Navigating Hope Amidst Galactic Empires: A Homily for Star Wars Day

Foreign.

Thank you for engaging with the homily by Pastor Chill Will from

Chapel Hill.

I hope this message encourages you, challenges you and moves you

to go deeper in your faith and enrich how you love God and love

your neighbor in your day to day life.

Just a reminder.

Like the scriptures and Gospels themselves, this homily was

written for a particular community in a particular context,

time in history.

And yet, like our sacred texts, I hope that these words hold

timeless truths about God's unconditional love and grace.

We hope these words speak to you in a meaningful way.

The Holy Gospel According to John after he appeared to his followers

in Jerusalem, Jesus showed himself again to the disciples by

the Sea of Tiberias.

And he showed himself in this way.

Gathered there together was Simon Peter, Thomas called the twin

Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, two others of

his disciples.

Simon Peter said to them, I am going fishing.

They said to him, we will go with you.

They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught

nothing.

Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach.

But the disciples did not know that it was Jesus.

Jesus said to them, children, you have no fish, have you?

They answered, no.

He said to them, cast the net on the right side of the boat and

you will find some.

So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because

there were so many fish.

The disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, it is the Lord.

Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord.

He put on some clothes, for he was naked, and jumped into the boat,

jumped into the sea.

But the other disciples came in the boat dragging the net full

of fish, for they were not far from the land, only about 100 yards

off.

When they had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there with

fish on it and bread.

Jesus said to them, bring some of the fish that you just caught.

Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore full of large

fish, 153 of them.

And though there were so many, the net was not torn.

Jesus said to them, come and have breakfast now.

None of the disciples dared to ask, who are you?

Because they knew it was the Lord.

Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them and did the same

with the fish.

This was now the third time that Jesus appeared to the disciples

after he was raised from the dead.

When they had finished breakfast, he said to Simon Peter,

simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?

Said to him, yes, Lord, you know that I love you.

Jesus said to him, feed my lambs.

The second time, he said to him, simon, son of John, do you love

me?

He said to him, yes, Lord, you know that I love you.

Jesus said to him, tend my sheep.

Said to him the third time, simon, son of John, do you love me?

Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, do you

love me?

And he said to him, lord, you know everything.

You know that I love you.

Jesus said to him, feed my sheep.

Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten

your own belt and to go wherever you wished.

But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands and someone

will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish

to go.

Said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify

God.

After this, he said to him, follow me.

The gospel of the Lord may be seated in the name of the Father

and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

So we're going to do a quick turn and talk.

We do this from time to time.

I want you to share with your neighbor, whoever you're sitting

around, and share.

What was the first movie you saw in a movie theater?

Movie theater.

Turn and talk.

Okay, I'm going to pull you back in those here and online.

Perhaps online.

You thought of yours as well.

Popcorn for me?

Just what are some of the movies?

Bambi or Bambi over here.

The person I talked to.

Casablanca.

Nice.

Yeah.

Others?

Wizard of Oz classics.

There's Super Mario.

That was your first.

Yes.

I love that.

Yeah.

From Casablanca to Super Mario, there you go.

Well, believe it or not, mine, star New hope.

As a five year old, 1977, as a kid and as an adult who has a hard

time sitting still, my attention and imagination were held

captive through the entire movie.

And I've been a fan of that franchise ever since.

And so today I thought about how I could preach a whole sermon

on how the titles of the original Star wars trilogy follow

the story of Christ.

In the birth and the coming of Christ, we are given a new hope.

And then with his passion and crucifixion, the Empire strikes back.

But on Easter, the saga continues with the return of the

rabbi.

I could also do a whole sermon on the prequel trilogy and talk about

how the Force, once a mystic force available to everyone, was

reduced to biological determinism with meta chlorines and

blood tests.

And how the choice around fear and control and power can often lead

to the path of the dark side.

Or maybe I could do a whole sermon on the Disney sequel trilogy

about how the force does indeed awaken within Any of us with

the threat and lust and quest of Imperial power to rule the galaxy.

And when the dark side emerges in our midst, then a force must indeed

awaken.

Or I thought about how I could preach about the downfall of the

Jedi organized religion when they became too fundamentalist around

their denial of attachments and became bedfellows with the Republic

and cloning a whole army.

Lose any of y'all.

Yeah, well, have no fear.

Over the next three hours I will unpack all of that and explain

the details across 12 Star wars movies.

Well, I guess we do have a lot to do today, right?

Maybe I'll pump the brakes a little bit.

Maybe a little.

As I mentioned, the first movie I remember seeing in the theater

was Star A New Hope in 1977.

It was the first time I remember my imagination being awakened

to the possibilities of both science fiction adventures not only

in a galaxy far, far away, but maybe this could happen in our solar

system too.

Even, maybe even I could be Luke Skywalker.

And I was Luke Skywalker when I played with my Star wars action

figures or when I was pretending the naked wrapping paper

cardboard tube was a lightsaber.

Part of my infatuation with Star wars was this of tension of

being both sci fi technological future styled adventure

while also proposing that this was an ancient story that happened

a long time ago, incorporating a mystical spirituality.

Lasers and robots and spaceships intermingled with a powerful

mystical force that binds all things together.

That's an adventure.

That's something I want to be a part of.

Could I too be force sensitive in case I need to rebel and fight

against an oppressive evil empire?

Unapologetically, this is something that I think about almost

daily.

One of my favorite scenes in all of Star wars, in the original

movie A New Hope is Luke Skywalker is having his first training

session with a lightsaber with Obi Wan Kenobi on the Millennium

Falcon and things aren't going very well.

Using or being one with the Force evidently has a big learning

curve.

In walks agnostic skeptic and pirate scoundrel Han Solo.

He sees what's going on and when Luke doesn't quite get it right,

he chuckles to himself.

Luke turns and asks him, you don't believe in the Force, do you?

Han responds, kid, I've flown from one side of the galaxy to the

other.

I've seen a lot of strange stuff, but I've never seen anything

to make me believe that there's an all powerful force controlling

everything.

There's no mystical energy field that controls my destiny, but

to Obi Wan, he grins almost to communicate.

We'll see.

We'll see.

The scruffy scoundrel Han Solo is, of course has many great scenes

and moments throughout Star Wars.

At one point it looks like he's going to be running away from

his friends and taking his money reward and just thinking of

himself.

But even in the midst of that, he turns to Luke and says, may the

Force be with you.

And then later on he comes back in a dramatic way to help his

friends defeat and blow up the Death Star.

Later on, in another tension filled scene when it looks like the

Empire will win the day, Princess Leia confesses her love

to him and the Empire strikes back, she says, I love you.

And he responds, I know.

And as years later in the movie the Force Awakens, when new

characters emerge in the story and they've heard all the legends

and the stories and the adventures of Luke Skywalker and

his small band of rebels and they ask Han, is this true?

Then Han confesses, all true.

All of it.

There seems to be a transformation that happened.

A hero's journey, a redemptive ark.

Over the years I've found ways hard to believe, but it's true, to

connect and overlap.

The things that I geek out on and my faith and my vocation as a

pastor.

As someone who I feel is called to be a shepherd to the geeks.

We've had God Loves geeks, book clubs and hangouts.

I've done panels and discussions at Comic Cons on how

our faith and what we geek out on share similar questions and themes

and redemption arcs.

And I'm currently helping curate and moderate a podcast called

Systematic Geekology.

We are the priest to the geeks, helping moderate and curate

those things we geek out on, wanting to go deeper into the questions

of our faith and life.

We are geekologists.

Think of it as being similar to an archaeologist or a geologist,

studying and learning and going beneath the surface to discover

deeper questions and themes.

We all do it.

We all of us are geekologists.

From the books we read to the TV shows we watch, or maybe it's

food or stoplights or Disney or comic book superheroes, we all

geek out on something and we have deep meaning and resonance with

those things we geek out on.

Perhaps because they are tapping into a larger story arc,

a divine story that has a redemption arc that we are all a

part of.

Geek culture, pop culture often ask similar big philosophical

and theological questions, even if they aren't fully aware of

it.

They explore a deeper, larger story within our own stories.

What we long for, what we hope for.

And I'll also confess that just like religion and any institutions

that humans are a part of, there is still the problem of toxic

fandom and fundamentalism within those things we geek out on.

We call it fandimentalism.

Humans are going to human no matter what they are a part of and

no matter what they are a fan of or geek out on.

But like with things like faith and science and justice issues

and how we do community together, there is a way, this is

the way to have healthy, deep conversations within these things

that resonate with us and that mean so much to us as we process

what it means to be humans created in the image of God.

So let's shift over and be geekologists with our gospel story

for today.

This is a post resurrection story.

At the end of John's Gospel, the disciples are still grieving

and confused and skeptical and agnostic about what has happened

after Jesus resurrection.

They have been one side of Israel and Galilee to the next and

they've seen a lot of strange stuff.

But they aren't sure sure if there is any strange mystical force

helping guide their destiny.

So what do they do?

They go back to what they think.

They know what they do best.

They go back to fishing and they're still not very good at it.

And guess who shows up?

Maybe Jesus has a force.

Ghost.

No, he actually eats with them and proves that he's not some disembodied

spirit.

He's with them in the flesh, bodily form.

And then there's this other miracle of catching fish to remind

the disciples who is meeting with them on the beach, meeting them

wherever they are.

And then there is another meal with bread and fish.

Of course, it's with those objects and with what's going on

in that practice that they remember again who their rabbi is

and what he has done, what he is doing, what he promises to do.

There's an ongoing transformation happening.

There's an ongoing hero's journey taking place.

There's an ongoing redemption arc.

And if that's not clear, the risen Christ pulls Peter aside and

asks him some important question.

Jesus asked him three times, mirroring the three times Peter denied

Jesus, do you love me?

And it's not just I know, it's Lord, you know.

Yes, indeed he does.

But it's in this articulation of, of luring and helping and challenging

Peter to articulate and confess out loud his love for Jesus

that it moves him from fish, sheep, from going fishing, shepherding

a community that is shaped by a crucified and risen Christ.

Peter had his hero's journey and redemption ark.

And we will, too, no matter what seashore we find ourselves on,

no matter what skepticism or questions or agnosticism we wrestle

with.

So may the Force be with you.

And you have permission to be geekologists, not just on Sunday,

but every day of the week.

Yesterday, a friend reminded me or pointed out to me something

that I hadn't noticed before.

And so, even as an elder and experienced geekologist, I'm still

learning new things about Star wars and other things.

He said, notice that before the Jedi crosses over to be one with

the Force, they say, may the Force be with you.

Acknowledging that there's still kind of this element of uncertainty,

like, maybe it'll happen, maybe it won't.

We'll see.

But when they cross over to be one with a Force, they have this

calling.

To those who are still in their pilgrimage.

They say, and remember, the Force is with you always.

Yes, that's the promise.

As we continue to remember the Christ, as we gather around this

table to remember his body and blood given and shed for you, the

risen Christ meets us wherever we are and says, remember, I am with

you.

I love you.

Your redemption ark will come to completion always.

Amen.

Thank you for listening.

If there is anything that stood out.

For you, or if you have a question or.

Or you just want to have a conversation, you are always free

to reach out and contact us.

And remember you are not alone and that you are loved with a love

stronger than death.