June 17, 2012 Jedis and Disciples – Week 3: Sacrifice and Redemption

June 17, 2012

Jedis and Disciples – Week 3: Sacrifice and Redemption

Anchor: Star Wars and Joseph Campbell

Frame: The Return of the Jedi; the redemption of Darth Vader

John 15:12-15

This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from Abba God.

                As the saga has progressed, Luke has learned that Darth Vader is indeed Anakin Skywalker, his father. Luke is stalwart in his belief that there is still good in his father. For all of the evil that he has committed, from the destruction of the Jedi knights to his complicity in the destruction of whole planets, Luke still maintains that there is something worth redeeming in Darth Vader. This is a challenging position to take, and maybe Luke is swayed by a romantic ideal of family connections. Still, are we ready or able to believe that evil can never completely expunge good? Was there some glimmer of good left buried in the hearts of Hitler or Stalin or Qaddafi or Bin Laden? What if we behaved like Luke and continued to work for their redemption, even being willing to offer our lives for them?

                Luke is determined not to give in to the Dark Side. Though tempted sorely, in the climactic scene, Luke refuses to commit patricide and throws his light saber away. In so doing he makes himself ultimately vulnerable to the evil power of the emperor. Yet it is this action (or refraining from action) that prompts Vader to save Luke’s life and thereby reclaiming his true identity of Anakin Skywalker. While much of this thinking is based on “The Power of Myth,” this line of thought is expressed very well in a Youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhaECqI19aM

                (One additional layer to remember  is that this Sunday is also Father’s Day. That is an interesting twist considering the complicated relationship Luke Skywalker has with his father!)

                Somewhere in my education I was told that in one way or another all the stories that we tell are attempts to tell redemption stories (I don’t believe that this was direct reference to Campbell, but I think he sees thing in a similar manner). Campbell does say that part of the function of myth is to discover that in the middle of a monstrous world that life can be rapturous. Maybe that is one definition of redemption: experiencing the joy of living triumphing (even momentarily) over the horrific pain of life.

                And maybe this is why Jesus’ commandment is to love one another: that by our love we can see each other through the pain and dehumanization of living. Love is what saves us from the Dark Side.  “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” That is a terrifying standard for Jesus to set. Yet that is the extent of love that Jesus is talking about. In another gospel Jesus says, “those who would save their life will lose it.” Ultimately, our lives are all that we really have to give for those we love.

                We have the privilege of celebrating a baptism this Sunday. In most of Christian tradition, baptisms are public events, not private ones. As a rule, we baptize in the context of a worship service, with the congregation gathered around. It is an occasion that happens in the midst of the extended family of Christ. This particular family coming to baptize their baby has a connection to Star Wars, and they have specifically asked to celebrate the sacrament as a part of this series. This has added some significance for me. Maybe one of the reasons we baptize infants is the confidence and the promise that somehow our love for each other will see us through all the awful stuff that life can bring. As a congregation we promise to love each other as Christ loves us, and to specifically love this infant and his family through all that may come in his life. We believe that there will always be good in his life.

                Love redeems life from all the pain, injustice, and despair we experience. This is not mushy Hallmark-card, My Pretty Pony kind of love. It is the determined, committed love that changes us. It is a choice to live this way and not that way, just as Luke finally chose to throw his weapon away. This story, and the Jesus story, challenges us to ask what kind of life we will choose.

June 10 Jedis & Disciples, Week 2

June 10                 Jedis & Disciples, Week 2: Apprenticing

Acts 9:8-19

Saul got up from the ground unable to see, even though his eyes were open. They had to take him by the hand and lead him into Damascus. For three days he continued to be blind, during which time he ate and drank nothing. There was a Disciple in Damascus named Ananias. Christ appeared to him in a vision, saying, “Ananias.” Ananias said, “Here I am.” Then Christ said to him, “Go at once to Straight Street, and at the house of Judah ask for a certain Saul of Tarsus. He is there praying. Saul had a vision that a man named Ananias will come and lay hands on him so that he would recover his sight.” But Ananias protested, “I have heard from many sources about Saul and all the harm he has done to your holy people in Jerusalem. He is here now with authorization from the chief priests to arrest everybody who calls on your name.” Christ said to Ananias, “Go anyway. Saul is the instrument I have chosen to bring my Name to Gentiles, to rulers, and to the people of Israel. I myself will show him how much he will have to suffer for my name. With that Ananias left. When he entered the house, he laid his hands on Saul, saying, “Saul, my brother, I have been sent by Jesus Christ, who appeared to you on the way here, to help you recover your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he regained his sight. He got up and was baptized, and his strength returned after he had eaten some food. Saul stayed with the believers in Damascus for a few days.

“Furthermore, we have not even to risk the adventure alone; for the heroes of all time have gone before us, the labyrinth is thoroughly known; we have only to follow the thread of the hero-path. And where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god; where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves; where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence; where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world.”

― Joseph Campbell, introduction to “The Power of Myth”

                What wonderful assurance Joseph Campbell gives us: “The labyrinth is thoroughly known.” That means that we are not blazing the trail. Others have gone before us and can guide us. Luke Skywalker had Obiwan, and in the 2^nd film he has Yoda. Saul (later known as Paul) had Ananias. We all know the story of Paul getting knocked off his horse by the religious experience he had on the road to Damascus. We don’t know so well his Yoda. Ananias wasn’t sure he wanted to take on this particular pupil, but it is worth noting that Paul did not spontaneously have all the knowledge and wisdom he needed. He was taught. Someone who had traveled the path before him guided him until the scales of his blindness finally fell away.

                Campbell reminds that this is exactly reason we tell and retell these mythic stories: they free us from the chains and dragons of our lives and free us to live fully and abundantly. Here are a few of the paths he takes in the conversation on “The Power of Myth”: 1. Freedom from the expectations of an external system, 2. How myths offer us freedom, and 3. The freedom and power of acting from our center.

                I see these as corresponding with the following Star Wars scenes (from “The Empire Strikes Back): 1. Luke and Vader’s confrontation at the end of the film. Vader and his mechanized existence embody capitulating to the system (in the film, The Empire). Luke loses his hand, which sets him on a path parallel to Vader’s. Campbell asserts that myths cannot tell us how to change the system but rather how to live with integrity in the midst of the system.

                2. Luke meeting Yoda. Yoda is the voice and the wisdom that has gone before, the one who has charted the labyrinth. We are not simply fledglings pushed from the nest to fly or fall. Yoda’s wisdom and knowledge are strange to Luke, and he has trouble accepting much of it, even at first being almost unable to accept Yoda’s authority as a Jedi master. Even so, it is Yoda’s experience that opens the path for Luke to become a Jedi, to fulfill his destiny and become all that he truly is.

                3. Yoda’s teaching about being at peace. This corresponds to Campbell’s insights about find our center. It is in our center that we are truly authentic and alive. It is from our center that we find the strength to face our dragons. In our center we are freed from our ego (the construct of that “secondary organ). Another scene here is Luke finding Vader in the swamp on Dagoba, a reflection of himself. Clearly at this point Vader is Luke’s dragon.

                Con E. did a great job last Sunday of telling the Jonah story in first person (which I hadn’t thought of!). We could find someone to do the same with the story of Saul/Paul’s conversion and connection with Ananias.

                I think we had a good Sunday last week, though we had little in the way of experiential activities (other than becoming a part of the story as they watch parts of the movie). I’d like to find some way of inviting the worshipers in on the experience-path.

                Campbell’s assertion is that myths are all about transformation. We see the transformation of the Hero on the journey. But telling those stories (the only stories that really matter, for Campbell) also invites us into transformation, to claim the rapture of living even in the midst of a monstrous world.