Choose You Must

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was Romans 7:15-25a  and the movie was The Empire Strikes Back.

On Thursday, Linda and I celebrated our 21st anniversary, and we had a very nice dinner together reminiscing about the favorite house we’ve lived in, as we’ve had 8 in the past 21 years, favorite job, favorite car, favorite child, you know all the usual. But it was sort of a reflection on the different ways that we might have imagined going differently, sometimes because of decisions that we had little say over and sometimes because of decisions that we make. While we often act as if our lives, and the lives of others, are direct lines of one point leading directly to the other, but we know that’s not really how it works. That while it might not exactly be a choose your own adventure novel, that there are definitely choices that we get to, or have to make, sometimes large, sometimes small, that end up making a huge difference in the direction that our lives take and that also affect the lives of others as well. And that’s where we turn today as we continue in our series on the gospel in Star Wars looking at the second movie in the series. Released in 1980,  The Empire Strikes Back is widely considered the greatest of all the films.

After the rebel alliance had destroyed the death star at the battle of Yavin at the end of the first film, the empire strikes back, as the title says, and seeks out to find and destroy the rebels who are now hiding from the empire. After their base on the ice planet of Hoth is attacked, they retreat again, with Luke Skywalker going to the Dagobah system to receive instruction from Yoda, the last remaining Jedi Master, and put in a different order, his words are, therefore making him sound super smart. Meanwhile, Han, Chewie and Leia are being pursued by the evil Darth Vader when the hyperdrive on their ship won’t work and so they retreat to the cloud city of Bespin, controlled by an old friend of Han’s, Lando Calrissian. Calrissian betrays them to Vader who uses them as a trap to get Luke to come to their rescue, where he and Vader engage in a lightsaber battle, with Luke losing his hand, and where Vader reveals, and I hope this isn’t a surprise to anyone any longer, that Luke’s father was not killed by Vader as he had been told, but that Vader himself is his father, and along the way Luke learns somethings about the force and himself. But one of the things that gets bantied about in the films is this idea of choice, against questions of whether those decisions are predetermined or if we have freewill.

Amazing Grace Times Three

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was John 3:14-21:

Today we begin a new series looking at what we as Methodists believe. And more specifically things that we believe that are unique to Methodism. This series is really based on the fact that one of the questions I get asked the most by people from outside the church is what is it that Methodists believe that make us different from other denominations. After all, if we believed the same thing as others there would be no reason for us to be separate. And I know that some of you have gotten the same question, and so this is to help all of us be able to articulate who we are. Now one caveat is that we are not going to be talking about everything, especially where there is overlap, say about the trinity or the resurrection, more orthodox positions, because even if there are slight differences, they aren’t big enough to answer that question what makes Methodists different. And we begin today with the thing that is definitely unique to methodism and that is our understanding of grace. I know many people who have become Methodists specifically because of our idea and practice of grace, and that includes several ministers who have converted as adults. But before we get into the weeds of what that means, a little bit of background and context.

Grace is a word we use a lot, but we never really define it. We just sang about god’s grace being greater than all our sin, so is grace then about forgiveness, or is something more. At the end of this message we’ll sing Amazing Grace, and the grace that that saved John Newton, and so is grace then about salvation? Is it about healing? Is it about relationship? And then there’s the fact that we call the prayer before a meal grace, and is that something entirely different? What is this grace thing all about? Great questions. There are several meanings of grace in scripture, although both the Hebrew and Greek words have a connotation of favor. In the Hebrew scriptures it’s about a sense of graciousness or goodwill. Think of Psalm 145 which says that God is gracious and full of compassion, so mercy is a part of this understand of grace.

You Must Choose

Here is my sermon from Sunday. It was based on Genesis 4:1-9 and the movie Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.

Today we continue in our series on the Gospel in Star Wars by looking at the Empire Strikes Back. Released in 1980, it is widely considered the best of the Star Wars films, although it is not my personal favorite. After the rebel alliance had destroyed the death star at the battle of Yavin at the end of the first film, the empire strikes back, as the title says, and seeks out to find and destroy the rebels who are now hiding from the empire. After their base on the ice planet of Hoth is attacked, they retreat again, with Luke Skywalker going to the Dagobah system to receive instruction from Yoda, the last remaining Jedi Master, and put in a different order, his words are, therefore making him sound super smart. Meanwhile, Han, Chewie and Leia are being pursued by the evil Darth Vader when the hyperdrive on their ship won’t work and so they retreat to the cloud city of Bespin, controlled by an old friend of Han’s, Lando Calrisian. Calrisian betrays them to Vader who uses them as a trap to get Luke to come to their rescue, where he and Vader engage in a lightsaber battle, with Luke losing his hand, and where Vader reveals, and I hope this isn’t a surprise to anyone any longer, that Luke’s father was not killed by Vader as he had been told, but that Vader himself is his father, and along the way Luke learns somethings about the force and himself that turn out to be important as well, and we are going to use this is a way to discuss the issue of predestination versus free will and our relationship with sin and the dark side.

Now the Star Wars movies play both sides of the card when it comes to whether things are predestined or not. In the later prequels, when Qui Gon Jinn meets the young Anakin Skywalker for the first time, Anakin makes a remark about how fortunate that they had to land where they did to get their ship repaired, and Jinn says “Our meeting was not a coincidence. Nothing happens by accident.” And then of course there is both Vader and the Emperor, known by his Sith name as Darth Sidious, who tell Luke that it is his destiny that he join the dark side and rule the galaxy. Of course, that doesn’t happen, putting a question about whether everything is in fact destiny, and then there is what Yoda has to say. Now I think we could do an entire sermon series on the wisdom of Yoda, who really does have some of the best lines, like Size matters not, do or do not, there is no try, and better yet, fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate and hate leads to suffering, but about destinies, Yoda says that the future is impossible to see, or as he says in the Empire Strikes Back, always in motion the future is. That means we can’t predict the future because there are too many variables, too many choices that people can make, to be able to determine the future outcomes. So, which do we believe?