The Gospel According to Despicable Me - A Sermon for Reformation Sunday October 29 2023
GOSPEL: John 8:31-36
The holy gospel according to John.
Glory to you, O Lord.
Jesus speaks of truth and freedom as spiritual realities known through his word. He reveals the truth that sets people free from sin.
31Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; 32and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” 33They answered him, “We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, ‘You will be made free’?”
34Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. 35The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place there forever. 36So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.”
The gospel of the Lord.
Praise to you, O Christ.
On this Reformation Sunday
We give thanks for Martin Luther and the reformers,
we commemorate a difficult yet important time
in the church’s history,
We remember the Gospel,
that we are saved by God’s grace
through faith,
That Christ has set us free.
Freedom has become a buzz word these days.
The word Freedom now comes with baggage;
it has ironically become
a politically charged word.
I’d like to share a couple stories with you about freedom.
First: a story about man -
well loved by some,
but many viewed him as a villain.
He could be gruff,
forward with his words,
quick with insults.
No, I’m not talking about Martin Luther -
I’m talking about … Gru.
That’s Gru, from the Despicable Me movies -
and I like to call his story
the Gospel according to Despicable Me.
Gru is a criminal mastermind.
He Stole the jumbo-tron from Times’ Square!
He stole the Eiffel Tower,
and he even sole the Statue of Liberty!
It was just the miniature one from Las Vegas,
but still, he stole it.
And of course,
Gru has minions who help carry out his dirty work.
Gru is Perhaps the greatest villain ever,
he even wants to steal the moon!
Just to outdo another villain.
But suddenly, things start to change for Gru.
3 Girls, orphans, come to his door selling cookies.
Gru, the criminal mastermind that he is,
decides to use them for one of his schemes
to steal a shrink ray
so he can steal the moon!
It works.
Except something unexpected happens.
Gru falls in love with the girls.
He actually wants to be their dad!
But he still wants to steal the moon!
So he steals the moon
and misses their dance recital.
somehow the Girls are kidnapped,
and Gru has to storm in to rescue them
from the clutches of the evil Vector!
In usual cartoon fashion,
it is a dramatic cliffhanger,
but Gru saves the girls,
and they live happily ever, after,
with their beloved minions,
making sequel after sequel.
I call this the Gospel according to Despicable Me,
because at its core,
this is a story about redemption,
salvation,
and freedom.
Their story is our story too.
That’s the story of what God is up to in the world.
Redemption.
Salvation.
Freedom.
It is safe to say that Gru,
had no idea that he needed saving.
The criminal mastermind might agree that he is a sinner,
but Gru had no idea that he was not free.
In the Gospel story,
Jesus is speaking to some Jews who believed in him.
This is a group of people
who have been faithful to the law of Moses,
likely Jewish by birth and religion,
and they welcome the message of Jesus,
and want to understand Jesus’ teachings.
“Continue in my Word,
you are truly my disciples,
and you will know the truth,
and the truth will make you free”
They don’t understand.
Their society had slaves and free people,
As individuals, they have never experienced slavery.
These individuals have always been free
to worship in their Jewish religious customs.
They are so far removed from the idea of being captive
that they seem to have forgotten that their ancestors,
the ancient Israelites,
who were slaves in Egypt,
freed by God through Moses.
What do you mean by saying
“you will be made free?”
We’re already free.”
Or so they think.
“Everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.”
Jesus says.
Even those who follow the law,
or keep the law, sin.
“The slave does not have a permanent place in the house,
but the Son has a place there forever.
So if the Son sets you free,
you are free indeed.”
If you’ve read ahead in your bibles,
you know that this story does not end there.
They are not happy with this answer.
These faithful Jews who believe in Jesus
keep on asking him questions.
They struggle with this idea
that they need to be freed from sin.
In fact, they end up having so much difficulty
with what Jesus is saying
that they eventually pick up stones
and are ready to throw stones at Jesus,
but somehow Jesus escapes,
hiding in the crowd.
No one likes being called a sinner.
It is plain offensive.
No one who thinks they are free
likes to be told they aren’t.
Many people,
both inside and outside the church,
find it plain offensive:
the idea that we need to be saved,
that we might be captive,
in one way or another.
Many people in our own nation
talk about their freedom
and don’t realize they are captive.
Lutherans don’t have much of a problem
with this idea that everyone is a sinner,
and that we are captive to sin, slaves to sin.
In many ways
we know that we are just like Gru.
Even with Jesus,
Even with baptism,
even with a new life before us,
a life of love and relationship with God
or with the people God brings to us,
We find ourselves enslaved to our evil desires.
We might not be criminal masterminds,
but like stealing the moon
and missing the dance recital,
we’ve all chosen sin,
we’ve chosen captivity
over the freedom given to us by Jesus.
We simply can’t help but sin.
Maybe we aren’t so mean
as to see a crying kid,
then make the kid a balloon dog -
only to pop the balloon in his face.
But we confess we are captive to sin,
and we cannot free ourselves.
In fact, of all the Christian denominations,
Lutherans are the ones who hold most firmly
to this truth.
But we also hold even more firmly to another truth -
The truth that Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
through whom we are forgiven -
sets us free from our sin.
We hold firm to baptism -
we are not defined by our sin,
we are not defined by our past.
Freedom in Christ means that each day
we are invited to die to ourselves
and to rise to Christ.
We are defined by Water and the Word -
by being claimed as God’s beloved children, simultaneously sinner and saint.
The truth of Gru is he is a terrible,
evil,
villainous mastermind.
And he also has an incredibly large capacity to love.
I think Gru must be Lutheran!
A true Sinner and Saint.
The love of these girls changes Gru.
He is daily freed from his former life of villainy.
He can see how he was captive to being the villain
even if he was good at it,
freed from the rhetoric that that’s all he is.
He is freed from those evil bonds
and is free to love and serve
his adopted children and minions.
I’d like to leave you with a couple of ironic
but perhaps helpful reminders for us today
from the Gospel according to Despicable Me.
We’ve been talking about Gru and the kids,
but we all know that its the minions
who are the favourite characters in these movies.
In the first sequel -
Gru has to save the minions
because they’ve been turned from these kind of -
half good, half evil - minions
into all out bad purple minions.
With help from an old friend,
Gru is able to beat the odds
and save the purple minions,
baptizing them in an awful tasting jelly antidote,
which returns them to their old yellow selves.
The minions get to be
exactly who they were created to be.
That’s what happens to us in Christ.
Maybe not baptism by disgusting jelly,
but baptism with simple water and God’s word -
through which you too are freed and made new.
In baptism,
you are freed from the power of sin and death
and the powers of evil
and you are freed for something greater -
to love and serve God and our neighbours.
Instead of a life that is focused on the lesser trinity
of me, myself and I,
we are free to focus
on making our world a better place -
not to earn our salvation,
but to say thank you to God with our very lives.
That’s the good news the reformation reminds us of.
God has saved you -
fully human,
simultaneously saint and sinner,
so that your life need not be dominated by evil,
but instead that you can be exactly
who you were created to be in Christ -
to work together as the body of Christ,
the minions of Christ if you will.
The big difference,
when we are the body of Christ,
we do not receive the glory - Christ does.
One final thought
about the Gospel according to Despicable Me -
it is Ironic -
the movie’s climax is Gru saving these girls,
or Gru saving the minions.
But the real climax is when these girls showed up
and saved Gru.
They loved Gru when he was simply unlovable,
they saw through his villainous demeanour
they saw through his great capacity for evil
and saw his great capacity for good.
That’s what Jesus does.
Remember that.
When you feel like you’re doing all the work,
when you feel like you’re the one
who has to save the day,
be it at work
or with the family
or even at the church -
You don’t have to save the world;
Christ already has.
When you think you are unlovable,
and simply despicable,
remember, Christ shows up,
and showers you with love.
Let us pray… Thank you God for saving us, not because of anything we have done to deserve it, but simply because you love us, and like the girls and the minions in the movie, you save us for a purpose. Thank you for saving us from the power of sin and death, and thank you for saving us so that we are free to love and serve you and our neighbours. help us be open to your work in our lives, and show us those opportunities you give us to make a difference, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
