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In the film Inside Out, we get a peak inside young Riley’s head and at her emotions. Her family is getting ready to move, which is creating some anxiety for her.
The movie centers on two particular emotions: Joy, who has taken the wheel, so to speak, in Riley’s brain and Sadness, who has been a bit of an adversary for Joy.
Joy wants to keep everything light and cheery, while Sadness, for reasons unknown even to her, keeps touching Riley’s memories and adding a note of sadness to them. Joy tries to stop Sadness, which leads to the main conflicts of the film and throws Riley out of wack.
Eventually Joy comes to realize the necessity of Sadness. Sometimes sadness comes first and eventually leads to joy. Particularly because of the move, there is sadness from Riley’s old memories because they reminder her she is in a new place away from her old friends. In order to bring Riley into a better place emotionally, Joy and Sadness have to learn to work together to bring what is best not for each of them but ultimately for Riley herself.
Sometimes what we really need is an adjustment in life. Sometimes God is calling us to such a change. This is what we see in our lessons today.
Last week we learned about David and Bathsheba, and how David eventually realizes what he did wrong, though he never really recovered from it. We saw how David’s actions led to the eventual downfall of Israel. The Prophet Nathan told him about this, as well as the conflicts that would occur in his family.
We see one of those conflicts today with David’s son Absalom. David, due to his guilt and perhaps his own emotional imbalance, wasn’t keeping as good an eye on his children as he should have. This leads to a conflict between one of his daughters and sons, a conflict that Absalom stepped in to resolve. The situation gets so out of control that Absalom starts a coop, causing David and his court to flee.
In our reading, we see the end of that conflict with Absalom’s death and David’s mourning him, saying “would that I had died instead of you.”
While this may seem a normal reaction for a parent, it is not a helpful reaction for a king. It leads to confusion in his troops who don’t know how to react. On one hand, their enemy is dead, on the other their king is sad.
It takes David’s number two, Joab, to resolve this. Joab points out that when David says something like that, he’s basically saying he wished all his men had been defeated at Absalom’s hand too. He basically tells David he needs to adjust himself and his emotional response. His grief over his own sin led to this moment with Absalom. Now he needs to look past his own feelings, even those concerning his family, and look to what God wants, and what God wants for God’s People.
Ephesians is all about the need for adjustment too. The whole letter is really about that. This letter was written to a Gentile community, and what it is really saying, particularly this week, is that the Gentiles need to put behind their old ways and take on the new ways of Christ Jesus. It is a major adjustment needed for the entire community, yet it is a necessary one as they pledge Jesus Christ as their Lord.
The Gospel gives us the final look at the need for adjustment. We continue our reading from the last two weeks where many people have seen Jesus’ feeding of the 5000 and yet not fully understood what it was all about. Jesus is trying once again to get the people around Him not focus on the earthly things, like their bellies and where He is from. Instead, Jesus is trying to get them to focus on the heavenly things, all that which will bring them closer to God the Father, Jesus’ true purpose for being in this world.
Riley in Inside Out needed to make an emotional adjustment in order to come to terms with her family’s move. All of our readings speak of necessary adjustments too. These adjustments call those listening to look beyond themselves. They call on those listening to turn towards coming closer to God.
Sometimes we need to make adjustments too. In order to do that, we also have to look beyond ourselves and listen to what God is saying. Otherwise we will stay in the emotional turmoil we see in Riley and even in King David. Otherwise we will stay our old ways, like with the pagan ways of the Ephesians that were leading to destruction. Otherwise we will miss the bread of life the Jesus is offering us. Yet if we do stop to hear what God is saying, then we can make the adjustments needed and come closer to our Lord.