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A Spiritual Lesson In Toon Language: Lesson 45c(c)

Topic: The Seven Deadly Sins III: Gluttony III - Things, With Another Side Of Selfishness

Series: DuckTales, Smurfs

Episodes: Treasure of the Golden Suns I (Duck Tales), Don't Give Up the Ship (DuckTales), Clumsy's Cloud (The Smurfs)

Lesson PDF link: 45c(c).pdf

**Note Because of the many video clips of this lesson our readers need to be patient with this lesson and quite probably will need the "Direct Link" button that is around every individual clip.

Introduction

What are and were the most important things in your life? We would all like to say that God has always been the most important thing, however, most of us wouldn't be completely honest at that point. For most of the world, making a name for yourself and acquiring success would be around the top or the top of the list. This means the more stuff and/or money that is considered valuable would be how you play the game so to speak. However, it is different in God's economy. God's plan is humility and selflessness. In other words, don't act as the next cartoon character does.

Cartoon Show: "Don't Give Up the Ship" (DuckTales):

DuckTales: "Don't Give Up the Ship": Direct link for video/webm Using IE? Video not working? Download Windows HTML 5(WebM) video support: WebMProject.org

What do you see in this clip? The same problem from our prior lesson session with Scrooge exists — granted this is an earlier episode. You can see how much wealth Scrooge has, but also how he treats Salvation Mary. Scrooge literally says of the poor that “They aren't worth it”. This is selfishness to the utmost and is the wrong attitude toward humanity. Scrooge isn't the only one with this problem. Our next cartoon for this lesson comes from the Smurfs series.

Cartoon Show: "Clumsy's Cloud" (The Smurfs):

The Smurfs: "Clumsy's Cloud": Direct link for video/webm

What do you see in this cartoon? Basically, we are looking at the character named Glut. This is the hoarding elf that was talked about in the cartoon. He is extremely selfish as you can see and didn't cooperate easily, but at least he did. However, this tendency of his to have lots of things and not want to help when the time was right means probably that general things and only general things really matter in his heart. In a sense, he is extremely wealthy.

Now, we are going to look at a couple of Bible passages to help us out.

The Bible States In Matthew 19: 16-30 And Luke 12: 13-21

16 Just then a man came up to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?”

17 “Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments.”

18 “Which ones?” he inquired. Jesus replied, “‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony,

19 honor your father and mother, and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’”

20 “All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?”

21 Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

22 When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.

23 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven.

24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

25 When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, “Who then can be saved?”

26 Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

27 Peter answered him, “We have left everything to follow you! What then will there be for us?”

28 Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

29 And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life.

30 But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first.

13 Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”

14 Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?”

15 Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”

16 And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest.

17 He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’

18 “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain.

19 And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’

20 “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’

21 “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”

What do you see in the scriptures that help with our cartoon study?

In our DuckTales Clip, we see Scrooge telling the Salvation Mary worker that the poor aren't worth it when it comes to donating money. This means to me that Scrooge only cares about himself at this point and is not unlike our second scripture passage of the parable of The Rich Fool. Scrooge to me looks like he just wants an easy life without sympathy for any person except himself. Granted in our last lesson piece, he showed sympathy for the poor, but only after he lost everything and gained it back — this gave him some sense of empathy. In most of the series, Scrooge is still not very nice to the poor. He only goes on high stakes treasure hunts to gain profit and fame. Scrooge will a lot of times share profits in a business deal, but I don't see much honest to goodness charity.

In our next cartoon piece we see Glut, who only helps out just to save himself. We can see even when he was helping, he collected a piece of Smurf clothing because he is just a hoarder. He helped but only begrudgingly. Our scripture passage about the Rich Young Man shows that money and wealth were the most important things in his life which is why I understand Jesus told him to sell everything and give it to the poor. This seems to be like the reason why Glut lives to collect wealth and power (especially in the sense of worldly possessions) and never shares even if he has the opportunity to help someone in need or not help really a lot unless he is in trouble himself. In other words, he wants everything, but will give nothing even if a life/death situation came up (unless it's his life that needs saving — even then I don't know about him sometimes).

In the case of both cartoons, it works both ways. Scrooge definitely wouldn't give to the poor unless literally forced, so if Scrooge was asked to liquidate his assets to help someone in need by God, he would likely refuse. Glut would also be like our parable of The Rich Fool because he just wants to collect more and more things regardless of someone's need and will likely not ever share. Jesus said 20 “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’

If one or both of these characters' lives were taken, where would their fortunes go?

Luckily for Scrooge, he has family that would benefit, however, Glut may not have anyone. The point is though that this vast wealth wouldn't be theirs anymore and would be in control of someone else. Probably, this is both characters' nightmare at the same time.

What have we learned?

Things are not what God's economy is about. These characters are not good role models and if real would need to change drastically to even be in the ballpark of pleasing God. This world is nothing but what people call a rat race. If things are the boss of people in this life and the race of it, then there are no winners according to God's way. There are only losers. Things cannot rule us. May God use whatever you have to help His kingdom out. Surrender of wealth and things is important. This doesn't always mean sell everything as in the passage about the Rich Young Man. This does mean that wealth is a tool and money, power and status seeking can hinder efforts to help people to know Jesus Christ more. Humility in wealth is also important because without it the character of Scrooge would be a reality not just a cartoon. May God help us all to develop His kingdom here on earth.