Yoda - Lessons in self-control

With Episode 9 on the horizon I see myself reelecting on many of the characters of the star wars universe, and the story they make. Like many others I grew up watching the original series, even going on to read many of the novels and other material that came out. It became a part of my imagination and a part of who I am. I look at Rise of Skywalker and can't help but feel like this will be a conclusion to something that started even before I was born.

As reflect now, I see in the influence of these characters. Perhaps I see a little too much in it, or maybe It's my biblical study seeping into my movie watching, but I see lessons, ideas and manifestations all over the place. And this is easiest and most powerfully seen in the character of Yoda.

Yoda's journey on it's whole tells the story of a powerful and wise creature who lives for centuries at the height of power in the Jedi order. This is an important part of his background. Yoda never knew failure, not really, not institutional failure. He only knew the height of power. And when the Emperor took control of the galaxy, partially by sing the Jedi for his own gain, Yoda finally sees that failure for what it is, and is pushed into exile. It is there, in exile, reflecting on his years of leadership that Yoda forms his final thoughts on the force and living. These final thoughts are what he passes on the Luke Skywalker.

Yoda sums up his wisdom in this. "Control, control, you must learn control"

Self control is an important Biblical topic as well. With just a quick search you wold find passages like Proverbs 25:28, 1 Timothy 1:7, 2 Peter 3-7, or Titus 2:6-9. Take a quick peak. It is quite obvious that self-control is an important virtue. And this makes sense, all other virtues stem from this. It would be hard to be generous without self control. It's hard to hospitable without self control either. It's hard to pray, or fast, or do pilgrimage without self control. All of these are important, even essential spiritual practices, and at their core is self control.

The real questions become important;

Do I have enough self control? Am I trying hard enough? Can I increase my self control?

Big idea:

If there's one idea that we need to remember about self-control it's the fact that it is not for our benefit. The world we live in seems obsessed with a selfish form of self control. This virtue is turned into something that's about getting what we want, usually around a healthier body, better eating, or being more disciplined with our money. The problem is that this is all about ourselves, which means that the grounding virtue of all our virtues becomes about selfishness, and only what we want for ourselves. Biblically, self control is almost always centered around anger, and the words we use with other people. This is an important flip-around from the selfish to the communal.

When we go through the discussion questions this week, let's focus on this idea of speaking/anger in the idea of self-control.

Discussion questions: (feel free to pick some, or do out of order).
1) How does your self-control affect others?
2) What is an area of self-control that you need to work on? Why?
3) How would you go about increasing your self control in one area, without taking energy away from others? (Remember the habit loop).
4) What Biblical, historical, or modern character do you look to as an example of self-control? Why? How could they help you?