Tracking for Rings of Power by James Wilson

The film, The Hobbit, opens with a band of wandering dwarves and the wizard – really an angelic being – helping them recover the treasure lost when a marauding dragon destroyed their Kingdom under the Mountain and many loved ones in the wreckage.  Gandalf tells them the essential member of their company is the hobbit named Bilbo Baggins.  Mr. Baggins is what we would call an upper middle class fellow who wants to be left alone to enjoy his pipe and prosperity.  He eats six meals a day – as Hobbits do – and dislikes adventures – they make you late for dinner.  (He likes parties and sporting events – but they don’t make you late for dinner.)  Over the story he learns there is a lot more to him than he ever knew, and a lot more that God has for him – even though God as such is never mentioned in the story.  Tolkien’s Christian faith is the obvious underpinning of the story for those who know anything of either.

            If The Hobbit is about anything it is about the Biblical concept that God’s strength is perfected in human weakness.  When he is asked why he chose Bilbo for the adventure Gandalf says he does not know.  He says the wizard Saruman – the greatest of the order of the Istari or Wise or Angelic Ones – believes it requires the great powers to stand against evil and keep it at bay.  But Saruman himself will be corrupted and go over to the darkness in the Ring epic – because he trusted in power rather than in weakness submitted to the good.  Gandalf believes it is compassion that keeps darkness at bay.  He speaks of Bilbo as one who exercises everyday compassion, and courage.  He says of Bilbo, “I am afraid and he gives me courage.”  From Gandalf, that’s a mouthful.         

            Bilbo does his best to rescue his friends from giant trolls who eat human flesh when the more realistic dwarves throw in the towel – and prevails with a little help from Gandalf.  He steps up to the plate by leaving his own doorway at all, and when he meets the utterly corrupted Gollum in a tunnel beneath a goblin infested mountain because the strong and the wise have already failed.  He finds and stewards the one ring of power.  He will later give it up, though not without an internal struggle.  He sees the head dwarf, Thorin, about to die and stands between him and the goblin about to split him apart – because he can only live with himself if he does. 

It is compassion more than courage that says he knows how badly he wants to return to his own home and so determines to help the dwarves recover theirs.  He spares Gollum out of a compassion he does not understand – because it is a gift – and makes possible by that choice the success of the later and greater quest.  And it will be his appreciation of the little things back home that are so much more important to him than possessing riches that enable him to broker peace between warring peoples in an upcoming film through his personal sacrifice.

Bilbo seems largely unaware of how closely Tolkien’s God walks with him, but readers and filmgoers have every opportunity to see the story for what it is – a parable for our time and an encouragement for our hearts.  Nothing really happens by chance; Bilbo is moved to center stage by gift and by calling.  So are we.  Our world darkens as thoroughly as Middle Earth – and those bullies who call themselves true believers are more dangerous than mercenaries and robber barons.  There are wars and rumors of wars, men calling evil good and good evil, and followers of King Jesus hated by association with the onrush of glory in the authority gained through submission.  Jesus says, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.  Trust in God; trust also in me…And I will do whatever you ask in my Name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father.”

The Hobbit is not about Senator This or President That or General So-n-So, and neither is the Kingdom of God.  It is about raising the dead by being willing to die – to step up to the plate and ask not, “What can I do?” but “What would you do with me?” But that requires repentance – turning about and re-focusing on God in Christ through His own Spirit.  Such weakness offered up brought down the communist empire.  The world doesn’t get that, but we in the Body had better recover it as we approach the celebration of Pentecost.