Sermon for Friends Congregational Church

“The Darth Vader Syndrome”

Delivered by Reverend Dan De Leon

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Matthew 4:1-11

Have you given up anything for Lent yet?  We’re five days into Lent, so it’s time to make those decisions: What will we give up for Lent?  But this morning let’s be more concerned with why we give up things for Lent.

A simple understanding of why we give something up for Lent is so that the act of sacrifice will remind us of what Jesus sacrificed for the world—what Jesus sacrificed for you and me—in the crucifixion, death and resurrection.  Now, given this understanding of why we give things up for Lent, does it make much sense that we give up chocolate?  Will giving up chocolate for 40 days and forty nights bring us any closer to the realization of Christ’s passionate sacrifice?

Now, I’m not trying to point fingers at those of us who gave up chocolate for Lent.  Let’s not slump down in our seats just yet.  I’m going somewhere with this.

Chocolate is stereotypically the #1 item given up for Lent every year.  So, I’d like to examine why.

There’s a very talented musician out there named Sarah McClachlan, and one of her best songs is simply called Ice Cream.  Ice Cream is all about how the singer has found something better than anything she’s ever experienced before and nothing can top it.  She sings: “Your love is better than chocolate…better than anything else that I’ve tried.”  It’s a strong metaphor that makes a lot of sense.  But before the song ends on this high note, she croons this reminder: “It’s a long way down to the place where we started from.”

Ice cream is a great metaphor for how we live in the Western World.  We tried vanilla, but that got boring, so we moved on to chocolate.  But then we needed an upgrade, so we tried strawberry.  But there weren’t enough gigabytes in that flavor, so we tried mint chocolate chip.  But that flavor had limited wireless coverage, so we tried rocky road.  But that flavor wasn’t compatible enough with our pallet, so we tried Blue Bell’s Moolenium Crunch.  And while that was a pinnacle moment for our existential taste buds, it didn’t turn out to be all that we were looking for.

We are hungry for answers, thirsty for truth.  We long for that something that will give us a sense of completion; that vocation or that vacation that will give us a feeling of fulfillment.  And that desperate quest never ends.  Metaphorically speaking, what would we do in this country if we ran out of ice cream?

This anxiousness has even crept into our views of what the Church is supposed to be.  The desperate search for satisfaction has even seeped into how we interpret Jesus Christ.  What has been dubbed “prosperity gospel” is what is preached in the most rapidly growing mega-churches in America.  And it works, because that’s exactly what we want to hear.

When you look at it this way, Jesus can be reduced to just another flavor of ice cream.  The sacrificial Lamb of God can be viewed as just another something—another choice—that might give us all that we’re looking for.

The charismatic evangelist says to a room full of young adults, “You’ve tried drugs, now try Jesus.”  So, in this context, does Jesus do what drugs do, only better?  And if that’s all that Jesus is, then won’t all of the amazingly smart, intuitive young seekers of the next generation get wise to that selling pitch and move on to find something better?

Shel Silverstein sums it up best in his book Where the Sidewalk Ends, which is aptly concluded by this poem called “The Search”:

I went to find the pot of gold

That’s waiting where the rainbow ends.

I searched and searched and searched and searched

And searched and searched, and then—

There it was, deep in the grass,

Under and old and twisty bough.

It’s mine, it’s mine, it’s mine at last…

What do I search for now?

This is the mindset that can be so dangerous when we say, “I found Jesus.”

When we look at the story of Jesus being tempted by Satan in the wilderness for forty days and forty nights, at first glance it’s nothing more than a duel of wits.  The devil says one thing to Jesus, and Jesus always has a clever retort.  And the duel is based on Scripture.  Satan says, “The Scriptures say A, B and C,” and Jesus says, “Yes, but the Scriptures also say X, Y and Z.”

At first glance it looks like Jesus, who wields more authority than the devil, knows his Scripture better, and, therefore, he’s right.  He wins.  But if we take that as the lesson from the temptation story here, we just end up quibbling over who has more authority when they’re quoting Scripture at somebody (and look how far that’s gotten us).

The point that Jesus makes in the wilderness is not just that he’s smarter than the devil.  The point he makes is that it is sin to take advantage of the powers of this world.  It is sin to oppressively manipulate the Bible.  It is sin to succumb to the temptation of power, no matter what it is, because as soon as you get a taste of that ice cream, your eyes are opened to a million different flavors and you’ll never be able to taste them all.

This is what I call the Darth Vader syndrome.  Darth Vader doesn’t know how to say ‘no,’ and that’s what gets him in trouble.  Darth Vader is one of the most iconic villains in recent history.  We see that black helmet and that robotic skull-faced mask and we think, “Now, that’s evil.”

But we also have a soft spot for Darth Vader, because we know that underneath the helmet, the cape and the body armor is a simple man who made some poor choices in life.  That’s why I think that Star Wars fans who loved A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi flocked to the theaters in 1999, 2002 and 2005 to see the Star Wars prequels.  Young and old, we wanted to find out what went wrong.  We wanted to see where along the way Anakin Skywalker turned to he dark side.  We wanted to know what happened to make him turn into the monstrous Darth Vader.

It’s as simple as this: Anakin Skywalker went bad because he couldn’t say ‘no.’ He was training to become a Jedi.  A Jedi is a peacekeeper instilled with certain powers that can be used to extinguish evil, oppression and even war.  But what makes a Jedi a Jedi is their ability to say ‘no:’ “No, I will not raise a hand in anger against someone else.  No, I will not attempt to undermine my superiors.  And the rule modeled after the Catholic priesthood: No, I will not pursue a romantic relationship with someone else.”  Instead of saying ‘no,’ Anakin always says ‘yes’—yes, yes, yes, to more, more, more power—and his weakness destroys his soul.

Well, let’s look at the temptation story again.  The temptation story reminds us that before Jesus could say ‘yes’ to the whole world, he had to prove that he could say ‘no.’  The early ministry of Jesus is characterized more by what Jesus rejects and renounces than by what he accepts and affirms.  We’re taught by the temptation story on this first Sunday of Lent that our Christian journeys have to begin with our ability to say ‘no.’  We’re getting closer to the chocolate here, but hang on…

If Jesus had given in to the devil’s temptations, then the Son of Man would have been doing exactly what Adam and Eve did in the Garden.  All that Satan was trying to do was to get Jesus to try to be like God.  He was trying to get Jesus to believe that he could be greater than God.  But here is where our lesson comes in:

Jesus doesn’t say, “Yes, I’ll go ahead and try to be like God,” Jesus says, “No, I’ll just be God’s son.”  And even in his identity as God’s son, Jesus doesn’t boast.  He doesn’t come out of the wilderness saying to the gathered masses that followed him, “I am great, because I am the son of God, and I can do greater things than you can.”

No.  Even though Jesus was the Son of God, he didn’t define those terms.  He let God do that.  Jesus let God change his life, change his name, change his purpose in life.  Even at the end of Jesus’ journey, when he been left all alone in the cryptic darkness of the Garden of Gethsemane just moments before he would be handed over to the Roman foot soldiers, he prays, “Father, take this cup from me, but don’t do it because it’s my will.  Do it because it’s your will.”

If we are following this Jesus all the way to Easter morning, then we might want to learn from his example in the wilderness.  But before we start out on this journey, there are some things in our lives that it will be constructive for us to say ‘no’ to.  We have to first say ‘no’ to certain powers and temptations in our lives before we can ‘yes’ to Jesus.  Otherwise we just end up looking at Christ through a mask of our own design, manipulating the power that Jesus gives freely to everyone; and, ironically, the liberation that God offers us in Christ just keeps us trapped inside a shell.  It’s that Darth Vader syndrome.

Here’s some examples of what I’m saying.  With enough study, anyone can memorize the Bible, book, chapter and verse, and that’s a powerful weapon to wield in a world that even now cowers in a corner when someone speaks loudly and quotes Scripture.

But our faith isn’t supposed to be the weapon that’s better than any other weapon we use against others.  Our faith is meant to change us.  Jesus is not the end of the journey.  Jesus is the start of a new one.  But on that new journey we take every step new, fresh, changed, looking for things to fulfill us that we never would have thought we needed before.

So, before we turn to the Bible to solidify our position on something, let’s say ‘no’ to something so the Word of God can change us.  This new journey starts with rejecting and renouncing certain old things, so that we’re ready later to accept and affirm new ones.

Say ‘no’ to racist, sexist and homophobic jokes in the workplace that are so readily accepted in our society.  When those jokes are spoken by co-workers or friends or even family, don’t be a complacent party to them.  Say ‘no,’ and then turn to the Bible and find Proverbs 12:18: “Reckless words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.”

Say ‘no’ to the same old passive aggressive fights, the same old accusations, the same old conflicts that come up at family gatherings or get-togethers with a certain chemistry of friends.  Reject that old way, and then turn to the Bible and find 1 Corinthians 13:1: “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.”

We can do our research and say ‘no’ to certain products we tend to buy that do a disservice to migrant workers or even exploit child labor, and then we can turn to the Bible and find Jesus’ speaking about the kingdom of God in Matthew 25:40: “I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of min, you did for me.”

We can say no to the billion-dollar industry of temptation that calls out to us every day in the forms of billboards, commercials, magazine ads and internet pop-ups, and then we can turn to the Bible and find words from a certain sermon in Matthew 6:19-21: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.  But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Say ‘no’ to a manipulative relationship that has been keeping you in chains, keeping you from being who you need to be and doing all you need to do, and then turn to the Bible and find the first two verses of Psalm 27: “The Lord is my light and my salvation—whom shall I fear?  The Lord is the stronghold of my life—of whom shall I be afraid?”

Say ‘no’ to chocolate, and then turn to the Bible and find Isaiah 55:2: “Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy?  Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.”

Let us say ‘no’ to injustice, so we can say ‘yes,’ to justice.  Let us say ‘no’ to mercilessness so we can say ‘yes’ to mercy.  Let us say ‘no’ to indifference so we can say ‘yes’ to change.  Let us say ‘no’ to temptations that corrupt with power, so we can say ‘yes’ to Jesus who restores with righteousness.

Are we looking through the eyes that God gave us, or are we looking through a mask?  Do we see our world through the eyes of Christ, or do we see our sisters and brothers in Christ through the eyes of this world?

Friends, this is our journey of Lent when we follow Christ to Jerusalem.  And Jesus is not a replacement for something.  Jesus is not a drug.  Jesus is not a quick-fix or a fast solution.  Jesus is the ultimate change agent.  So, let us prepare to be changed by taking a page from Christ’s wilderness experience.  Let us renounce and reject what we think is good for us, so that God can help us accept and affirm what is good for everyone.  Amen.