Presented to
Warehouse 614, 03 June 2018 and Alberni Valley Ministries, 05 May 2024, by Captain (Major) Michael Ramsay
This is the 2018 Toronto version. To view the 2024 BC version click here:
Last
Sunday after church my daughters and I went to see SOLO. Has
everyone who wants to see that movie seen it yet? If you haven’t I may need to
remember to give you a couple of spoiler alerts in the sermon here.
My
two eldest girls and I have seen most of the newest ones in the theatres. ROUGE
1 was definitely the best of the newest ones but all of them are surprisingly
good. I say surprising because I remember watching the prequels. Before I was
an Officer, one of the businesses that I ran was publishing the Journal of
International Education. One of our sponsors was the IMAX; so we often were
able to watch shows fro free on these great big screens. I remember watching
the first prequel on the big screen and walking away wondering what just
happened. Some things seemed not quite right. I was working in the field of
international education at the time and I was even left wondering: was this
racist? There have certainly been those who have suggested that Japanese and
Jamaicans cultural stereotypes were exploited for the film.
Even
given the fact that the original 3 films are classics and all of the latest
films have been very good, I still head out to any new Star Wars movie with a little bit of hesitation.
SOLO,
however, was a good movie. It can even be seen as a stand alone movie for
people who like action-adventure movies, of course. There was one scene in the
new movie that stuck in my mind. Han was emigrating from his home planet and a
customs official asked him his name and he said, ‘Han’ and then he asked Han
who his people were so he could assign him a last name. Hans replied that he
didn't have any people; so, after the customs official though for a while, the
surname 'Solo' was awarded to him. Thus we have Han Solo.
LESSON 1: WHO ARE MY PEOPLE?
Hosea
1: 21-23
“In that day I will respond,”
declares the Lord—
“I will respond to the skies,
and they will respond to the earth;
22 and the earth will respond to the grain,
the new wine and the olive oil,
and they will respond to Jezreel.
23 I will plant her for myself in the land;
I will show my love to the one I called ‘Not my
loved one.’
I will say to those called ‘Not my people,’ ‘You are my people’;
and they will say, ‘You are my God.’”
Who
are your people? When I was studying restorative justice at Simon Fraser
University
I
am your people. Furthermore, as we submit to the Lord, we are all His people.
We are part of the family of God. Even if at one point in our lives we were not
part of God's family, He wants us to be part of His people and when we accept
Him as Father we join his family. When we accept Him as Lord we become one of
His people. When this is the case, we are no longer solo but we always have the
Lord to turn to and to lean on in times of crisis, Therefore, if you haven't
already, I invite you to accept the LORD's invitation to be one of His people
today.
When
we do become his people, He will transform us from darkness to light, from
secrets to honestly and from hatred to love.
LESSON 2: LOVELY LIGHT SABERS
Matthew
5:43-48:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and
hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you,
love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be
children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and
the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 If you love
those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors
doing that? 47 And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more
than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your
heavenly Father is perfect.
These days we see a lot of
hatred in the news and in social media. People hate this person. People
hate that person. People hate this person for hating that person and people
hate those people because they all hate these people.
Harbour Light has been showing a number of
the original Star Wars films this past moth. The Lieutenants there are big Star
Wars fans. Rebecca, Sarah-Grace, Heather and I joined them to watch Star Wars.
Heather even dressed up as Darth Vader and the day we joined them fo see a
movie was on the ultimate Star Wars day. Do you know when Star Wars Day is
every year? May the fourth – May the Fourth be with you.
There is a pivotal moment in the original
movie franchise, where Darth Vader is trying to turn Luke from good to bad,
from truth to secrecy, from the Light to the Darkness; how does he try to do
this? He tries to do this by making him hate. He tells Luke that only his
hatred can destroy his enemy: this is a lie of Darth Vader and this is also a
lie of our enemy, the Enemy, the devil. In the real world, hate cannot defeat
evil; hate can only become evil. Hate is what turns a good person, bad; it is
love, Jesus’ love, which redeems us.
Martin Luther King Jr said, “Hatred
paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it.
Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.” “Let no man pull you so low as to
hate him.” “I have decided to stick to love...Hate is too great a burden to
bear.”
‘Do you know what the stupidest expression
in the world is?’ - a firefighter once asked me - ‘fight fire with fire;’ ‘you
don’t fight fire with fire; that just causes a bigger fire!’ It is the same
with hate. Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that. If I get drawn
into hating someone because they hate something or someone than I have just
caused love to shrink and hate to grow. If on the other hand we love our
enemies and pray for those who persecute us, then even we may be called
children of our Father in heaven. If we love more than just those who love us
than indeed we may even be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect. Therefore
let us resolve to love one another and let us wish each other well - even those
who may wish us ill.
What does it look like to love our enemies?
LESSON
3: NEW REVISED EDITION
Matthew 18:1-5:
At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who, then, is
the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”
2 He called a little child to him, and placed the
child among them. 3 And he said: “Truly
I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never
enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position
of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 5 And whoever welcomes
one such child in my name welcomes me.
Our
life can't be edited. It can be changed. I remember watching the original Star
Wars in the theatre in 1977. In 1981 one of my friends had this neat
new machine: a VCR. It was really quite something. We could actually pause
shows and even rewind parts of them and watch them over and over again. I
saw Star Wars and The Empire Strikes back
more than once or twice.
Many
years later, early this century, a friend lent me DVDs of the trilogy. I
couldn't believe it. The movies had actually changed! They weren’t the same
movies that I saw in 70s and 80s. I was sort of in shock: Why was Jabba the
Hutt in Star Wars? Who was this new Darth Vader at the end of Return
of the Jedi? I don't remember Storm Troopers on lizards and I am pretty
sure that Hans shot first in that very famous bar scene. I asked my friend why
the movies were different from when I first saw them; he replied that he hoped
that the changes didn't ruin the movies for me.
A
while later, when I was able to look on-line for movies, I looked for copies of
the Star Wars movies as I would have seen them in the 1970s or 1980s. I couldn't
find them anywhere. I tired every way I could think of to find them but I could
only find the revised versions of these movies. The originals are forever in my
memory and have made an impression on me; the original versions of the movies
have left significant impressions on many people. The movies, however, are no
longer like that.
This
is like our life. There are things that some of us may have done that we wish
that we had never done. Maybe our actions have caused someone physical injury
that has not healed. Maybe our actions have caused someone emotional or
psychological pain that has not healed. Maybe our actions have changed
circumstances in such a way as nothing will ever be the same again. There is
now a new normal. The repercussions of past actions may stick with us and
others like the memory of an original version of a movie or an old song that we
cannot find anymore. We cannot change what has happened or how it has affected
us.
However,
we can be changed so that these things from the past never happen again. God
can take all the bad things in our life and make sure that they never replay
again. God can change us even more than George Lucas can change his movies. God
can forgive our sins, transform our stories, and make us brand new today. He
can take out the parts that hurt and hinder us and rewrite our script so that
we are a blessing to others. So, to that end today, If there is anything that we
want rewritten in our story, if we haven't offered our life up to the Lord for
changing yet, I invite us to do so this very day.
Let us pray.
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