The Gospel In Disney:
Pocahontas

The passage we are about to read is a dialogue between Jesus and a prominent leader of the Temple named Nicodemus. We know in the Gospel of John, Jesus’ cleanses the Temple as one of his very first acts in his ministry, where in the other three gospels it is one of his last actions done just before his crucifixion. Jesus has just cleared the Temple, when Nicodemus sneaks out at night to meet with him. He obviously does not want any of his colleagues, any of the other Temple leaders to know that he is meeting with Jesus. Yet, in his heart, Nicodemus knows that Jesus is from God, that he has important understandings about life to teach him. But, these teachings obviously put him in this conflict with the religious leaders, as he brings a different understanding about how we are called to relate to God and each other.

In the dialogue, Nicodemus obviously wants to learn. But Jesus’ response to his inquiries baffles him just a bit. Jesus tells him in the translation of the Bible we use today, the New Revised Standard that, “You must be born from above if you want to enter into the kingdom of God.” With this translation Nicodemus’ response may not make much sense, for he replies, “How are you born after growing old? Do you crawl back into your mother’s womb?” The Greek word used here in John actually has several different definitions, and all three are important to understanding Jesus’ words. The word means “Born from above,” but it also means “born anew,” and the one we are all probably most familiar with, “born again.” These last two definitions may make Nicodemus’ response a little clearer.

Read John 3:1-7

The following passage is the end of a prayer that Paul prays for the Church in Ephesus. A prayer of hope for who the church can be if they stay open to the leading and love of God, a love that surpasses knowledge, but a love when received will fill them and all with the fullness of God.

Read Ephesians 3:20-21

Sermon:

This is our last week for the series, “The Gospel In Disney.” We end the series with the movie, Pocahontas. Many of you may remember that there was a lot of criticism about the movie, as Disney certainly Disneytized the story. Yet, what I think Disney did very well was illustrate what happens when different cultures meet, or in this case collide with each other. We often think that this means people from different countries, or at least from different parts of the same country meeting. But this reality can happen, this collision of cultures can take place, in the midst of our own nuclear families. How often have any of us heard, or maybe even said, “Mom or Dad just doesn’t understand.” They may be right. The culture my daughters are growing up in is so different from the one I knew at their age. Through computers and the internet, they are exposed to so much more than I ever was about life. The values and world views I was exposed to are often different than the ones they know. I am technologically challenged, but my daughters can’t wait for the next new, electronic gadget to hit the market.

I remember my Ethics professor lamenting one day about how fast the world was changing and he could not keep up. Now you need to know my professor could express himself very colorfully, and would often get passionate about what he was saying and use words I did not know were acceptable in seminary. Anyway, he was in a tirade one day because he could not even figure out how to use the vending machine so he could get a sandwich for lunch. The machine was just too complicated.

I understand my professor’s reaction, especially as I have watched my own practice of ministry change over the years. I was not even introduced to the new gadget called a personal computer until my last year in seminary. When U started ministry as a student pastor the congregations could barely afford me, let alone a secretary, so I even typed the bulletins, on my portable typewriter using mimeograph paper. My hands were black from the ink of the mimeograph machine every week. Ah the good old days. Yet today, I spend over half my day in front of a computer doing my ministry.

I still have no idea how to put together the power-point presentations we use each week, yet my daughters not only create them, they add music and words to the pictures. Technology is just one of many ways I experience this cultural divide. Music is another example. Our youth are talking about having a youth service that not only combines more technology, but also different styles of music. Did you know there are even Christian Rap songs now? We have learned that sacred music is not how you put rests and notes together, but is found in the music you have grown up listening to. For some of us it is the old hymns, for me folk music, others in the praise music. There are many other examples of how we can and do experience these cultural collisions in our own families and yes, even here in the church.

In the movie clip you are about to see from Pocahontas, we see this clash of cultures, or this differing world view between a father and daughter, between generations. Pocahontas’ father wants her to marry the most eligible brave in the tribe. But Pocahontas resists because he is so stogy and staid. He has no sense of adventure, no openness and awe to life and all that is around them. Interestingly, they both use the same metaphor for their arguments, but with totally different conclusions. The metaphor is a river. For Pocahontas’ father he sees the river as steady, flowing within its banks, predictable and useful. But Pocahontas sees it differently. Let’s see how she uses the river as a metaphor for understanding her life.

Play Video Clip: “Just beyond the River Bend.”

It appears the same issues regarding generational differences happened in Jesus’ day as well. Jesus teaches, “You think I came to bring peace, but no, not peace but a double edged sword. I have come to pit father against son and mother against daughter.” I do not believe Jesus means he purposely has come to wreak havoc on the family, but he does understand he has come to bring a new culture to the world. A culture that will pit some against their history and their heritage, a history and heritage lived and maybe even passed on by their parents.

We see this in Jesus’ encounter with Nicodemus. Nicodemus wants to understand Jesus, for as he says, “We know you come from God.” Jesus’ answer perplexes him. Jesus says, “You must be born again, you must be born anew and/or you must be born from above if you want to enter into the kingdom of God.” How can this be? How do you do this? Climb back into your mother’s womb. No. You must be born from above. Jesus is telling him, I am calling you to not only live in a new culture, but to help me build this culture. It is a culture called the kingdom of God. Every week we gather as the church, we pray that God will help us do this in our own lives. That we will be able to build this kingdom, but to do this we must be born again by being born from above. We are called to see life, each other in a different way than we are often taught by the world, by the culture around us. But it is significant, for just a few verses later may be the most famous of Christian scriptures, “For God so loved the world that God sent God’s son not to condemn the world, but so the world might be saved.” Saved means so much more biblically than is often attributed to it. It means literally being made whole, having wellbeing in our lives right now. We are not asked to wait for a someday, but to seek salvation, new life, born againess right now.

Yet, the Bible in many ways and places stresses how we must be willing to change and grow. How we must move from the safety of what we know and believe to a new way of seeing as directed from above. As Nancy shared last week, the whole call to repentance is a call to change our attitudes, our understandings about life so we can go in another direction. We are asked to move from the safety of what we know, if we hope to be born again, and to see the kingdom of God.

Last sermon, I suggested that we, as adults, need to learn from our children if we hope to enter the kingdom. That we need to be like them because they have not yet unlearned acceptance, they have not yet unlearned openness and honesty, they have not yet unlearned a sense of awe and wonder and a belief in the possibilities that life has to offer. I suggest that we need to be more like our children to enter the kingdom for another reason today. Spiritual theologian Matthew Fox in his book, Original Blessing, tells us that 90% of all children possess creativity. By the time we reach adulthood, only 20% of us retain that creativity. Creativity being the ability to see things in new and different ways.

Paul tells us in Ephesians that we have a God who is able to do more in our lives, more through our lives than we can even imagine. It is this ability to being open, to seeing the possibilities of life that allow us to become born again. The next clip is another song. It is probably one of my all time favorite songs. The only one that even rivals it is the one you heard several weeks ago from the Hunchback of Notre Dame, “God Help The Outcasts.” Pocahontas’ adventurism has now caused her to meet someone from another culture. She meets the Englishman John Smith, and she has a few words for him that may help him see himself and his life in a new way. That challenges his arrogance at being the one who is more sophisticated and in the know.

Play Video Clip: “Color Of The Winds”

The movie reminds us that we can be frightened by those who are different than us, who we may not understand, or we can learn from them. What challenges me, is that we are asked to be the Pocahontases of the world. We are asked, we are called to introduce people to a new way of seeing and being, which allows all of us to be born again, and to enter into the kingdom of heaven.

Most importantly, I believe the movie reminds us that our present, the moment we have life, the moment in which we can make choices on how to live and what to do can be shaped in two ways. It can be shaped by our past, what we have known and what we may even feel secure in. Or our present can be shaped by our future, by the vision, by the imagination we can bring to the living of our lives. Paul tells us it is only ourselves that prevents God from doing amazing things with us and through us. God can do more than we can imagine. But for God to do this we must be born again, by being born from above.

Sermon delived by Rev. George Cushman on August 26, 2007.