trying to reframe a situation and turning it into a joy for Riley. She reminds me of Paul s message to the church at Philippi (4:8) Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is

5 honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. In the book Destiny of Souls by Michael Newton, we discover that our Soul s natural state is Joy, that in the eternal realm there is much joy, much laughter and humour, that our spirits are lighthearted and so when our souls incarnate on the earth school to enjoy the human adventure with all of its emotions, our souls of joy are supposed to be in charge, not all the negative emotions; we are not created to suffer but created for life that our joy might be full and complete. How would it change your life, if you lived with joy taking the lead, that you did primarily those things that only gave you joy, that you let go of those things that make you miserable? I remember talking with a young man who came to see me who was quite burdened down with the cares of life and he was at a crossroads and wasn t sure which road to go down and he wondered what it is God wanted him to do. I suggested to him that God wanted him to choose whichever path would give him the greatest joy. It was like a light went on and he literally in that moment perceptibly filled up with light and the next thing I knew I heard that he was setting sail for a travel adventure to Thailand. Christianity has often been coloured with the medieval beliefs that God wants us to suffer and sacrifice, and there ARE times in our lives when we are called upon to make sacrifices. In the movie there is a beautiful moment when Riley s imaginary childhood friend sacrifices his life so that Riley might know Joy again, and it is a moment of great love. We have forgotten that the sacrifice Jesus makes, like Bing Bong makes, is a sacrifice given in great love, willingly and hopefully, that it is a sacrifice that Christ and Bing Bong choose for the sake of another. But the purpose of Jesus life was not sacrifice. The purpose of Jesus life

6 was joy and life abundant, and not just for some, but for everyone. Jesus said: I have come that my joy might be in you and that it might be full! One of Living Spirit s values is Joy. It is written on one of our pillars, it is something we said we value, that we choose to live into. And we can know Joy because we are reminded that God knows us and loves us just as we are; we can be full of joy because we trust that God is for us and not against us; we can know Joy because we trust that death is not the end but a new beginning and that we will indeed be reunited with all those we have loved, that death has no dominion; we can know joy because that is why Jesus came...not to die, but to show us what it means to really live a whole and abundant life. To know Joy is a choice. If you watch the character of Joy in the movie carefully, she has to work at it. Sometimes it isn t easy when you are facing a difficult situation; she has to consciously find the good and the positive reframing of something. I was listening to Brene Brown and Oprah on a youtube video yesterday and Brene Brown reiterated several times that joy is an outgrowth from gratitude and gratitude is a practice, we have to work at it, we have to look for it, we have to stop and ponder it and allow ourselves to recognize and experience it. A few weeks ago in our Round Table Discussion which is really a code name for Bible Study, I was bemoaning the fact that Traci and I felt discouraged because it seemed that Living Spirit was shrinking not growing on Sunday mornings. And Elizabeth Gemmel who I believe is a person who practices joy said, you need to look at things differently Jennifer. Maybe not as many people are coming to church on Sunday, but Living Spirit has all sorts of life in it that it didn t have before...look at Moms and Tots, there were 43 people at the moms and tots

7 Christmas party; look at Tasha s practice, there are families streaming in and out of here every day being helped by Tasha s psychology groups; look at the Before and After School Care, every day this church is full of elementary children being loved and cared for by Matt and his wife Carrie, look at the English as a Second Language group where new immigrants from Columbian, and the Middle East and all over the world are learning to speak English. This place is full of good new stories; you need to look at the joy. Elizabeth is right; when we look for the joy, everything changes, our hearts become lighter and full. So today I invite you to ponder the ways in which Joy might be the captain of your ship because when we let Joy be in charge...the human journey really does become an incredible adventure. Let it be so. Amen.