{"id":107,"date":"2010-03-07T11:43:25","date_gmt":"2010-03-07T18:43:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/genevievecritel.com\/gathering\/?p=107"},"modified":"2010-03-07T11:43:25","modified_gmt":"2010-03-07T18:43:25","slug":"march-7-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gnhuu.org\/index.php\/2010\/03\/07\/march-7-2010\/","title":{"rendered":"March 7, 2010, Lessons from the movie "Avatar""},"content":{"rendered":"

Message 13, Avatar \u2013 Are We Entitled?\u00a0 3-7-10\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Avatar, as most of you know, is the biggest money-making movie of all time.\u00a0 In dollar values, the movie has made almost two and one-half billion dollars worldwide since its release.\u00a0 72% of its gross revenues have come from the international market, thus indicating the movie has a broad appeal that transcends cultures and nationalities.\u00a0 Tonight, it stands poised to win several Academy awards including, possibly, the best picture Oscar.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Our March message series over the next few weeks will take a look at a few of the Oscar nominated best picture films.\u00a0 I hope this series will be a fun but thought provoking approach to looking at issues we all face in our lives.\u00a0 Indeed, as much as the written word has power and resonance, films seem to touch us all the more because of their visual and audio sensory impact.<\/p>\n

My goal, in this series, is not to present a simple retrospective of some currently popular films.\u00a0 It is, instead, to use them as a means to further our Sunday morning work \u2013 to discuss and gain greater insights to ourselves and our world.\u00a0 Our mission is to then think about ways to act and grow from what we learn.\u00a0 Since all aspects of truth seeking have a spiritual dimension, I believe our pursuit in discussing movies and the topics they raise is not just for simple entertainment.\u00a0 We will, I hope, be spiritually<\/span><\/strong> challenged and enlightened.<\/p>\n

We begin this Sunday, as we saw in the previous video trailer, with the film \u201cAvatar\u201d.\u00a0 Next Sunday, we\u2019ll look at George Clooney\u2019s \u201cUp in the Air\u201d, and conclude in two weeks with the recent Disney \u2013 Pixar animated film entitled \u201cUp.\u201d\u00a0 In between, we will hold the first of many, I hope, Gathering movie nights here at church.\u00a0 On Saturday, March 13th,<\/sup> starting promptly at 7 pm, we\u2019ll watch \u201cThe Great Debaters\u201d.\u00a0 It will be free of charge and open to one and all.\u00a0 Afterwards, for any who want to stay, we will enjoy an informal discussion of the movie over coffee and dessert.<\/p>\n

James Cameron, the writer, director and producer of Avatar, conceived of the movie and wrote a brief script for it in the mid 1990\u2019s.\u00a0 He quickly shelved the project as his visions for the movie exceeded the moviemaking technology of the time.\u00a0 He waited for computer graphic imagery to catch up with his big ideas.\u00a0 Which they did and the final product is as much a story of amazing filmmaking technology as it is a fable for our enlightenment.\u00a0 The images are stunning and so realistic that if one did not know that Cameron\u2019s creations were fictitious, one would believe they actually exist.\u00a0 Floating mountains, flying reptiles, mystic phosphorescent life forms and other amazing creations populate the film.\u00a0 Most are based on actual earth creatures or landmarks – and then they are altered to appear wonderfully and beautifully alien.\u00a0 He created an otherworldly Garden of Eden.\u00a0 The avatars and aliens themselves are beautiful \u2013 they are ten feet tall with blue skin, long slender bodies, and cat-like faces and features.<\/p>\n

The story is one we often have heard in other ways.\u00a0 Many reviewers have likened it to the movie Dancing with Wolves <\/span>or The Last Samurai<\/span> in which a westerner finds himself in an alien culture only to fall in love with it.\u00a0 In this case, the year is 2154 and the earth is in major ecological trouble.\u00a0 Human beings therefore venture six light years away to the planet Pandora in order to mine a mineral called \u201cunobtainium\u201d which will solve all of the earth\u2019s energy needs in an ecologically pure manner.\u00a0 Populating Pandora are humanoid aliens called the Navi, who might best be likened to any indigenous natives here on earth.\u00a0 They are intimately connected to their natural surroundings and have even evolved a bodily appendage which allows them to physically unite with various Pandora plants, animals and each other.\u00a0 The Navi thus understand the plants and animals around them in ways that we humans can only aspire.<\/p>\n

In order to calm the Navi and buy their trust, scientists develop a mutation life form which has a combination of human and Navi DNA.\u00a0\u00a0 These are the avatars.\u00a0 They are to go and live among the Navi and convince them to give up their land.<\/p>\n

And that is the goal of the human invaders of Pandora – to mine as much of the powerful mineral as possible and return it to earth.\u00a0 The paraplegic marine, who inhabits an avatar body, finds himself increasingly sympathetic to the Navi cause.\u00a0 He eventually turns against his fellow humans to defend his newfound Pandora culture that is peaceful and at one with nature.\u00a0 The movie culminates in an ultimate battle scene where humans make war against the less technological Navi.<\/p>\n

If the movie has political and ecological overtones, it was meant to have them.\u00a0 James Cameron says unapologetically that such was his motive \u2013 to condemn the worship of technology, to denounce the violence perpetrated against nature and to decry the many wars which are waged for financial or material gain.\u00a0 Echoes of the Iraq war, of Viet Nam, of battles against American Indians and of environmental plunders run throughout the film.\u00a0 These themes are not subtle.\u00a0 To use them as the basis for today\u2019s message would be a simple task.<\/p>\n

I believe the larger theme of this movie, however, is one that Jesus often spoke against but which has been a part of our human nature since we first evolved as a species.\u00a0 I speak of the human sense of entitlement.\u00a0 Almost as soon as we are born, we create a universe of our own in which we place ourselves at the very center.\u00a0 All things, in our own minds, revolve around us.\u00a0 It is only by the application of moral imagination and cooperation that we create an alternative universe in which we are not the center and we no longer claim for ourselves the petty demands of ego.<\/p>\n

We see in Avatar a human race run amok.\u00a0 At the beginning of the film, men and women have destroyed earth and live on the edge of extinction because of a sense of entitlement \u2013 entitlement to use at will all of the world\u2019s natural resources and to stop at nothing, even the violent conquest of other nations, in this pursuit.\u00a0 And so, having exhausted all of our resources here on earth and facing mass calamity, humans venture beyond earth to find places suitable for plunder.\u00a0 Beyond all of the social and political commentary that permeates this film, lies a condemnation of human arrogance.<\/p>\n

We have seen this attitude of entitlement throughout our history.\u00a0 From the allegorical creation story of Adam and Eve, humankind could not live by the one rule set for us \u2013 to not eat of the Tree of Life.\u00a0 Adam and Eve\u2019s me first attitude symbolically reflects our own.\u00a0 From Atilla the Hun, to the ancient Egyptians, to the Roman Empire, to the Spanish conquest of Peru and Mexico, to the African slave trade, to American expansion into Native American lands, to Napoleon and Hitler, to actions by our own nation to obtain oil \u2013 which some claim to be harmful to our very survival, humans have acted as if they are not just granted the basic rights of life and freedom, but that we are anointed Kings who are entitled to anything we want.\u00a0 In other words, we believe we have the right to unlimited access to land, wealth and natural resources \u2013 no matter who or what stands in our way.<\/p>\n

And this attitude is acted out not only on a national and international stage, but in smaller communities, families and within our very inner selves.\u00a0 This internal mindset, that we fight every day, leads us to take for granted the blessings of life \u2013 people, other creatures and the earth itself.\u00a0 I am the center of my universe and thus I am important and deserve all things and all people to serve my needs.\u00a0 Of course, this attitude is not always so pronounced and evident.\u00a0 We can act entitled in small ways too.\u00a0 We do this in many of our relationships in little ways \u2013 like expecting to be treated in certain ways or to have the other act perfectly towards us.\u00a0 We expect those whom we love to always be attentive to our needs, to never make mistakes and to always be there for us.\u00a0 We also expect that we will not only have food for basic sustenance, for instance, but that it had darned well better be really good to eat.\u00a0 I can think of a thousand ways in which I act entitled \u2013 I should be happy, I should be comfortable, I should not have to suffer, everything should go as planned, everybody should be nice to me, I should not have to wait very long, and on and on and on…Forgetting to think about other people first \u2013 their needs or their hurts or their reasons for acting in certain ways, I can often want only what is best for me.<\/p>\n

There are, of course, basic needs that we should expect in a decent society \u2013 like affordable access to the essentials of life: food, shelter, clothing and healthcare.\u00a0 And then there are needs that those who are born with disadvantages or afflictions deserve to be provided.\u00a0 These people are not victims.\u00a0 They are the sick, challenged or outcast.\u00a0 As a species that does act with moral imagination, we are to care for the weakest among us.\u00a0 As Jesus says in the Biblical book of Matthew, when we feed the hungry, clothe the naked, soothe the sick and visit the prisoner, we are doing it for the Divine.<\/p>\n

Sociologists point to the fact, however, that we are becoming a society where almost everyone considers himself or herself a victim of some sort.\u00a0 I do not mean to diminish the very real victims of abuse or hate who truly do suffer injustice.\u00a0 Beyond that caution, however, we can all identify people or groups of people who regularly play the role of victim out of a sense of entitlement.\u00a0 Their egos expect them to be treated in certain ways and, when that does not happen, they react with anger and hurt.\u00a0 We might all think of egregious examples in this regard \u2013 the person who suffers a minor injury but then demands permanent disability status and lifetime pay from the government for not working, or the woman who was burned when she spilled hot coffee in her lap because she rested the cup between her legs while driving \u2013 and then sued McDonald\u2019s for millions or, perhaps, any one of us who wail and moan when stuck in traffic due to an accident without ever thinking of the real accident victims.<\/p>\n

When I was young, my mother would often tell me that life is often not fair.\u00a0 And I found myself repeating that piece of wisdom to my daughters many times over.\u00a0 For whatever reasons, some people are richer, are better looking, healthier or are more intelligent than others.\u00a0 They may have either worked harder to achieve such standards or, perhaps, they simply lucked into them.\u00a0 But these qualities are not to be expected nor is anyone entitled to them.\u00a0 The same mindset that once caused my daughters to bemoan the fact many of their friends got new cars when they turned sixteen and they didn\u2019t (what an unfair dad I was!!!), is the mindset of entitlement that once led white slave traders to capture African men, women and children to work as slaves.\u00a0 Our individual and often petty attitudes of entitlement are acted out in big ways by corporations, by nations and by the human race as a whole.<\/p>\n

It is this very same mindset that motivates humans in the movie Avatar.\u00a0 We are stronger, you have what we want and we are going to simply take it because, after all, we are entitled to continue living extravagant and wasteful lives.<\/p>\n

If we know what our problem is, how do we fix it?\u00a0 Here are my five proposals for how we can diminish or eliminate our propensity to feel entitled:<\/p>\n

The first is a repeat of what I said earlier, life is not fair.\u00a0 Even in cultures and economies where there is a deliberate effort to level the playing field for everyone, inequalities still exist.\u00a0 Some people will work harder, some will be born with greater skills in certain areas, some will be born with more or less intelligence, and some will experience blind luck \u2013 either good or bad.\u00a0 As a society that cares for others, we should assist those who suffer.\u00a0 For those who are sick, who are disabled, who struggle with mental, emotional or physical diseases, we must be there for them.\u00a0 But, for the rest of us, I believe we must realize that life is not fair and that we can either be bitter and unhappy about it or we can focus on the many, many good things we have been given.<\/p>\n

And that leads to my second proposition.\u00a0 All things in our lives should be seen as gifts \u2013 not as absolute rights.\u00a0 The very air we breathe is a gift.\u00a0 Life itself is to be celebrated.\u00a0 Our food, clothing, relationships, family, friends, work, homes and everything else we have should be seen as blessings and enjoyed, instead of taken for granted.\u00a0 This mindset will lead us to stop expecting<\/span><\/strong> whatever it is we don\u2019t have.\u00a0 We must focus, as the old saying goes, on the positive.\u00a0 We are often abundantly fortunate and too often, I at least<\/strong>, act as if I deserve even more.\u00a0 I confess to you that I have been far too blessed in my life.\u00a0 I see so many others who hurt and suffer when I do not.\u00a0 I have absolutely nothing to complain about and everything for which to be thankful.\u00a0 Help me, help us I pray, to live with a grateful attitude.<\/p>\n

My third proposition is that many goals and dreams we have in life must be achieved through work.\u00a0 And even then our work does not absolutely guarantee us a right to great wealth.\u00a0 I know there are many teachers and social workers in our congregation who labor to shape the future, one life at a time.\u00a0 What work has greater impact?\u00a0 And yet, there are some people in this world who throw a football, who act in movies or who trade stocks who amass fortunes while others, who impact our society in much more profound ways, make much less.\u00a0 My point, though, is that while life is not always fair, nothing in our lives is free.\u00a0 We must work for what we receive.\u00a0 While we must work towards fairly paying people for their hard work, we must NOT <\/strong>encourage the attitude of some that they are entitled to privileges without work.<\/p>\n

My fourth proposition is that inconveniences in life will always happen.\u00a0 We can never predict what will happen the next moment.\u00a0 We plan ahead but, again as the old saying goes, the best laid plans often go awry.\u00a0 When we react with grace and understanding to unforeseen circumstances, we are better for it.\u00a0 Instead of storing anger, resentment and bitterness, we are people of peace \u2013 within ourselves and towards others.\u00a0 I have met a few people who seem to not only roll with the punches that life throws at them, but they celebrate<\/span><\/strong> them!\u00a0 These are people who laugh, are generally happy and who often are kind and caring.\u00a0 Since I have already thrown around a few clich\u00e9s, let me offer another one.\u00a0 These happy people are given lemons in life and, instead of complaining, make lemonade.\u00a0 I want to be more like them.<\/p>\n

My fifth and final proposition is, I believe, the most important.\u00a0 It is to live an outwardly focused<\/span><\/strong> life.\u00a0 This perspective purposefully removes me from the center of my existence and places at its center other people.\u00a0 I am here to serve not my own interests but those of others.\u00a0 And, I believe that just like a sense of entitlement permeates negatively downward, an outwardly focused life positively expands to influence our families, our churches, our businesses, our cities and our nations.\u00a0 My ethic must be to think more of you and of other people than I do of myself.\u00a0 As we have discussed in some of my previous messages, this ethic is echoed in the Golden Rule and was listed by Jesus as one of his two great commands.\u00a0 We are to love and treat others at least as much \u2013 or more – as we love ourselves.<\/p>\n

An outward focused life is a different paradigm from what the evangelical Pastor Rick Warren advocated in his books The Purpose Driven Life<\/span> and The Purpose Driven Church<\/span>.\u00a0 In each book he proposed, like me, that people stop focusing on themselves.\u00a0 He offered, however, that our purpose is to live for Christ.\u00a0 While I believe God\u2019s heart is for the betterment of people, I do not believe our primary mission in life is to worship a theistic Divine person.\u00a0 We must serve others here on earth.\u00a0 We must work for the creation of heaven on earth \u2013 not for us as individuals but for all people.\u00a0 I believe that is the true message of Jesus.\u00a0 By working to reduce poverty, homelessness, injustice and disease, we serve other people.\u00a0 We can also do the same in simple, everyday interactions.\u00a0 We can consider other people first.\u00a0 We can live with an empathetic attitude.\u00a0 What are you feeling?\u00a0 How can I help?\u00a0 How can I understand?\u00a0 Let me listen to you.\u00a0 Let me think of your needs and not my own.\u00a0 To paraphrase John the Baptist from the Bible, we and our sense of entitlement must decrease and others and their needs must increase.<\/p>\n

The hero of Avatar does exactly that.\u00a0 By living as an avatar \u2013 half human and half Navi humanoid \u2013 he comes to understand and to empathize with the natural world and the population on Pandora.\u00a0 He awakens to their reality and he finds himself serving their needs instead of his own.<\/p>\n

I was reminded in this film of the book we read as one of our Book Club selections two years ago.\u00a0 It has resonated with me ever since.\u00a0 The book Presence<\/span> encourages each of us to live outward focused lives.\u00a0 It asks us to be present with other people and other life forms.\u00a0 When we are figuratively present with them, we symbolically live in their shoes, we seek understanding of their opinions, needs and desires.\u00a0 And the result is that we learn, grow and are happier as a result.\u00a0 From this sense of presence with others comes the moral force operating in the universe.\u00a0 And, as you know, I believe it is in human cooperation and goodness towards others \u2013 our moral imagination \u2013 that we find the Divine.<\/p>\n

This call to live an outward focused life is, I hope, our purpose and our mission here at the Gathering.\u00a0 So many of you truly do lead lives that are present with other people and which serve their needs.\u00a0 You often lead outward focused lives.\u00a0 But, I hope we can agree that we can be better.\u00a0 And, our church must also act with that mindset.\u00a0 The Gathering should be a place that thinks more of others than it does of itself.\u00a0 We are rightly called to love each other within the congregation with kindness, gentleness and understanding.\u00a0 However, in our actions, our finances and our time, my hope for the Gathering is that we continue our path to be outwardly focused.\u00a0 How much time do we as a congregation spend in service to the community?\u00a0 How much of our church finances do we spend for that purpose?\u00a0 Many so-called church experts say that churches which remain insular, closed and serving only the needs of the congregation will never prosper and may likely cease to exist.\u00a0 Churches with a passion to look outward, to serve others, and to be involved in the community, find purpose, relevance and energy.\u00a0 All of these qualities exist here \u2013 it is one reason I love this congregation so very, very much \u2013 but our goal must be to move ever onward and to extend our ethic to serve.<\/p>\n

Let us live out Paul\u2019s words in the Bible when he encouraged the church he founded in Philippi with the following advice, and I quote from the NIV translation, \u201cDo nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.\u00a0Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

As many of you know, we have a missions working team that will soon come to the congregation with focused ideas on how we can grow in outreach and service to others.\u00a0 We have not studied or formulated all of our ideas as yet.\u00a0 This group will do the investigation necessary to bring a few ideas to you for approval.\u00a0 I know we will continue our work with Inter-Faith Hospitality Network and with our Christmas time charities.\u00a0 But we will bring other ideas to the table too.\u00a0 As your Pastor for at least one year, my goal is to extend what this congregation has already begun.\u00a0 We are a place of grace and caring towards each other.\u00a0 We are not going to like everyone here equally but we seek to understand, to celebrate and to embrace each other in a manner that acknowledges and promotes diversity.\u00a0 At my previous church, I noted that while some people always seem to be lovable while others take more effort, the reality is that we all, on one level or another, require extra grace in order to be accepted and loved.\u00a0 We understand this at the Gathering and we are moving more and more towards fully living it out.<\/p>\n

My other goal is for us to continue our path towards also being an outwardly focused, service oriented church.\u00a0 I was not here when the congregation decided to locate in Over-the-Rhine but I imagine it was done with a purpose and to make a statement.\u00a0 We could isolate ourselves in some grand building in the suburbs or we could be where I think Jesus might want to worship.\u00a0 I love you all dearly for having made this choice.\u00a0 Indeed, I almost have to rebuke myself for reverse pride.\u00a0 I think our little storefront location says a lot about what we value \u2013 people over buildings, helping others over ourselves.<\/p>\n

As we seek to be better people by rejecting a sense of entitlement, we can help change the prevailing thinking in our cities and our nation.\u00a0 As the movie Avatar points us to the ultimate horror of human arrogance and entitlement, let it be just a science fiction parable that never comes true.\u00a0 Let us NOT live with a sense of entitlement in our personal, work or relationship lives.\u00a0 Let us stop living as victims and start celebrating the many gifts of life we enjoy.\u00a0 May we live out the ethic of care and concern for others.\u00a0 Let us be present with other people and with all creation.\u00a0 Let us be empathetic.\u00a0 Let us be an outwardly focused people and church.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Message 13, Avatar \u2013 Are We Entitled?\u00a0 3-7-10 Avatar, as most of you know, is the biggest money-making movie of all time.\u00a0 In dollar values, the movie has made almost two and one-half billion dollars worldwide since its release.\u00a0 72% of its gross revenues have come from the international market, thus indicating the movie has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gnhuu.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gnhuu.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gnhuu.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gnhuu.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gnhuu.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.gnhuu.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gnhuu.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gnhuu.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gnhuu.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}