“None of that matters now!”
That’s what Sully told Mike in the Disney film, Monsters, Inc. in which Mike and Sully
are monsters who work for an energy plant, Monsters, Inc. The plant is fueled by screams collected from
children in the human world, and the energy it produces is distributed throughout
the monster world.
Sully was the best scarer at Monsters, Inc., loved by monster
children, prized by his monster boss, Mr. Waternoose. Sully scared more children and collected more
screams than any other monster. He was
world class. He loved his work, and he
was good at it, and knew he was doing a good thing for Monstropolis.
He had no compassion for human children. They were toxic, after all. They were not to be touched, and certainly
were not allowed into the monster world.
If a human child came in contact with a monster, a special team of security
monsters clad in hazmat suits rapidly descended on the monster to ruthlessly and efficiently decontaminate
him. And, there was a long tradition of great
scarers that he aspired to surpass.
But, all that changed when Sully met Boo, a human child with big
brown eyes and an intoxicating laugh.
She turned out to be neither toxic, nor threatening, nor dangerous. In fact, she herself needed to be
rescued. And, it seemed that only Sully
recognized this. Sully’s sidekick, Mike,
was slow to see that Boo was not dangerous, and was still desperately trying to
get Sully to break the all time record for collecting screams from
children. He could not understand why
Sully wanted to find and rescue Boo, the very child he had previously feared, oppressed
and excluded from his world. Mike couldn't understand why Sully was giving up on the all-time scaring record just to find Boo. Mike stammered, “None of it matters? W-w-wait a second. None of it matters?” Mike felt confused, angry and betrayed.
Ultimately, Sully crusades to not only rescue Boo, but break
the oppression and prejudice against human children, indicting Monsters, Inc.
Chairman of the Board, Mr. Waternoose, in the process.
I see some similarities between James P. “Sully” Sullivan,
and the Apostle Paul. As Saul, the zealous
Pharisee, he was prized by his bosses for his unmerciful persecution of the
church. He was world class. He loved his work, and he was good at it, and
knew he was doing a good thing for the people of Israel.
Then, he met Jesus on the road to Damascus, just as Sully
had met Boo, and suddenly none of “that” mattered anymore. Instead of persecuting the church, he
protected and promoted it, just as Sully protected and promoted human children,
who were no longer ‘untouchables’, but were to be embraced, which is how Paul
now saw Christians.
No, the “Sulline
Conversion” is not a perfect analogy for the Pauline Conversion. But, it
does make me think that at some point in our lives, we look at the things we’ve
been so zealously pursuing, and we realize that “none of that matters now.” As proof of this, if it came right down to it, what would we not trade for
our child’s life?
Here, then, is the challenge: To adopt a new perspective in which our
pursuit of a comfortable lifestyle, our aspirations of career advancement, and our
accumulation of precious valuables will no longer matter, but will be replaced
by the greater pursuit of Him, the higher aspiration of Heaven, and the more precious
accumulation of Believers.
This new
perspective was thrust upon Saul. Yet, how
difficult it is for us to willingly sacrifice a lifetime of pursuits and adopt this new
perspective as we are called to do, even knowing that therein lies the
greater reward.
