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| Star Wars ROTS I’ll concede the point immediately: Not everyone in the churches across America is taken up with the Star Wars hype, or the ongoing saga. But consider this: Star Wars fans have spent over $9 billion dollars since 1977 on Star Wars-related merchandise. This is the most influential movie franchise in the brief history of time. It’s a safe bet that most Americans under 40, and all Americans with toe rings and an iPod, know their droids and can explain why they prefer C-3PO or R2-D2 to Jar-Jar Binks or the Wookies. We can ignore this if we want, but here’s what we’d miss: a sci-fi saga of transgalactic truth that is essentially a borrowed text from a biblical apocalyptic, not to speak of a low-energy theology of salvation — fall, atonement, redemption. Star Wars speaks to people who are hungry for hope in a world of despair and doubt. It taught a generation or two to believe in themselves and to consider the possibility that there’s something, SomeOne, out there more powerful than themselves. The series awakened a sense of the Mysterious and the Transcendent in Gen X and Y; if it’s true that we’re hard-wired to know God, then Star Wars has fired up the spiritual synapses of millions. There’s even more reason to pay attention this time. Granted, The Phantom Menace was a yawner, and the Attack of the Clones not much more than a sappy love story. But Episode III: The Revenge of the Sith, is the movie for which hard-core fans have been waiting for about 30 years. As the third episode in the first trilogy, it links to the original Star Wars movie, Episode IV: A New Hope in the second trilogy. As one fan posted: “When Revenge of the Sith comes out, I can die peacefully. No life after Star Wars. I waited 28 years for this movie and I will only be at the theater for two hours.” Details of the plot are sketchy, but we know that the Clone Wars are drawing to a close. The Jedi Council commissions Obi-Wan Kenobi to find the evil ruler of the Separatist droid army, General Grievous, and bring him to justice, or — as George W. would say, “bring justice to him.” In the meantime, Chancellor Palpatine has increased his power and he’s used his power to create the Galactic Empire. To assist him in his grand plans, Palpatine confides to Anakin the secrets of his power along with promises about how to use the Force — which, in the end, succeeds in sucking Anakin to the dark side where he will emerge in his role as Darth Vader. This pits him against his pregnant wife, senator Amidala. (In this movie we meet Luke Skywalker and his sister Leia as infants.) It’s a movie with everything you’d expect in a Star Wars episode — and more. An opening battle scene sounds like it will plant us firmly on the edge of our seats. And then there are the turbo tanks, and droid tanks, crystal worms and droid divas with chrome curves. Still, you’d think that George Lucas would have seen this coming: that the acronym for Revenge of the Sith would offer critics a perfect vehicle for panning the movie. But there may be more at work here, for ROTS is about, at its core, how the good can rot from within, how what is good can go bad. Lucas himself says that this movie, which he says is a real tear-jerker, a “Titanic in space,” is really about “the father, the struggles of a father, or a man, basically, to find himself.” Anakin yearns for more power, and makes “a pact with the devil and basically spend[s] the rest of his life regretting it.” Lucas’ timing couldn’t be better. There’s nothing we like better than to watch the meteoric fall of the high and mighty. O. J., Kenneth Lay, Martha Stewart, Bernard Ebbers, Michael Jackson. We love “go-to-hell” stories more than gospel stories because, I suspect, it supports our sense of self-righteousness while at the same time reminding us of the dangers that lurk beyond the precipice. Anakin Skywalker strikes a Faustian bargain, but in the end — thanks to the intervention of a messianic figure — must pay the devil his due. Stars Wars fans know the whole story. They know that while Anakin is going to slip on the mask of Darth Vader in this movie and travel to the dark side, the mask will eventually come off again in Episode VI, The Return of the Jedi (1983). Anakin goes to hell and back, but it’s not an easy journey and for all his repentance, he can’t outrun death. As you read this, Pentecost Sunday, May 15, has just passed. ROTS has just opened. So we’re in the Season of Pentecost and it’s no stretch to refer to Pentecost when you’re ready to address ROTS homiletically. There’s the upper room where 120 believers were praying and had been praying for 40 days. It’s not much of an empire yet, or a kingdom. Just 120 timid souls. Then something happens. There are images of fire and flames, and the sound of a “mighty wind,” and people themselves are speaking in languages unfamiliar to them. Here a force is unleashed greater than any force the world has known. Now these 120 believers, Spirit-troopers, are empowered to counterattack, to launch the Starship Good News, to engage a growing galaxy of believers, now known as the Church, against the powers of darkness, to go out into this world to draw people to the light. But let’s not talk about a Jedi Jesus. Still, kids and teens should eat this up. Gen Xers will understand. And most boomers will get it as well. This is the epic struggle: to help people resist the allure of sin and temptation, to help people recover if they’ve fallen victim to the dark side, to announce to people the inauguration of the kingdom, and while at times it might appear the Sith masters are winning, in the end, we know that the Jedi masters will prevail. One of the central themes in ROTS is that when you go to the dark side, you slip on a mask. You deny your essential identity. You are no longer the creature you were intended to be. And that will not change until the mask comes off. This is the last of the series. Lucas has no plans to complete the third trilogy. He has given us a wealth of sermon material. Let’s use it. Or we’ll lose it.
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