Home

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Matthew 6: 19-21)

“Home is where the heart is,” the old adage says, and since Jesus said that “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also,” it’s no wonder that so many people set such store on finding a home, being at home, going home.

Going home is a theme in The Hobbit that is particularly emphasized in Peter Jackson’s recent movies. There is a pivotal scene in the first film, just after the party's escape from the goblins, in which Bilbo Baggins finally comes to a realization about the nature of the dwarves’ quest. For most of the journey so far, he has been wishing that he had stayed home. He would like nothing better than to be back at Bag End, reading his books and smoking his pipe and eating his second breakfast. However, at the same time that the hobbit is acknowledging his longing for home, he recognizes the same longing in the dwarves, whose hearts lie in the Lonely Mountain alongside their literal treasure. Seeing this common bond between them, movie-Bilbo then pledges to help the dwarves in their quest.

Bilbo’s treasure is simplicity and comfort - a snug house, plenty of food, pathways on which to ramble and books to read by the fire. The dwarves’ treasure is gold and jewels and the strength of a mighty mountain stronghold. Where is your treasure? Is it on earth, where goblin armies can invade and dragons can make their beds out of it? Is it in a far away land where friends and neighbors can auction it off to the highest bidder because they think you will never return? Or is it in heaven, in God’s presence, in the intangibles of love and family and peace and worship that no one can ever take away? Choose wisely and you’ll always have a place to call home.

The Big Picture

This is God’s Word on the subject: “As soon as Babylon’s seventy years are up and not a day before, I’ll show up and take care of you as I promised and bring you back home. I know what I am doing. I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for. (Jeremiah 29:10-11, The Message)

Thirteen dwarves and one hobbit have been wandering around in Mirkwood forest, seemingly in circles. At their wits’ end, the hobbit, one Bilbo Baggins, being the smallest and lightest of the company (as well as the burglar under whose contract such tasks might fall), climbs a tree to try to get a handle on their location and the direction they should go. His head bursts through the leaves at the top of the tree into blessed sunlight and a flock of black butterflies, and as he looks around he sees…

Well, what he sees depends on whether you are watching the movie or reading the book, and out of all the changes and additions that Peter Jackson made when adapting The Hobbit for the big screen, this minor difference in the second film, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, is one of the things that bothered me the most. In the movie, Bilbo becomes excited because he can see the Lonely Mountain in the distance. He can then tell the dwarves the correct direction to go and that they are not far from the edge of the forest. It is a moment of hope after the despair of Mirkwood.

In the book, there is no such hope for Bilbo. It turns out that the tree he climbs happens to be in a low spot and all he can see is more trees on every side, even though they are actually quite close to the edge of the forest and all is not nearly as hopeless as it seems. What Bilbo lacks is the ability to see the big picture at that moment.

While a hopeful scene of seeing the goal and the way out makes you feel better in the midst of the movie drama, I think I like the book version better because it is much closer to how things work in real life. The truth is, we don’t see the big picture when we are suffering or making our way through a difficult situation. In fact, when I wrote about the book scene several years ago during my “blog through The Hobbit,” I too was near the edge of the forest but could not see it from my vantage point. I had spent two years looking for another teaching job with another summer of searching ahead of me but few prospects in sight. The only sign of hope was the sale of my house a few months prior, allowing me to expand my job search parameters, but even with new job listings to watch I didn’t know how much longer it would be. I did not know then that later that summer, I would have an interview with a principal via Skype. I did not know that, having chalked it up as one more interview without a job offer, I would be travelling five hours for a face-to-face interview the next month. I didn’t know that less than a week after that I’d be moving to another state and starting work (barely two days before the students started themselves) and living in a hotel while I tried to get a classroom set up and find an apartment!

So I hope you’ll excuse me if I’m not impressed with the touchy-feely, “oh look, there’s hope!” scene in the movie. I have been in the same position as book-Bilbo, looking around and seeing nothing but trees rising all around me, hoping that maybe the edge of the forest was somewhere just beyond, even though I couldn’t see it. And it turns out, in hindsight, that I was exactly in book-Bilbo’s position, and the edge of the forest was quite close, but the tree I looked from was still down in the valley and not up on the ridge. It turns out that it’s never as hopeless as it seems, for Bilbo or for me. I have learned through my experience that sometimes you can’t see the end, but it doesn’t mean there’s no hope, it just means that you cannot see the whole picture. It means that you have to trust. I pray I may never have to be in the same situation again, but at least now I know that there’s always hope, even in the most hopeless-seeming situations, and I won’t give up just because I can’t see what’s out there.

Mission

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. (Matthew 28:19-20)

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. (Acts 1:8)

Bilbo Baggins’s mission is to break into the dragon-guarded mountain and take back the dwarves’ treasure.

His nephew Frodo’s mission is to carry the One Ring to Mordor and cast it into the fires of Mount Doom to destroy it, and Sauron’s power over Middle Earth along with it.

Ben Kenobi’s mission is to disable the Death Star’s tractor beam so the Millennium Falcon can get away.

Luke Skywalker’s mission is to fly his X-Wing Fighter back to the Death Star and drop a proton torpedo down an exhaust port about the size of a womp rat.

The mission of the starship Enterprise’s crew is “to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.”

What is your mission? Is it to travel to another country on the other side of an ocean to build houses for widows or lead camps for women who have been victims of human trafficking? Is it to go to another state and help with Vacation Bible School for refugee children? Is it simply to be the best likeness of Christ that you can be to the people you interact with as you go about your business in your own city or town?

Where your mission takes you is really beside the point - whether at home, to the ends of the earth, or anywhere in between, it’s all covered by Jesus’s charge to us. What does matter is that you share his love and make disciples wherever you go. That is your mission.

Reputation

Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. (Philippians 3:7-9)

Rarely do people return from long journeys to find they are completely the same as when they left. On his journey There and Back Again, Bilbo Baggins discovers courage, faith, resourcefulness, and friendship. He brings back to Hobbiton a great deal of treasure as well. But after the dust settles and most Hobbits are satisfied that he is not, in fact, dead, and after the auctioned-off furniture is repurchased and his sword is hung over the mantle, there is something else different about him:

Indeed Bilbo found he had lost more than spoons - he had lost his reputation. It is true that for ever after he remained an elf-friend, and had the honour of dwarves, wizards, and all such folk as ever passed that way; but he was no longer quite respectable. He was in fact held by all the hobbits of the neighborhood to be 'queer' - except by his nephews and nieces on the Took side, but even they were not encouraged in their friendship by their elders.

Some people set great store by reputation, both their own and others’. But really, isn’t reputation, like beauty, in the eye of the beholder? Tolkien tells us that in general, Hobbits set great store by being stodgy homebodies, predictable in every way, so by those standards Bilbo has lost his reputation. Yet one Hobbit’s dodgy reputation as one who goes on adventures with dwarves (oh, the horror!) is another person’s set of admirable personality traits, to be admired and emulated.

Paul recognized this as well, and said as much to the Philippians. The things the world values are trash in the eyes of Christ, but if his reputation because of his faith is trashy in the eyes of the world, well, so be it, because the world’s opinion is not the one that really counts. Besides, I rather like the sound of “queer old elf-friend,” don’t you?

Blessed Are The Hobbits

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. (Matthew 5:5-9)

Poor little Bilbo Baggins. He’s a meek little Hobbit with a slightly wild streak that occasionally gets him in trouble, like that time almost a year ago when it caused him to go running after a party of dwarves - without even a pocket handkerchief, mind you - in order to be their burglar. And what was he thinking when he picked up the Arkenstone but kept it to himself and even lied about it, when all along he knew that it was the one thing Thorin was seeking above all else?

In the end, though, we see that he is and always has been a kindly, humble little soul, the peacemaker who tries his best to help end the siege of the Lonely Mountain by offering the Arkenstone as a bargaining chip, even though that makes it worse in the end. And when it ends in battle and death anyway, he is sorry to have been a part of it. “You are a fool, Bilbo Baggins,” he tells himself, “and you made a great mess of that business with the stone; and there was a battle, in spite of all your efforts to buy peace and quiet.”

Despite his own feelings about recent events, Bilbo is lauded as a hero by others, and Bard wants to reward him appropriately with treasure. He is exceedingly relieved, however, that it will not be the one-fourteenth share originally promised him by Thorin. “How on earth should I have got all that treasure home without war and murder all along the way I don’t know. And I don’t know what I should have done with it when I got home,” he says, when the battle is over and the division of spoils finally takes place.

Blessed are the characters like Bilbo Baggins, for they show us what the Beatitudes look like in person. And blessed are we when we recognize these characters and let them be an example to us in how to act and interact with others as we go through the world.

Catastrophic Events

We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28)

In his essay called "On Fairy Stories," Tolkien coined a new word to describe an event at the end of a story that suddenly brings about a good resolution when all hope seems to be lost: eucatastrophe, which literally means "good catastrophe." A eucatastrophe is not the same as deus ex machina – it is an event that, while sometimes implausible or just in the nick of time, nevertheless has been set up earlier in the story and does make sense to the narrative, rather than being something completely new that suddenly appears out of the blue right when help is needed.

Eucatastrophes don't have to be positive events themselves. In fact, by definition it is still a catastrophe, no matter what good comes of it in the end. When we last saw Bilbo, he, Gandalf, Bard and the men of Lake-town, and the Wood-elves were trying to negotiate with Thorin and the dwarves for the portion of the treasure stolen from the men's ancestors. Thorin finally agreed to trade Bilbo's share of the treasure for the Arkenstone, but all sides knew that he had no intention of actually following through on his plan.

Now, the men and elves are besieging the Lonely Mountain fortress and Thorin's cousin Dain has just arrived with reinforcements for the dwarves. Battle between the two sides is now imminent and unavoidable. Into the midst of this tense situation, however, comes word of a more serious threat: Goblins from the Misty Mountains are on their way to avenge the death of the Great Goblin and many others of their compatriots at the hands of Gandalf, Thorin, and company towards the beginning of their journey. Tolkien tells us that "the Goblins were the foes of all, and at their coming all other quarrels were forgotten." Dwarves, men, and elves now band together to face the new threat and vanquish the evil that threatens them all, in the process forgetting what now seem to be petty squabbles.

The coming of the Goblin army is definitely a catastrophe – in the ensuing Battle of Five Armies, many allies' lives are lost (including Thorin's) and the Goblins almost win the day. The end result, however, is that the allies remain friends, compromises are reached, fences are mended, and alliances are strengthened. It is not merely a catastrophe, it is a eucatastrophe because many good things do come out of it.

Everyone experiences catastrophic events in their lives. The key lesson is to remember that God turns catastrophes into eucatastrophes. We may not recognize this until we look back after the fact, but even in the midst of negative circumstances we can still trust God to walk with us and we can have faith that better days are ahead.

Gold Fever

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Matthew 6:19-21)

The dwarves have found their treasure and dragon guarding it has been vanquished. While the men of Lake-town are busy dealing with Smaug and his aftermath, the dwarves are already counting and dividing and dreaming about what they will do with their shares of the gold and jewels. Even little Bilbo is not immune from the sickness – when he happens upon the Arkenstone, a magnificent jewel that belonged to dwarf leader Thorin’s ancestors, he takes it and hides it away, never telling anyone he has it even as he watches Thorin search for it day after day. 

Bilbo is not totally beyond help, though, something which is made apparent even as the dwarves prove right what Paul said about the love of money and the roots of evil. A large company of men come from Lake-town to talk with the dwarves and to reclaim the portion of the dragon hoard that had been stolen from their ancestors who used to live near the Lonely Mountain. They feel that it is only right for the dwarves to grant them this, especially considering the fact that Lake-town was destroyed because they helped the dwarves on their quest and that one of their number was responsible for Smaug’s death. The dwarves, unwilling to concede, barricade themselves inside the mountain and refuse to talk with the men or come to any kind of compromise. Seeing that the dwarves are hell-bent on bringing about their own destruction, whether through battle or being besieged, the little hobbit takes his burgled treasure and slips unseen to the camp of the men. He presents the Arkenstone to them as a bargaining chip in their negotiations with stubborn Thorin.

Thorin is incensed at the idea of trading the men’s treasure for the jewel, however – why should he have to pay for what is rightly his? He is even angrier when he discovers that it is the betrayal of Bilbo that has put the stone in the men’s hands. At this point, knowing that he was wrong to take the Arkenstone to begin with, Bilbo takes the high road in the situation and attempts to make amends – he asks that the jewel be considered his 1/14 share of the treasure, which he will then trade for a share of the gold and other treasures. Then, he will give his share to the men, keeping nothing for himself, because as much as he covets the Arkenstone, he values more his own wellbeing and peaceful relations between all parties involved.

Like Bilbo, we don’t always do what is right, and we become overly possessive of things instead of keeping our eyes on God. At some point, however, we can make the choice to continue to be like Bilbo and find ways to compromise and to make peace with others, turning our eyes back to friendship and harmony – the kinds of treasures that won’t rust and can’t be taken from us by thieves, dragons, or dwarves.

Count Your Blessings

O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever. (Psalm 107:1)

While the dwarves explore the vacant (for now) lair of Smaug the dragon and begin to inventory the treasure therein, the people of Lake-town are having a different experience altogether, bearing the brunt of the dragon's anger towards the invaders of the Lonely Mountain. Smaug is killed, but not without great cost to the townsfolk. Tolkien describes the aftermath thus:

The waxing moon rose higher and higher and the wind grew loud and cold. It twisted the white fog into bending pillars and hurrying clouds and drove it off to the West to scatter in tattered shreds over the marshes before Mirkwood. Then the many boats could be seen dotted dark on the surface of the lake, and down the wind came the voices of the people of Esgaroth lamenting their lost town and goods and ruined houses. But they had really much to be thankful for, had they thought of it, though it could hardly be expected that they should just then: three quarters of the people of the town had at least escaped alive; their woods and fields and pastures and cattle and most of their boats remained undamaged; and the dragon was dead. What that meant they had not yet realized. (Chapter 14)

This passage reminds me of a recent Sunday School lesson on the Israelites, who often seemed less than grateful for their new-found freedom from slavery as they wandered in the desert. Many times they questioned Moses's leadership and complained that he had brought them out of Egypt just to die in the wilderness – it was better when they were slaves because at least then they had plenty of food to eat and water to drink. It didn't seem to matter that God had helped them escape from the Egyptians at the Red Sea, and given them manna and quail to eat, and water from rocks, providing for them every time they needed something.

We're not much different sometimes. Overwhelmingly negative circumstances can distract us from acknowledging the ways that God continues to take care of us and provide the things we need most. May we be ever mindful of God's providence, both when times are good and when times are bad, so that no matter what happens we can recognize and be thankful for what we have.

Still, Small Voices

He said, "Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by." Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" (1 Kings 19:11-13)

While the dwarves have been exploring Smaug's treasure hoard, things have been much different and much worse for the people of Lake-town. Not able to catch the dwarves hiding in the tunnel, the dragon turns his wrath on the men living on the lake because he knows they had to have a part in helping the invaders of his lair. The buildings are on fire and people are running for their lives, frantic to escape the fiery beast that is bringing terror and destruction upon them. In the midst of the chaos, one man continues to shoot arrows at Smaug, seemingly in vain, even after all the other defenders have given up and fled for their lives. His name is Bard, and just before he lets loose his last arrow, a small bird lands on his shoulder and tells him everything that he has overheard the dwarves and Bilbo discussing, including where to find the one tiny place on Smaug's chest where he is missing a scale. On the dragon's next pass over the town, Bard waits, spots the vulnerable place, aims carefully, and shoots, successfully vanquishing the dragon once and for all.

Bard didn't learn of Smaug's weak spot from a scholarly book on the subject of dragon-killing, and there was no military commander barking out the order to shoot his arrows. Help came from the wise words of an unlikely messenger – a little bird perched on his shoulder. Furthermore, he didn't shoo away the creature or dismiss its words because of its seeming insignificance but took its words to heart and was successful as a result. May we, too, remember to listen for the still, small voice, and pay attention to the unlikely messengers that God sends our way to help us defeat our monsters or just find our way along the journey.

Darkness and Light

The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? (Psalm 27:1)

Thanks to several carefully-placed blows of Smaug's tail, the dwarves can no longer use the secret door to exit the Lonely Mountain. To pass the time, they decide to accompany Bilbo on his next trip down the tunnel to the dragon's lair. Smaug is still not at home, so they decide to explore a bit, but not without sending the burglar out first, of course. Bilbo takes a torch with him, and the dwarves watch as the light becomes smaller and smaller, marking the hobbit's progress farther and farther into the vast hall. 

Suddenly a bat flies close to Bilbo's head, causing him to drop the torch. Alone in the darkness, Bilbo calls for help:

"'Thorin! Balin! Oin! Gloin! Fili! Kili!' he cried as loud as he could – it seemed a thin little noise in the wide blackness. 'The light's gone out! Someone come and find me and help me!' For the moment his courage had failed altogether."

Help arrives fairly quickly, of course. Once he sees the light of the dwarves' torches across the room, Bilbo's courage returns and he starts towards them, meeting them before they have come very far along the wall.

There are many situations that can cause us to feel that we are all alone, just a tiny speck in the vast darkness. Thank goodness for the light that takes away our fears and comforts us in the blackest of situations, and thank goodness for the friends who sometimes serve as the bringers of that light, reminding us that we are not alone after all.

Pay Attention to the Map

All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16-17)

We arrive at last at the goal, the imposing and threatening Lonely Mountain. It stands alone above a desolate landscape, where no one dares live, not even most animals. Where the grand front gates of the dwarven halls once stood, threatening smoke now escapes along with foul-looking water. The dwarves' party now begins to search the side of the mountain for the secret door indicated on the map. Having found it, however, they are so eager to get it open that they promptly forget everything else:

"In the meanwhile some of them explored the ledge beyond the opening and found a path that led higher and higher on to the mountain; but they did not dare to venture very far that way, nor was there much use in it….The others who were busy with the secret of the door had no more success. They were too eager to trouble about the runes or the moon-letters, but tried without resting to discover where exactly in the smooth face of the rock the door was hidden. They had brought picks and tools of many sorts from Lake-town, and at first they tried to use these. But when they struck the stone the handles splintered and jarred their arms cruelly, and the steel heads broke or bent like lead. Mining work, they saw clearly, was no good against the magic that had shut this door."

Earlier in the same chapter, we learned that upon getting closer to their goal the dwarves began to lose most of the enthusiasm for the quest that they had displayed in Lake-town. "Now strange to say Mr. Baggins had more than the others. He would often borrow Thorin's map and gaze at it, pondering over the runes and the message of the moon-letters Elrond had read. It was he that made the dwarves begin the dangerous search on the western slopes for the secret door." In the midst of the many unsuccessful attempts to open the door, it is Bilbo again who sees the thrush knocking snails against the rocks to crack their shells and makes the connection with the map's clues.

We all become over-eager in the pursuit of our goals sometimes, and we stop paying attention to things we have learned in the past, things that just might make the task easier if we'd only listen. Like Bilbo's study of the map, however, taking the time to pray, reflect, and study the Bible means that we will be more likely to recognize the cues and remember what we have been taught in time for that information to be useful on the journey.

Pleasant Legends

But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour. (Matthew 24:43-44)

Lake Town is a thriving, bustling marketplace. It is the successor to an earlier town built on the shores of the Long Lake but destroyed years ago, when Smaug came and took over the Lonely Mountain, driving the dwarves away (those who survived, that is). Although the dragon occasionally ventures out to wreak havoc among the men on the lake shore, most of the time they give little thought to history and its implications. Tolkien describes the scene thus:

"But men remembered little of all that, though some still sang old songs of the dwarf-kings of the Mountain, Thror and Thrain of the race of Durin, and of the coming of the Dragon, and the fall of the lords of Dale. Some sang too that Thror and Thrain would come back one day and gold would flow in rivers, through the mountain-gates, and all that land would be filled with new song and new laughter. But this pleasant legend did not much affect their daily business."

Little do they know that Thorin, son of Thrain and grandson of Thror, is about to enter their town and declare his intentions to reclaim the dwarves' treasure, and that their pleasant legends are about to become very real.

How many of us generally regard some of the more difficult teachings of the Bible, such as Jesus's second coming, as "pleasant legends," things that seem even more remote now, two millennia on? I suspect that most people would be as surprised as the citizens of Lake Town if Jesus were to walk into our churches today. I suspect also that most people would react as the lake men did, as well, thinking the visitor to be a fraud or impostor. How would we determine if he's who he says he is? How would we prepare ourselves for something that he has already told us would be unexpected?

On the other hand, he also told us that "the kingdom of God is among you" (Luke 17:21) and "just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me" (Matthew 25:40). Maybe instead of worrying about when he may come back, we act like he is already here.

Pruning and Growth

I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. (John 15:1-2)

At the beginning of the dwarves' incarceration at the hands of the Wood-elves, Bilbo is unsure of his ability to rescue them and longs for the help, or at least the advice, of the wizard Gandalf. However, "he soon realized that if anything was to be done, it would have to be done by Mr. Baggins, alone and unaided." And indeed, the hobbit is eventually able to put together a successful plan to rescue his companions.

Wearing his ring to stay invisible, Bilbo watches and waits and explores until he finally sees a possible solution to their plight. He then he creeps from cell to cell in the elves' dungeon, spreading the word to his incarcerated companions. Tolkien tells us that "the other dwarves quite agreed when they got the message….they all trusted Bilbo. Just what Gandalf had said would happen, you see. Perhaps that was part of his reason for going off and leaving them."

Just like many plants bear more fruit when they are pruned, people often grow more in hard times and through difficult situations. Gandalf knew that Bilbo would never step up and reach his full potential as a burglar and trusted traveling companion if he was always there to rescue them and get them out of sticky situations, and I believe God is the same. I think that sometimes we need to look for his answers through the gifts, spiritual and otherwise, that he has already given us, instead of waiting for things to magically change without any effort on our part. If sometimes God feels absent, maybe he has just stepped back in order to teach us faith and trust – perhaps sometimes that's his way of pruning away the old fears and insecurities that keep us from reaching our full potential. It's not pleasant, but it's the only way that we'll grow.

Who, Me?

I can do all things through him who strengthens me. (Philippians 4:13)

When we last saw Bilbo and the dwarves, they were in trouble because they followed their own desires and left the one path through Mirkwood that would get them to the other side. The end result of all the escapades with disappearing elf feasts and hungry spiders is that all of the dwarves are captured by the elves and imprisoned in the dungeon of the Wood-elves' king. Thanks to his magic ring, Bilbo is able to creep about the king's stronghold somewhat freely, but that has its limits as well. In moments of particular desperation, he longs for help from Gandalf, although he knows that it is not possible to get a message to him about their plight. Even if he could send the wizard a message, Bilbo knows, there is no guarantee that Gandalf would be able to come to their aid, busy as he is with a dangerous mission of his own. Thirteen dwarves are depending on him for rescue, but even though "he sat and thought and thought, until his head nearly burst…no bright idea would come."

After days on end of wandering invisibly through elven halls and observing their habits, routines, and conversations, the burglar finally figures out a way to break out of the place, and with a little luck, the plan actually works! Bilbo discovers that sometimes when you pray for something – someone to help get you out of a tough situation, for example – you have to be prepared to find out that you are the answer to that prayer.

No Water, No Food After Midnight, and STAY ON THE PATH

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. (Proverbs 3:5-6)

When I started blogging my way through The Hobbit a few months ago, I had no idea that I would be referencing it in the same post with the movie Gremlins. It turns out, however, that the two stories have something in common, in that major events are instigated when characters fail to follow instructions. 

As any child of the 80's can tell you, the three rules of owning a Mogwai are to keep it out of the light, never get it wet, and never feed it after midnight. By a series of unfortunate accidents, two of the rules are broken and one cute little furry critter becomes a pack of evil, destructive monsters that ruin Christmas for the town of Kingston Falls. 

As for The Hobbit, many days and a series of unfortunate events have befallen Bilbo and the dwarves since they left the refuge of Beorn's house, and when their food and water supplies run out, so does their memory of the shape-shifter's most important piece of advice: Stay On The Path. It is so important that Gandalf reminds them of it several more times before he leaves them to take care of other business – in fact, "DON'T LEAVE THE PATH" is the last thing they hear him say as he gallops away. 

They have little trouble following directions at first, but after days and days of walking down the oppressively dark and gloomy path, their food and patience run out. It is no wonder, therefore, that they are sorely tempted when the lights and sounds of elven feasting appear in the trees just off of the trail. Although they have been warned that to leave the road may result in being lost forever in the forest, their focus on their empty stomachs leads to an inability to resist the temptation of food so close by. 

Of course, when they try to crash the elves' party, the lights go out and some of them even fall into an enchanted sleep. When the lights appear two more times later in the night, they try again with similar results, but their desire for food has completely overcome common sense at this point and they take no notice of cause and effect. In the end, they not only fail to get dinner, but they find themselves hanging from the trees wrapped in spider silk, about to become dinner. 

Often, the instructions we are given are just as simple and straightforward: Have no other gods before me; Honor your father and mother; Do not murder; Do not covet your neighbor's possessions; Love the Lord Your God with all your heart, mind, and strength; Love your neighbor as yourself; Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Why, then, is it so hard to follow them sometimes? I think that ultimately, much depends on how focused we are on our goals – the better the focus, the less likely we are to let temptations and other distractions lead us off the path. And how to do we improve our focus and learn to resist temptations? By doing just what pastors and Sunday School teachers have been telling us for years: spend time in prayer, Bible study, and worship, getting to know the One who helps us and sustains us through all the places our paths go.

Hopeless

The thought of my affliction and my homelessness is wormwood and gall! My soul continually thinks of it and is bowed down within me. But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. (Lamentation 3:19-23)

Bilbo and his companions have been traveling on the dark path through Mirkwood Forest for days on end and their supplies of food and water are starting to run low. When Bilbo climbs a tree to try to see above the forest, all he sees are the tops of trees stretching endlessly in all directions. The dwarves hear the sounds of a hunting party in the woods nearby and several white deer run across their path, but they waste their last arrows in an unsuccessful attempt to bring them down. To make matters worse, when the first deer jumps over the black stream, it causes Bombur to fall in, after which the dwarves must carry his sleeping form until the enchantment wears off.

Tolkien describes their mood thus: "They were a gloomy party that night, and the gloom gathered still deeper on them in the following days. They had crossed the enchanted stream; but beyond it the path seemed to straggle on just as before, and in the forest they could see no change." Things are not as bad as they seem, however. Bilbo didn't know that when he climbed the tree, they were in a low spot, and if he had climbed a different tree closer to the top of the bowl, he could have seen that they were nearing the edge of the forest. The dwarves don't think very hard about their run-in with the white deer, either, but we find out that "if they had known more about it and considered the meaning of the hunt and the white deer that had appeared upon their path, they would have known that they were at last drawing towards the eastern edge, and would soon have come, if they could have kept up their courage and their hope, to thinner trees and places where the sunlight came again."

The problem, as Tolkien so aptly shows us, is that we don't always know important information when we are in the midst of a difficult situation. Lacking that information, we don't pay attention to the signs we do get that things are about to improve, or else we can't fully interpret those signs as harbingers of better things to come. It's no wonder that we, like the dwarves in Mirkwood, become gloomy and discouraged and hopeless when the way becomes dark and seemingly endless. We must remember that we don't have all the information right now, and that things may not be as hopeless as they seem. We must pay attention to the little things that can give us clues to better times ahead. Above all, we must trust God and remain hopeful as we remember the above words of Jeremiah that continue to remain true to this day.

Sanctuary

Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the Lord….It is a sign forever between me and the people of Israel that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed.
(Exodus 31:15, 17)

Early on in The Hobbit, Bilbo, Gandalf, and the Dwarves spend some time at Rivendell, the "Last Homely House" on the edge of the wilderness. They stay there for a number of days, during which time they regain their strength and receive from Elrond help in interpreting Thorin's map of the Lonely Mountain and advice on the best route through the Misty Mountains. When they leave, they are rested and re-supplied, ready for the next portion of their journey. 

After Rivendell, the travelers face their toughest challenges thus far, involving goblins, wargs, and several very narrow escapes. They are rescued from certain death by the eagles, who then provide them with transportation a little bit farther down their path. They have lost their supplies, however, and are hungry and discouraged when Gandalf leads them to the home of Beorn, the fearsome shape-shifter who is sometimes a man and sometimes a bear. As in Rivendell, they are welcomed, fed, given soft beds to sleep in, and allowed to stay a few days to rest. Before they leave, they are given food, water skins, bows and arrows for hunting, and ponies to carry them and their supplies, at least a little ways. Like Elrond, Beorn gives them wise counsel about the best way to get through the forest of Mirkwood and warnings about the dangers they may encounter within. 

Without these two important rest stops along the way, the dwarves would never have made it all the way to the Lonely Mountain to finish their quest. There are similar waypoints along the Christian journey, known as Sundays. When we gather as the Church for worship, study, and fellowship, we experience rest from the everyday grind and renewal of the spirit, and if we pay attention, we might also hear God's advice for living. It is possible, I suppose, to go through life alone, relying only on God, but it is much more fulfilling and enjoyable when we take advantage of His rest stops.

I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends

No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. (John 15:13)

Bilbo and the dwarves have just jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire – they escaped the goblins and their tunnels under the mountains only to find themselves in the very clearing in the woods used as a meeting spot by the evil wolves known as Wargs. The dwarves and Gandalf manage to scramble up into the trees, but even the lowest branches are too high for poor Bilbo to reach. Things are looking grim for the little burglar, who is running around the clearing in a panic as the Wargs' howls come nearer and nearer.

Finally, Thorin orders Dori to help Bilbo, since he is sitting in the tree with the lowest branches. When Bilbo still can't reach Dori's outstretched arm, though, the dwarf climbs down from the tree to help him:

"Just at that moment the wolves trotted howling into the clearing. All of a sudden there were hundreds of eyes looking at them. Still Dori did not let Bilbo down. He waited till he had clambered off his shoulders into the branches, and then he jumped for the branches himself. Only just in time! A wolf snapped at his cloak as he swung up, and nearly got him. In a minute there was a whole pack of them yelping all round the tree and leaping up at the trunk, with eyes blazing and tongues hanging out."

Of course, in the verse quoted above, Jesus was referring to himself and the sacrifice he would soon be making on the cross for his friends there with him and those to follow. Still, it applies to dwarves and hobbits and the rest of us, too. Do I have a friend I love so much that I'd die for him or her? I'm not sure. I guess no one really knows until he or she is in a life-threatening situation. I do know that I have a Friend who gave everything for me, and it is an overwhelming thing to contemplate.

Mercy

But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, therefore, even as your Father is merciful. (Luke 6:35-36)

Bilbo has just finished his encounter with Gollum, the strange creature that lives in the middle of the lake under the mountain. They fought each other, in the form of a battle of wits: the famous Riddle Game, which Bilbo wins by a fluke – how could Gollum know the contents of Bilbo's pockets, anyway? Fair or not, Gollum has promised to show Bilbo the way out of the Goblin tunnels, but before he does that, he returns to his island nest to get something. When his "precious" is not there, he begins to suspect that he does indeed know what's in Bilbo's pocketses, and he becomes angry and starts raving about what he will do to Bilbo when he catches him. Thinking that Bilbo already knew the way out and was tricking him all along, Gollum proceeds to unknowingly lead Bilbo to the back door and camps out at the tunnel entrance in hopes of catching the hobbit. Bilbo, wearing the magic ring and therefore invisible even to Gollum's excellent night vision, is confronted with a choice:


"Bilbo almost stopped breathing, and went stiff himself. He was desperate. He must get away, out of this horrible darkness, while he had any strength left. He must fight. He must stab the foul thing, put its eyes out, kill it. It meant to kill him. No, not a fair fight. He was invisible now. Gollum had no sword. Gollum had not actually threatened to kill him, or tried to yet. And he was miserable, alone, lost. A sudden understanding, a pity mixed with horror, welled up in Bilbo's heart: a glimpse of endless unmarked days without light or hope of betterment, hard stone, cold fish, sneaking and whispering. All these thoughts passed in a flash of a second. He trembled. And then quite suddenly in another flash, as if lifted by a new strength and resolve, he leaped."

Bilbo could have put an end to a threat then and there, but such violence was not in the gentle hobbit's nature. Instead, he puts himself in Gollum's shoes and imagines how horrible it must be to live the way that Gollum does. He has mercy on the poor, wretched creature and jumps over him instead of killing him.

Do we do the same with the poor, wretched people we come across? Do we try to imagine what their lives are like and show them mercy, or do we judge them according to what we see on the outside? We should remember how we are shown mercy by God in our times of wretchedness. We should then resolve, like Bilbo, to take a leap of mercy; indeed, we should go even farther and instead of merely not hurting, we should do what we can to help.

Just Keep Swimming…

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:1-2)

The dwarves managed to escape from their goblin captors, but their freedom turns out to be short-lived. Bilbo is getting a piggy-back ride from one of the dwarves so that his short legs don't slow them down, and when the goblins catch up with them again and his ride is captured, he falls off and rolls to the side of the passageway, unnoticed. When he awakes, he finds himself in pitch-darkness and unsure of the way he should go. After some moments of panic, he manages to take stock of his situation and finds, to his comfort, that he is still intact and that he still has his sword that glows when goblins are near. This calms him and allows him to better assess his situation:

"'Go back?' he thought. 'No good at all! Go sideways? Impossible! Go forward? Only thing to do! On we go!' So up he got, and trotted along with his little sword held in front of him and one hand feeling the wall, and his heart all of a patter and a pitter."

Sometimes, it's hard to see where we are going. It feels like we're lost in the dark and may never reach our destination. The only thing to do in this situation is to persevere, to keep going forward, knowing that we are not alone and that sitting still is the quickest way not to get anywhere at all. We must pick ourselves up, reach for the One that will guide us, and head out. If we have a magic sword to lead with, or even a silly little ditty from a Disney cartoon to cheer us, so much the better!