What Do Jesus and Baloo the Bear Have in Common?
Baloo the bear is one of Disney’s more memorable characters. In contrast to the strict law teacher that he is in Rudyard Kipling’s original, Disney’s Baloo is far more true to the subspecies of bear that he belongs to: the sloth bear of the Indian subcontinent. Baloo spends his life roaming around the jungle, having fun and living off what he finds.
His life philosophy is encapsulated in that memorable song of his, called The Bare Necessities:
Look for the bare necessities
The simple bare necessities
Forget about your worries and your strife
I mean the bare necessities
Old Mother Nature’s recipes
That brings the bare necessities of life
Baloo considers the world his “big home” and expects that all he needs in life will simply be provided: “the bare necessities of life will come to you!”
Now, you may not have noticed, but the parallels with Jesus are striking. Yes, Baloo the bear and Jesus. Bear with me (pun not intended). This is not about being blasphemous, it’s about wisdom.
Check out the way Jesus thought about “the bare necessities”:
Don’t be anxious about your life, what you will eat;
and don’t be anxious about your body, what clothes you put on.
For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing.Your Father knows that you need these things.
Seek His kingdom, and these things will be granted to you.
Jesus displays a trust similar to Baloo that the necessities of life will somehow be provided, and that anxiety and worry are useless stresses in our lives. And like Baloo, Jesus did not only talk the talk, but he also walked the walk. The last few years of his life he was roaming around the country, without a place to call his own, living off what was provided.
Baloo and Jesus their simple trust for provision depends on a conception of the world as a place where there is basically enough. Baloo’s trust that the “bees buzzin’ in the tree” are making “honey just for me” is placed in Old Mother Nature, while Jesus looks to his Father who is in Heaven for this provision.
Their perspectives do not seem to match with reality though. There very often really isn’t enough (though I’m guessing that this is only secondhand knowledge for most people reading this). Millions are starving around the world, millions are deprived of basics such as clean water, etc.
But that is not Jesus’ point (let’s forget about Baloo for a second). Jesus’ point is that there really is enough. His Father created a world that has enough resources to support all 7.7 billion of us with the bare necessities, and more. The problem is that we live in a way inconsistent with the abundant provision in our world. We live as though there might not be enough and thus we hoard as much as possible for ourselves.
That’s why Jesus gives us the responsibility to seek his Father’s kingdom, as a condition for “all these things” to be provided.
Now what is this kingdom Jesus talks about?
The kingdom of God is, at its heart, about God’s sovereignty sweeping the world with love and power, so that human beings, each made in God’s image and each one loved dearly, may relax in the knowledge that God is in control. … God, the creator, loves to give good gifts, loves to give you the kingdom — loves, that is, to bring his sovereign care and rescue right to your own door.
— Wright, Tom. Luke for Everyone
“Seeking this kingdom” is not only an expression of the belief that God can provide for those who trustingly seek his provision, it also means starting to be God’s means of provision to others: to act as if there really is enough, sharing out of our own abundance with those in scarcity, to love our neighbours as ourselves.
In the end, the difference between Baloo and Jesus is this: Baloo assumes that the world itself will somehow provide, with no responsibility on his part, while Jesus sees that it is God and our acting according to his way that is a pre-condition for his view of the world to become a lived reality for everybody.
