Even Robert Hansen, Zacharias Moussoui, and the Unibomber, locked up in super-maximum security prison, get 1 hour of sunshine and PT each day.  Not so Ariel, Aladdin, and Bambi.  They stay locked away in the Disney Vault, day after dark day, week after dark week, year after dark year – without visitors, without sunshine, without (one suspects) hope – waiting for those few weeks each decade when they blink blindly in the light of the sun, and emerge for public scrutiny.

            Although the existence of the Disney Vault is well publicized, the location of it is not.  It could be at a dark site in the Czech Republic, or it could be right here – at Quantico, or Langley.  That’s where my fear arises.  Some think I bear a striking resemblance to Wimpy from the Popeye cartoons – not a Disney character, but an animated one nonetheless.  What if I inadvertently stumbled onto the grounds of the Disney Vault, and some of Michael Eisner’s private-ops guys tasered me and locked me in?  Without access to counsel, without writ of habeas corpus, I would be abandoned there for a decade – waiting in line behind Dumbo, Pocahontas, and Sport Goofy for my release.  It is unlikely, I know, but it could happen.

            The location of the Disney Vault is unknown, but the reason for its highly publicized existence is not.  It has proved to be a great marketing scheme.  Restricting access increases value, and the urgency to buy.  The Vault generates angst.  Angst generates dollars.  Why are so few units shelved when a new Xbox is marketed?  Why did the Beanie Baby people use the same ploy a few years ago, and the Pound Puppy people before them, and the Cabbage Patch Kids people before them?  The answer is easy – to manipulate our emotions, to get our adrenalin involved in our purchasing decisions – to make lots of money.

            No one huckstering a product believes that an educated consumer is the best customer.  Advertisers shamelessly seek to play our subconscious fears like a Casio keyboard.  This lie is the foundation upon which our consumption economy is built – is the life-blood of our entertainment culture.

            And this Jesus rejects.

            We rarely notice the times Jesus identifies a particular value of Western Culture and then categorically rejects that value, but he does it surprisingly often.  One example is this:

            For this reason I say to you, do not be anxious about your life – what you shall eat, what you shall drink, what clothes you shall wear – is not life more that food, and the body more than clothing?....These are all the things the Gentile eagerly seek; your heavenly Father knows you need them all.  But seek first His kingdom, and His righteousness, and these things shall be added to you.

            The “gentiles” Jesus speaks of are not Sumatran, Bantu, or the Mound-builders – They are Greek and Roman.  They are Westerners, living by false values we have inherited and refined to this day.  I hope we are duly impressed by the striking honesty of Jesus.  He is straightforward about our needs, and the right way to meet them.  The simplicity of John 3.16, and Acts 2.38 are typical of the way God communicates.

            Then again, there is a reason God can be honest with us – He’s not trying to take anything from us, but to give us something – eternal life.  The great and sad irony is that more people will send their money to Disney this year, than will receive the gifts Jesus offers.  How pernicious then is this lie Jesus tells us to reject – and how costly.