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.