Loosely Associated?

During the coming attractions for the Avengers, they showed a preview for the upcoming movie, "Battleship". The opening tagline was...


"From Hasbro: the company who brought you 'Transformers'"


Wow.


I actually laughed out loud.


What's next? 


"From the people who had lunch with the producers of movies like 'Avatar'..."


"From the people who wish they had made 'The Dark Knight'..."


"From the second cousin, twice removed of the guy who did the craft services on 'Field of Dreams'..."


Let me say this: Battleship might be a good movie (you'll have to tell me about it because I won't see it), but that tagline is massively ridiculous.


Hasbro???


Hasbro is a toy company, last time I looked. They make toys. 


Let me be clear. I like toys. 


But...


How can Hasbro claim any credit for the Transformers movie? Other than selling the rights to it, I can't imagine that they had anything to do with actually making that movie. 


If I'm wrong, it wouldn't be the first time...


And if Battleship is anything like the game that I grew up playing, it certainly won't be very exciting. It will be long, frustrating, and we will constantly be wondering if the other people in the theater are somehow cheating. 


"Did you smuggle those Skittles in here?"


"Um. No."


"I think you did. I saw you pull them out of your cargo pants."


"No I didn't."


"Yes you did. I was looking right at you when you did it. At first, I thought you had a tumor on the side of your leg, until I heard the rattling. And besides, they don't even SELL a one pound bag of Skittles at the movie theater!!"


"...Are you gonna tell on me?"


"I might."


"Please don't.....do you want some?"


"[disgusted] Do I want some??? Why, the nerve!! [looks around, cautiously].....Yes, please."


We might even walk out before it's over because it may seem like it is simply too much work. 


At best, it will be hit and miss (pretend you heard a rim shot).


Why do people take credit for successful things that they had very little to do with, especially when they DON'T take credit for their mistakes?


Interestingly, the tagline for Battleship wasn't, "From Hasbro: The company who brought you the 'Care Bears' movie". 


I have a feeling that some people are behaving this way, spiritually. 


I know that I have in the past.


They take credit for being part of the Lord's Church, even though they really aren't functioning as part of it (and they certainly aren't taking the credit for the damage they've done to it by not actually living the Christian life).


They are connected to the Church somehow.


They are loosely associated with it to some degree.


But they don't function. They don't participate. They aren't engaged.


As we study our New Testament, being part of the Church is more than showing up a few times a week, sitting in a pew, plunking down a few dollars in the plate, and "joining the club". 


It is active, daily involvement. It is sacrifice. It is relationships. It is commitment beyond the walls of an air-conditioned building. 


The difference between what Hasbro did and what the makers of the movie "Transformers" did was this:


- The makers of the "Transformers" movie made it "real". 


- Hasbro made toys...and then they took credit for making something real.


Instead of feeling satisfied with ourselves for being able to answer the question, "Where do you go to church?" (as if that is what our faith is supposed to be boiled down to), maybe we should ask ourselves a more difficult question: "Am I a functioning part of the Lord's Church?"


If someone were to ask my right eyeball, "What do you do for Jeremy?", it would have an answer...because it has a function, and it performs that function on a regular basis. The same would be true for any other part of my body (although I'd be very interested in what my left ear lobe would have to say...).


On Judgment Day, we won't be judged by our loose association with a group of people who met in a building three times a week; we will be judged by whether or not we died to ourselves, lived for Christ, and functioned as part of His body. 


So, from the guy who brought you the blog that referred to the movie "Transformers", let's all make sure we're plugged in and working!


[DISCLAIMER: I realize the limits of this analogy. I ain't hatin' on Hasbro. I love their toys]