大象传媒

Good morning

Walt Disney said he created Fantasia to bring classical music to people who, like himself, had previously walked out on this kind of stuff.聽 For the first time ever in a motion picture, the music wasn鈥檛 in the background 鈥� instead the pictures were designed to accompany the orchestral sound. It was the first movie made in stereo and it premiered 78 years ago today.

Fantasia has been a lasting success, with profits exceeding 80 million dollars and high acclaim from film critics and the general press. One might have expected classical music lovers to be delighted at the broadening of audience for the genre 鈥� but it was not so.

Some critics felt that the purity of the music was compromised by presenting it with images. Others argued that the musical interpretations were not in good taste. Stravinsky hated the way his Rite of Spring had been edited and described the performance as execrable.

But Disney isn鈥檛 unique in receiving criticism from those who might reasonably have been expected to appreciate his work.

St John writes that Jesus 鈥渃ame to His own but His own did not receive Him鈥�.

He healed the sick and blessed the poor, but the religious elite had no time for him .聽

And it is striking, that Jesus reserved his sternest words for religious hypocrites with a superiority complex, but spoke gently and without judgment to those who were honest about their failure.

Like Disney鈥檚 Fantasia, the Gospel reaches a new audience 鈥� not the ones who feel they are above being helped, but those who recognize their need of forgiveness and a new start.

Thank you Lord for the good news of salvation, which is not reserved for people who have life sorted. For I am still a struggling, questioning sinner, in need of grace every day.

Amen