Sermon (February 20) "Movie Month: Toy Story 3"

Years ago, a little publication called The Electric Experimenter calculated what the average person weighing 150 pounds was worth. When the raw components were considered, it was determined that the average person was composed of 3,500 feet of oxygen, nitrogen, and hydrogen; enough fats to make a candle weighing fifteen pounds; enough carbon to make 9,360 lead pencils; fifty-four ounces of phosphorus to make 800,000 matches; enough sugar to make six little sugar cubes; enough iron to make a ten-penny nail; enough lime to mark off the batter’s box on a baseball diamond; twenty spoonfuls of salt; and various other chemicals and water which collectively totaled $8.50.

When you factor in for inflation, this means that a 150 pound person is valued at about fifteen dollars.

Maybe there have been times when you felt like you were worth only about $15. Do you ever go through times like that when you don’t seem to fit in and you don’t seem to measure up? It really doesn’t matter how much money you have or how many of the right people you know. You can have all of those things and still feel empty inside.

Every single person must face the question of what it means to be fully human. Why have we been put here on this earth to begin with? What does it mean to be fully human?

As part of our February movie month, today we look at the movie, “Toy Story 3” which focuses on this very question of what it means to be fully human, or maybe we could say, “fully a toy,” since the toys come across very human-like in the movie. The movie helps us to identify with the hopes, dreams, fears, anxieties, and questions we often have about who we are and to whom we belong.

The voices for the movie characters are very familiar and include Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack, Don Rickles, as well as other well known people. When I bought the DVD of the movie this past November, I remember reading somewhere that this movie was already the 5th highest grossing film world wide of all time.

Here’s a quick summary of the opening of the movie. A group of toys who have a strong bond with each other in spite of their many idiosyncrasies are owned by a little boy named, Andy. Whenever Andy is not in the room, these toys come to life.

Andy’s toys include Woody the cowboy sheriff; Buz Lightyear, a space toy; Jessie, a yodeling cowgirl; Rex the Dinasaur; Hamm the piggy bank; Slinky Dog, a slinky toy; Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head; Bo Peep; Bullseye, a non speaking horse; The 3 squeeze toy rubber aliens; Barbie; Sarge and the bucket of green soldiers; and other some other toys as well. Here’s the opening scene from the movie.

(Video Clip)

In that scene, Andy was still a little boy, but the movie quickly moves ahead in time to when Andy is older and is getting ready to leave for his first year at college. For the past few years, Andy has been outgrowing the toys making the toys feel sad and lonely. And now, he has to decide on which toys he is going to take with him and which ones he’s going to put into a garbage bag and take to the attic.

His mother sees the garbage bag of toys that Andy had collected and doesn’t know that Andy had intended for them for the attic. Instead, she thinks the bag is meant to be taken out to the curb with the rest of the garbage.

Let’s watch this scene of how the toys feel when they are trying to figure out what is going on.

(Video Clip)

Fortunately, the toys were able to escape from the garbage and end up getting into a box to be donated to the Sunnyside Daycare. At first the toys are happy when they arrive at the daycare because they know that there will be lots of children who will want to play with them every day.

While at sunnyside daycare, the toys encounter the harshness of life. Some of the children are too rough and end up breaking them making the toys want to leave the daycare. But the biggest challenge for them comes when one of the other toys, a stuffed bear named Lotso, is mean to them and treats them harshly.

The reason Latso is a mean toy is because he and two of the other toys used to be owned by a little girl who accidentally lost them. When these three toys made their way back to the little girl’s home, she had already replaced them with newer toys. From that moment on, they felt rejected and unloved, and that’s why they became mean.

In this next scene, Lotso has the other toys trapped and tells them that they aren’t worth anything. Here’s the scene.

(Video Clip)

So here we have Lotso, a toy who feels rejected, unloved, and unwanted. And we also have Woody, Buzz Lightyear, and the other toys who throughout the movie have also felt rejected, unloved, and unwanted. And all of these toys are struggling with who they are and to whom they belong.

When I was in college, I reached a point in my life where I was really struggling with who I was and to whom I belonged. I was getting failing grades in college and I was also feeling lonely. To add to the feeling of rejection, I was also cut from the baseball team adding to my feelings of low self-esteem.

It was a real low point in my life and I began to believe that I served no real purpose in this world. Until that is when God reminded me of who I was. I remember one night, feeling particularly low, and it was like I heard this voice saying to me, “I love you Robert. But you need to make a decision to allow me to be first in your life. You’re not junk. You’re my child.”
I fell to my knees by my bed, and I remember telling God that I had wandered away from my faith and that I had forgotten who I was.

You see, my parents had raised me in the church. They had me baptized when I was just months old. And it was just now, 18 or 19 years later that I was finally realizing what my baptism meant and who I was and to whom I belonged. When I was baptized, God had claimed me as his child and promised to never leave or forsake me. And in that moment as I was on my knees, I claimed my identity in Jesus Christ. I belonged to God.

And from that moment on, I began to sense God’s presence in a very real way. I began to see God at work in my life. And I began to see myself the way that God sees me. As someone who is loved, forgiven, and made in God’s image.

One of my favorite parts of the movie is when Woody remembers to look under his cowboy boot and he sees the name, “Andy,” the name of the little boy who played with him as a child. Seeing that name on his boot was how Woody and the other toys were reminded of who they were and that they were loved and that someone had claimed them as their own.

Let’s watch this clip when Woody was reminded to whom he belonged.

(Video Clip)

In the Book of Genesis, when we read about the creation of the world, we read that we were created in the image of God. We were created to be in relationship with God and God has stamped his name on each of our lives.

And when God sent his son, Jesus Christ to die on the cross for our sins, he did this so that we would be able to be the people that God created us to be, God’s image bearers who offer God’s healing and saving love through word and deed to the people around us.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says that we don’t have to worry about what we should wear or what we should drink. And then he points to the beauty of the lilies of the field and how God created them. He then points out the birds of the air and how God feeds them. And then Jesus says, “Are you not of more value than they?”

Just like Woody needed to remind himself to whom he belonged, we too need to remind ourselves again and again to whom we belong. It can be easy to forget who we are especially when we don’t stop from time to time to remind ourselves.

In his book on baptism, Lawrence Hull Stookey refers to how we often get “spiritual amnesia.” But thankfully, God who created us is constantly seeking after us to remind us of who we are and that we have been claimed by God.

Toward the end of the movie, Woody and the toys escape from the daycare and the mean bear and make it back to Andy’s house just before he is about to leave for college. Andy decides to take Woody and the toys to the home of a little girl, named Bonnie so that she would be able to enjoy the toys as much as he did when he was a little boy.

And in what is perhaps the most moving scene of the entire movie, Andy introduces each of the toys to the little girl and when he gets to Woody, he tells her all about his wonderful traits. Let’s watch this very emotional and closing scene from Toy Story 3.

(Video Clip)

As Andy tells Bonnie all about Woody, you can’t help but to wonder how good this made Woody feel. And even though Andy drove off to college, Woody and the other toys knew they were home again and that they were loved.

A couple of months ago, one of our members here came up to me after a church meeting and said, “I can’t believe all of this.” And I said, “What do you mean?” And he said, “What I mean is, I can’t believe I’m here in the church. Just ten years ago, my life was at its lowest point. I was feeling pretty bad about my life. But thanks to God, I’ve been able to find my way again. And here I am serving in the church and growing in my faith.”

God can really make an incredible difference in our lives, no matter how low we may feel and no matter what we may be facing in life.

As I close the sermon on Toy Story 3 and how it helps us to think about who we are and to whom we belong, I would like the bible to have the final word. I’ve asked several people in our congregation to share different bible verses that tell us who we are and to whom we belong.

And as you listen to these several different bible verses, remember that this is God speaking to you, reminding you of who you are and to whom you belong. And remember, you are worth a whole lot more than $15! Your worth is immeasurable.

(Several people come forward and share different bible verses.)

.