A Ramble About Losing The Way

 Jesus says to him, “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life; no one comes to the Father if not through Me.”

-John 14:6

“I am the real vine and My Father is the Vinedresser. Every single branch within Me not producing fruit He removes it, and every single branch which produces the fruit He cleans it so that it would produce more fruit. You are already clean because of the message which I had talked to you; make your home within Me, and I within you. Just like the branch can’t produce fruit from itself if it shouldn’t make its home within the vine, in this way neither you if you shouldn’t make your home within Me. I Am the Vine, you are the branches. The person making his home within Me and I within him this person produces a lot of fruit, because separated from Me you absolutely can’t do anything at all. If someone shouldn’t make his home within Me, he was tossed outside like the branch and was dried up and they collect them and toss them into the fire and they are burned.”

-John 15:1-6

“When the Way is lost, there is virtue.

When virtue is lost, there is empathy.

When empathy is lost, there is justice.

When justice is lost, there are rules.

Rules are the beginning of chaos.

When people do not respond, 

they roll up their sleeves and use force.”

-Tao Te Ching, passage 38 (adapted from several translations)

     I’ve started reading a Star Wars novel about “The High Republic” today, and to be very honest, it’s difficult to get through. What bothers me most about reading or partaking in Star Wars stories is that the writers frequently have no understanding of religious orders or monasticism in general. The Jedi are, first and foremost, a religious order devoted to the Force. They take vows of poverty, non-attachment, and commit to obedience to their spiritual masters as they grow in their faith and practice in the Force. Yet in the books and stories, they do not behave like those who have taken religious vows. There is a flippancy, a worldliness, an irreverence about their religion among almost all of them with perhaps the exception of Chirrut Imwe (admittedly not a Jedi, but a Guardian of the Whills and a religious devotee), Master Yoda, and ironically, Darth Vader. Even the character of Maz Kanata in “The Force Awakens” appears to have a deeper reverence for the object of her faith than those who have taken vows to it.

     The reason behind this however is very simple. Most of the time, the writers really don’t have any concept of what religious monks or nuns are actually like, only caricatures, and of course there are no real Jedi to base their stories on (except perhaps the Shaolin monks in China, though their lifestyles and practices appear to have been ignored). A writer can’t convincingly write what they don’t know, and these writers which have been hired don’t know what it means to be a religious.

     As I’ve considered this question however, it has occurred to me that the way the Jedi are portrayed in the High Republic so far is that they have lost “the Way.” They can use the Force, but they are really just people in religious garb with religious rules that everyone secretly despises pretending to be its religious and clergy. They levy the rules upon their adherents, but there is no real devotion or understanding. And as has been discussed many times, their understanding of the Force itself is unbalanced and askew, their rigid doctrines to which they adhere about the Living Force become their downfall as they blind themselves to the full truth of its nature and scope. This is something which Luke tried to explain to Rey in “The Last Jedi.”

     Jesus Christ is the Way. He is both the goal and the means of reaching the goal made a flesh and blood human being. As long as one remains within Him, that person walks the Way effortlessly because the Way walks him. When a person doesn’t remain within Him, he steps off of the Way, and goes wandering, trying to do by effort all the things the Way did through him without effort. But because the Way is not walking him, he cannot walk the Way and devolves to just following rules and forcing everyone else to follow rules. What is worse, if there is no one left to guide that person back onto the Way, no one who knows the Way back, he must grope around on his own like a blind man in the dark. When all are blind men, no one can find the Way.

     The Church in the world today has also lost the Way. Individuals may stumble across Him and hold on for dear life, but the Church Universal has devolved to rules and rituals at worst, and empathy at best. The Way Himself is not walked, and does not walk them because they do not remain in Him. They do not remain in Him, because they are not taught to remain in Him. They are not taught to remain in Him, because their guides were not taught to remain in Him, but were only taught rules and rituals to keep and force on those not even a part of their communities. The Church universal is governed largely by the blind trying to lead the blind with the Light shining all around them which they cannot see because no one knows how. And those guides are frequently, though unintentionally, leading them into pits and ditches.

     When the Church first began, its members were called “Followers of the Way.” It’s time we returned to that simple yet powerful statement about who we are and what we’re about.