Across the Pastor’s Desk

By The Rev. Todd Walsh, Grace Lutheran Church

Star Trek was my favorite show as a kid. I was six years old when the series began in the fall of 1966. I do remember one of the first run episodes because it scared the anti-matter out of me. It was the one when Kirk is taken to a barren planet to fight the Gorn captain, the actor in the lizard suit. I liked the action-adventure. I liked the science fiction. I liked the special effects, especially the Enterprise itself. When I learned that the Enterprise model from the original series was on display at the Smithsonian, I couldn’t wait to see it and it was years before I visited Washington, D.C. I walked right past the Apollo 11 capsule, the Spirit of St. Louis and all the other wonders of National Air and Space Museum and made a direct course for the Enterprise!

Once I hit high school and college, I took in the reruns with religious fervor. And I noticed something. Star Trek was not just science fiction. It was commentary on society and quite often criticism of society. In the language of my business, Star Trek was parables.

I started reading about the show. I learned that a Los Angeles police officer-turned-writer named Gene Roddenberry dreamed up the show as early as the late 1950’s. Roddenberry’s goal was indeed to comment on the ills of society and point to another way. He based Star Trek on two principles: humanity is gifted with the ability to solve its problems and the future of humanity is hopeful. Roddenberry believed that those gifts and hope came from beyond ourselves.

A quote from Gene Roddenberry (and pardon the 1960’s gender specific language): “Intolerance in the 23rd century? Improbable. If man survives that long, he will have learned to take a delight in the essential differences between men and between cultures. He will learn that differences in ideas and attitudes are a delight, part of life’s exciting variety, not something to fear. It’s a manifestation of the greatness that God, or whatever it is, gave us. This infinite variation and delight, this is part of the optimism we built into Star Trek” from “The Making of Star Trek.”

There is one Star Trek story that I would like to share with you. One of the original episodes hints at it when we meet the Zephram Cochrane, the developer of faster than light travel. The 1995 movie First Contact takes up the subject again but changes the story. The gist of it is this. Mid-21st century Earth is recovering from the Third World War. Cochrane develops faster than light travel and that gets the attention of the Vulcans who become the first alien race to contact Earth.

The realization that human beings are not alone in the universe changes everything. And faster than light travel makes possible contact with other alien races. Humanity learns that it must get along with more advanced alien races and humanity must get along with itself or go nowhere. The rest is Star Trek.

Now, let’s get back to reality and consider this story. So humanity gets its act together when it realizes, “We are not alone.” Has not that already happened? And what are we waiting for?

Have we not been contacted by someone greater than ourselves? His name is Jesus. And has he not shown us that there is another way to live? “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30).

I hope you will agree that my parable is simplistic. I hope you will also agree there is a ring of truth to it for your life.

The latest Star Trek movie contains a line that could have come right out of the original series’ writers guide. The venerable second commander of the Enterprise, Captain Pike, says to the young and rebellious James Kirk, “I dare you to do better.”

According to the latest Star Trek timeline, we have 53 more years before humanity gets its act together. The Bible offers us a better timeline: “For he says, ‘At an acceptable time I have listened to you, and on a day of salvation I have helped you.’ See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation!” (2 Corinthians 6:2).