Lessons from The Last Jedi: What I Learned from 40 Years of Training with Luke Skywalker

(SPOILER ALERT:  While I usually refrain from disclosing any plot points from movies, in this case, it is a bit necessary.  If you have not seen “The Last Jedi” yet, you might want to wait to read this since it is about a rather large element of the movie.)

There is a short scene in the original “Star Wars” (the one that came out in 1977 and had not been named “Episode IV: A New Hope” yet) after Luke Skywalker and Han Solo have rescued Princess Leia from the Death Star and are back on the Millennium Falcon making their escape.  Luke has just seen his friend and mentor, Obi Wan Kenobi, struck down by the evil Darth Vader in an epic lightsaber duel.  Luke is slumped forward and leaning on the Dejarik game board where R2-D2 and Chewbacca had been playing a game like Chess earlier.  He shakes his head sadly and says of Obi Wan, “I can’t believe he’s gone.”

I remember thinking that it seemed odd that Luke had become so attached to someone whom he had met only days before that moment.  Yet I find myself thinking the same thing after watching “The Last Jedi” last night about someone whom I have never met and could never meet because he is a character of fiction.  “I can’t believe he’s gone.”

I went into the movie with no illusions that Luke was going to be alive at the end of it.  When you give your movie a title like “The Last Jedi,” you tip your hand to everyone about what is likely to happen.  So, when the grizzled Jedi Master faded off into the sunset (literally), I was not surprised.  What did catch me off guard was the thought that I had as I drove home from the theater in the wee hours of the morning:  my hero of the last 40 years is finally gone.

While Luke has never been my favorite character in the Star Wars Universe (that would be Chewbacca), for reasons I detail below, he was always the one that I connected with the most.  As I reflect on his “becoming one with the Force” and after watching him in the original trilogy countless times, I am compelled to think about what this movie character has taught me about life in my world.

LESSON ONE:  DREAM BIG.

In the original movie, Luke thought he was just a nobody from nowhere restricted by the limitations of his family and his surroundings.  There was something sad and melancholy about that young moisture farmer kicking at the sand and staring off into the distance at the twin suns of Tatooine and wondering just how big the universe was and not knowing his place in it.  Growing up in a small town in Southeast Texas, I could relate.

But if Dr. Seuss wrote “Oh, the Places You’ll Go” for anyone, it was for Luke Skywalker.  Staring at those suns, I bet Luke never thought that he would travel into deep space, live on the frozen Outer Rim planet of Hoth, or ride a speeder bike on the forest moon of Endor surrounded by teddy bears.  In that sense, Luke showed a 9-year-old boy what it looked like to dream about places beyond The Golden Triangle of Southeast Texas and that life is really one big adventure.  While I have never been off our planet, I have been to some pretty amazing places on it and seen some things that defy description.  Luke challenged me to “get off my moisture farm” and see how vast the world really is.

LESSON TWO:  NO ONE IS EVER TOO FAR GONE.

Luke’s resolute conviction that his father, Darth Vader, still had good left in him inspired me as a 15-year-old watching “Return of the Jedi.”  Luke seemed to be the only one in the entire galaxy that believed this.  How could a guy who dressed in all black, wore a wicked helmet, and had killed women, children, and even his fellow Jedi have anything but hate and loathing inside of him?  And yet Luke refused to give up on him.

Now in “The Last Jedi,” when Leia has concluded that her son, Ben Solo, is truly dead and that Kylo Ren is all that is left, there is Luke saying again, “No one is ever really gone.”  I suppose he might have been talking about Han Solo and the idea that as long you remember someone they are not really dead, but it could also mean that Uncle Luke still believes that it is not too late for Kylo.

While I am quite certain that George Lucas did not consider the biblical reality of this idea, the notion that no one is past the point of redemption captures the very heart of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ.  Long before I ever went to seminary and devoted my life to helping people realize this truth, I saw it displayed before me on a big movie screen by Luke Skywalker when it came to his father.

LESSON THREE:  IN THE MOMENT OF DECISION, CHOOSE INTEGRITY.

Even after 8 movies now, the scene after Luke has defeated Darth Vader is still my favorite.  The young Jedi stands over his defeated father and is invited by the Emperor to kill Vader and take his place.  Luke’s entire life has brought him to this one moment, and now he must make the choice.  He turns off his light saber, throws it to the side, and says to the Emperor:

“Never.  I’ll never turn to the dark side.  You’ve failed, Your Highness.  I am a Jedi, like my father before me.”

Just seeing those words in print is stirring to me because I remember the first time that I heard Luke say them as I sat in the theater.  He had done it.  After feeling the relentless pull of the Dark Side of the Force, Luke had stood up to it and chosen the Light.  The Emperor, of course, was not pleased and proceeded to try and shock Luke to death with Force Lightning.  As you remember, Darth Vader stepped in and killed the Emperor, proving that LESSON TWO was, indeed, true.

In simple terms that a 15-year-old could understand, I recognized that it is honorable to die for doing the right thing.  Thankfully, Luke did not die.  But he was prepared to die.  While I hope that I never have to choose whether or not I will die for what is right, I have to choose whether or not I will live for what is right every single day. 

LESSON FOUR:  PRIDE AND ARROGANCE HAVE NO PLACE IN THE LIFE OF A SERVANT.

In “The Last Jedi,” Luke is very candid and honest with Rey about the failures of the Jedi in general and about his own failures specifically.  Plain and simple, the Jedi forgot about humility.  They were so impressed by their own abilities that they completely missed the Emperor and the other Sith Lords right in front of them.  They began to believe that they could control the Force instead of allowing the Force to control them.  Inevitably, this led to them placing power and prestige over meekness and service.

As I try to live my life today as a follower not of the Force but of Jesus Christ, I am reminded of His words to His apostles as they bickered about how to be great in the Kingdom:  “whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave” (Matthew 20:26-27).  I do not want to have to become exiled on a remote island like Luke was to learn this.  I am no Jedi, but the call of my Master is similar.  It is to serve and not to be served, and to be humble while doing it.

Seeing Master Luke fade away slowly was not as jarring as seeing Darth Vader set alight on a funeral pyre.  It was, however, an invitation for me to contemplate those lessons that have slowly been seared into me these last 40 years as I have watched one of my heroes realize and accept who he was meant to be.  May we all continue to realize and accept who we were meant to be as well. 

Good Kareem Hunt-ing

I will be the first to admit that I am a sucker for an inspirational sports story.  It does not take much for me to get a lump in my throat when I see a person overcome long odds to set a record or reach an unprecedented goal.  It is why I simply cannot get enough of the Olympics every two years.  (The Winter Games are on February 9-25, 2018, by the way.)

Like many other people in the U.S., I have been counting the days since the last NFL game, Super Bowl LI, took place here in Houston.  Also, like many people in Houston, I have been especially looking forward to the first game of this NFL season after the last couple of weeks dealing with Hurricane Harvey.  What a welcome distraction. 

I had no specific interest in the game except for the fact that it was finally an NFL game that counted.  For the first time since February 5, there would be no more unknown players jockeying for roster spots or half-filled stadium seats.  Last night the game was for real.

For New England Patriot fans, the game began exactly the way that they wanted.  Tom Brady led the Pats 73 yards down the field on a 9-play drive, capped off by a 2-yard touchdown run by Mike Gillislee.  (Confession time.  Maybe I did have a specific interest in the game.  I picked up Mike Gillislee in my Fantasy Football league a few hours before the game started.)

Then, it was the Kansas City Chiefs’ ball. 

On the very first play from scrimmage, Chiefs Quarterback Alex Smith handed the ball off to rookie Running Back Kareem Hunt.  

Hunt is not what you might call a “top-tier” Running Back.  He was taken by the Chiefs in the 3^rd Round of the Draft, chosen 86^th.  He had a strong college career as a Toledo Rocket, notching 44 touchdowns in 4 years.  But that is not Kareem Hunt’s most impressive statistic.  In 855 touches during his college career at Toledo, 782 rushing attempts and 73 catches, Kareem Hunt did not fumble the ball one single time.  Not once did he juggle the ball so that it came out of his hands.  Not once did the opposing defense reach around the strip the ball.  (One asterisk on this stat:  his freshman year, Hunt attempted one pass and it was intercepted.  He did not attempt another pass his entire college career.  So technically, you could say that he caused a turnover, but it was not a fumble.)

That is, until the first play, of the first game, on the first carry of his NFL career.

Out of the Shotgun formation, Quarterback Alex Smith received the ball and handed it off to Hunt, who ran for 7 yards.  Not a bad run for your first career touch.  Until Patriots Safety Jordan Richards reached around Kareem Hunt and pushed the football out of his hands.

Welcome to the NFL, Kareem.

Stop and think about this for just a second.  You are playing the World Champion New England Patriots on the biggest stage in the world.  The game is on network television being watched by 21.8 million viewers (according to estimates).  You have been waiting your entire life for this one moment, and what do you do?  You fumble the ball and the other team recovers it with outstanding field position.

I literally groaned for Kareem Hunt.  When you have NEVER fumbled the ball EVER, and then on your first carry in the first play of the game, you fumble it?  That is just brutal.

But that is not where the story of Kareem Hunt’s debut ends.

The Chiefs defense did not allow the Patriots to score after Hunt’s fumble, which must have made Hunt breathe a huge sigh of relief.  Then, on the Chiefs next possession, Alex Smith led the team 90 yards on 12 plays for a touchdown, tying the game at 7-7.

And then Kareem Hunt went to work.  By the time the final seconds ticked off the clock, Kareem Hunt had scored 3 touchdowns and racked up 246 yards of total offense, the most by any rookie in his first game in the history of the NFL.  His initial fumble was eclipsed by his jaw-dropping stats.

This, my dear readers, is the definition of an “inspiring sports story.”

The lessons in character and leadership are many.  Hunt’s coaches did not bench him, and Hunt refused to let that one mistake define him.  Instead, he kept grinding forward, not letting his fumble be what people would remember about his first game.

In the end, Hunt was a huge part of the reason that his team upset the World Champions by a final score of 42-27.  A shocked stadium of people shuffled out of Gillette Stadium in stunned silence after watching their home team get shut down before their eyes.  Even Tom Brady said of the defeat, “We had it handed to us on our own field.”  Before the game, sports pundits were discussing whether the Patriots could have an undefeated season.  Now, the headline on ESPN’s website is, “Hunt Historically Great in Debut.”

After two solid weeks of watching hurricane coverage, this was the storyline that I needed.  A hero rising from initial failure.  No doubt there will be more tales of inspiration this NFL season, but this was the best one of Game #1.

Congratulations, Kareem Hunt.  I wish you and the Chiefs all the best this season.  (Except for the two games you play against the Denver Broncos.)  

"Where were you when...?" (A Generational Question)

January 28, 1986

It was the "December 7, 1941" or the "November 22, 1963" or the "September 11, 2001" for my generation.

I did not remember what day of the week that it was.  I had to find it.  That just goes to show what an ordinary, nothing-special kind of day that it was.  (It was a Tuesday, by the way.)  I may not remember the day of the week, but I remember the exact moment that I heard the news.

It was the last semester of my Senior Year at West Orange-Stark High School in Orange, Texas, and I was sitting in Mrs. Gans' 3rd Period Geometry class at about 11:00 a.m.  One of our Assistant Principals, Lenny Dauphine, came over the loud speaker and announced that the "Space Shuttle Challenger has exploded shortly after lift-off."

"Exploded."  It was such a dramatic word.  I remember thinking, "It can't be THAT bad.  Maybe the booster rockets 'exploded,' but the Shuttle?!  Nah."

After class finished, several of us went into Mr. Wills' classroom.  He was my Physics teacher and he had a TV in his classroom.  I stood there with some of my friends and classmates and saw the video for the first time.  What I saw was an "explosion."  I remember clearly one of my female classmates shrieking in horror and running out of the room.  She understood what I still could not fathom:  that there was no way that the seven astronauts on board could have survived.  Even more poignant was the fact that Christa McAuliffe, a school teacher from New Hampshire who was selected from 11,000 applicants, was on board that day.  She was not an astronaut.  She was "one of us."

We stood there in shocked silence watching them replay the video over and over and over again.  Most of us, including me, did not even know that a shuttle was going up that day.  Since the first one had gone up in 1981, shuttle launches had become routine and mundane.  We were all reminded that day that there is nothing "routine" or "mundane" about space travel.

I find myself wondering today, on the 30th anniversary of the Challenger Disaster, why it is that we mark our lives by tragic events.  My grandfather remembered exactly where he was when Pearl Harbor was attacked.  My dad remembers where he was John F. Kennedy was shot and killed in Dallas.  My teenage nieces remember where they were when the World Trade Center Towers fell in New York.  Elders, Boomers, Gen-Xers, and Millenials alike.  We all remember "where we were" when something awful happened.

I am not certain, but I have an idea about why this is.  Senseless, unexpected tragedy causes us to stop and think about how fragile human life really is.  Whether the death is the result of a planned group attack or a lone gunman (moral evil) or caused by a massive hurricane slamming into the Gulf Coast (natural evil), these events make us think to ourselves, "Wow.  If the circumstances had been just a little bit different, that could have been me."  These events make us stop and take a long, hard look at the reality that we are "just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away," as James 4:14 reminds us.  They make us think about what we have and have not done, and what we need to do before our "vapor" vanishes.

But I am also thinking today, on this day that a tragic event marked my generation, that as a follower of Jesus Christ, my life has been marked by another tragic event:  the death of God's Son on a cross.  There were no cameras rolling and no reporters present when that happened.  Just a few family members and close friends weeping as they watched their son, brother, and friend die slowly and painfully.  As a believer in Jesus, I have been changed forever by a tragedy.

Things change after a tragedy.  Pearl Harbor pushed the U.S. into World War II.  JFK's death changed the direction of national policy towards the USSR and Southeast Asia.  The Challenger disaster changed manned spaceflight, even though NASA would live through another disaster in 2003 with the Space Shuttle Columbia.  9/11 drastically changed how we travel and view terrorism in the world.

Things change after a tragedy.  And today, as I remember the awful events of January 28, 1986, I also give thanks for the awful events that occurred on Passover weekend sometime around 29 AD.  The Challenger exploding changed my life, but the Cross changed my eternity.