Teaching Nonviolent Atonement
On Wednesday, Star Wars: The Force Awakens achieved an historic feat at the box office. After just 20 days of its release date, The Force Awakens surpassed Avatar to become the highest grossing film in North America.
I helped the Force by seeing it three times. I love Star Wars. Even the prequels.
Coincidentally, or maybe as the Force would have it, Wednesday was also the first day of the Christian season called Epiphany, which means a “manifestation,” or “appearance.” There are important connections between Star Wars and Epiphany, beyond the coincidence of Wednesday’s events.
George Lucas stated in an interview with Bill Moyers that his vision for Star Wars was to inspire belief in God,
I put the Force into the movie in order to try to awaken a certain kind of spirituality in young people – more a belief in God than a belief in any particular religious system. I wanted to make it so that young people would begin to ask questions about the mystery.
As a former youth pastor, I can appreciate Lucas’ emphasis on young people. Of course, part of the enduring aspect of the Star Wars saga is that it speaks to people of all ages. The great mystery is a force that is bigger than ourselves, yet includes ourselves in it. As Obi Wan Kenobi explained to Luke, the Force “is an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together.”
Whenever a Jedi attempts to explain the Force, they don’t say very much. There’s great wisdom in using few words to describe the Force and Christianity could use some direction here. The Force isn’t primarily known through a theory. Rather, the Force is known by participating in a story that is bigger than ourselves. The same is true about God.
From a Christian point of view, it’s not that theories about God are bad. In their proper place, theories can lead us into the beauty of God. But theories can lead us to the dark side when *we* claim to have the right theory, which means *they* must have the wrong theory. When that happens, we lose sight of the adventure that is bigger than ourselves. The world gets smaller and smaller as we become consumed with being right, which means making sure that others know they are wrong.
Fortunately, the adventure that Epiphany calls us into is much bigger than a theory. It’s a mystery that leads us into divine life of God. Epiphany begins with the story of the Magi. The Magi were Gentiles who didn’t really have a theory about God, certainly not one that Christians would call “orthodox.” But they did have a premonition that a mysterious star would lead them on an adventure to a child who was born king of the Jews.
The Magi left their homes “from the East” to Jerusalem, which was controlled by the Roman Empire. My New Interpreter’s Study Bible states that the Magi likely came from Parthia, which was Rome’s enemy. The Magi were sent on an adventure into enemy territory by a force bigger than themselves. And their adventure involved great risk, as it put them in contact with King Herod, who was well known for killing anyone he thought was a threat to his crown. Herod was consumed by fear, which as Yoda tells us, “is the path to the dark side.” Because of his inability to manage his fear in a healthy way, he killed many people, including his wife and his children.
When we are consumed with fear, like Herod, we easily forget the bigger mystery in our lives. The Magi provide a different model. They likely had much to fear on their night journey through the dangers of the desert, but they weren’t caught up in their fear. Rather, they were caught up into an adventure that was bigger than anything they could fear.
The adventure led the Magi to a child who was the Chosen One. Alternatively in Star Wars, the Chosen One was Anakin Skywalker, who was chosen to bring balance to the Force. This may be controversial to some, but that’s exactly what he did. The Force is a mixture of light and dark, a balance of good and evil. As Han Solo explains in The Force Awakens, “The Force is a magical power, holding good and evil together, the light and the dark.” Before Anakin, the Force was completely out of balance. Good and evil, light and dark, weren’t held together in balance. The Jedi, the light, dominated the Force. The darkness of Star Wars is the fact that by killing the Jedi, Anakin did bring balance back to the Force.*
But the Chosen One in the Christian story didn’t bring balance to the Force that undergirds our world. Rather, Jesus brought something much more radical than a balance between good and evil. Christianity doesn’t call the mystery of our world “the Force.” It calls that mystery Love. “God is love,” states the letter First John. The love of God is the mystery that holds the universe together. As the apostle Paul claimed, it is in God that “we live and move and have our being.” The Magi found a symbol of that love in a star – a light that shines in the darkness of our world that led them on an adventure to Jesus. And that love was embodied by a seemingly insignificant child, born to seemingly insignificant parents.
The great mystery of Christianity leads us on a great adventure that is bigger than ourselves, bigger than our theories, bigger than our fears, and bigger than our need to be right. It leads us to the One who reveals that God is love. But Jesus taught his followers even more about God. The author of 1 John would also state that, “This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all.”
The darkness belongs to us. Violence belongs to humans. Not to God and not to the Force. We can no longer project our dark violence upon God. That means we must take responsibility for our own darkness. Fortunately, Luke Skywalker and Jesus Christ are perfect examples of how to do just that. We will explore that aspect of Star Wars and theology in the next part of this series.
*Of course, this is an interpretation. Many argue that Anakin actually brought balance to the Force by killing Emperor Darth Sidious. If Anakin’s mission was to bring the balance of good and evil to the Force, then both interpretations may be correct. We’ll explore that in a future part of this series.
**For more on Epiphany, see:
Let Us Know You Are Wheaton By Your Love, by Lindsey Paris-Lopez
Peace on Earth: Maria Montessori, the Wise Men, and King Herod, by Suzanne Ross
The RavenCast Ep 10: Epiphany, Fear, and the Journey to God, by Lindsey Paris-Lopez and Adam Ericksen
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