Wall-E

Week 2
Mark 2:23-3:6

One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and as his disciples walked
along, they began to pick some heads of grain. 24The Pharisees said to him, "Look,
why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?"

25He answered, "Have you never read what David did when he and his companions
were hungry and in need? 26In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the
house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat.
And he also gave some to his companions."

27Then he said to them, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.
28So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath."

1Another time he went into the synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was
there. 2Some of them were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him
closely to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath. 3Jesus said to the man with the
shriveled hand, "Stand up in front of everyone."

4Then Jesus asked them, "Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to
save life or to kill?" But they remained silent.

5He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts,
said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." He stretched it out, and his hand was
completely restored. 6Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the
Herodians how they might kill Jesus.

Mixer:

1.) What three things stuck out to you most from the film this
morning?

Going Deeper:

1.) Read the following quotes from Peter Lawler:

“The technological utopias (present a vision of the) world in which

technology has freed us all equally from natural necessity. Technology
has allowed us to leave the realm of necessity and enter the realm of
freedom or leisure. We are finally totally at home in the world; we
never have to do anything that smacks of alienation or compulsion.” –
Peter Lawler
“Our dependence on the Internet actually shows us technology’s contradictory
tendencies: It increases our openness to all the people of the world while freeing or
isolating us from other, particular persons. It makes us skeptical of the pretensions of all
real human communities; it has turned out to be an effective weapon against both
tyranny and the family.” – Peter Lawler

© Dixon Kinser 2009

According Lawler, what is one of the purposes of technology?
(To free us from necessity so we can enter the realm of
leisure.) Do you agree with this?

Is the Axiom (the space ship all the people are on) a utopia?
Why or why not? If so why? If not, what’s wrong with it?

2.) During this act of the film we meet people. Using three
words how would you describe them? Consider the scene
where the captain doesn’t know the word “manual” (it’s fallen
out of usage because the concept doesn’t exist anymore) or that soil
and earth is considered a foreign contaminant. Define the
word manual together and consider how the people on the
Axiom got to be that way? (Here the ubiquitous consumption,
automation and limited human contact has taken away their humanity
such that in the film Wall-E and Eve are more human than the humans.
Likewise, they laid down their wills to the God of automation,
convenience and hyper consumerism. If we know it’s so bad, ask
everyone to reflect on why it’s still so tempting. We are a people
whose created missive to image God is tied to the Creation. When we
abandon that it’s not hard to see why we start to lose ourselves.)

3.) Return to the story from the Gospel this morning. When
Jesus says, “"The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the
Sabbath” what does that mean? Consider the rest of the story
for context. (The basic gist here is that the Sabbath was not made to
bind or trap people, but to release them and bless their godliness. We
Sabbath because God sabbath-ed – it’s part of our created purpose to
image God. So, people don’t exist to be caught up in the system, the
system exists to help people.)

4.) How could Jesus teaching about the Sabbath, become a

helpful guide for a people trying to live in a highly
technological world? (We find the ways our technology enables life
[like Jesus’ healing – or his story about David from 1 Samuel] and we
say yes to that. However, on the flip side we also have to step outside
it and critique any technology that is limiting people’s good health,
wholeness and well being [shalom as the Hebrew’s called it].

5.) Go around the circle have everyone offer a one-word prayer based
on his or her reflections from the morning.

**Extra Credit – bring the Wendell Berry article, “Why I’m not
Going to Buy a Computer” into your discussion. You could even
just read it and use it as the jumping off point for your
conversation.

© Dixon Kinser 2009