Bilbo Baggins is a most unlikely hero. He is short, and a little plump, and loves
nothing more than a quiet day at home, smoking his pipe, having a cup of
tea. This is a protagonist I can
identify with. “He liked visitors, but he liked to
know them before they arrived, and he preferred to ask them.” How I empathize
with Bilbo when 13 uninvited guests tumble in at tea time. In most stories of
epic adventure the hero is not bewildered and bewuthered by something as
ordinary as unexpected guests, or the prospect of running out of seed cakes. Most
unlikely indeed.
For
those of you who haven’t read the book, or who read it many years ago, Gandolf
and all those dwarves are just about to embark on an adventure to reclaim the
mountain that was the dwarves’ ancestral home (and all the treasure therein,
from the dragon that stole it generations ago and who has hoarded it ever
since.) They have come to Bilbo’s hobbit hole to hire him as a burglar.
Gandolf,
the wizard, tells Bilbo: “I am looking for someone to share in an adventure
that I am arranging, and it’s very difficult to find anyone.”
To
which Bilbo replies: “I should think so—in these parts! We are plain quiet folk
and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you
late for dinner! I can’t think what anybody sees in them”...
“We don’t want any adventures here, thank you!
You might try over The Hill or across The Water.” By this he meant that the
conversation was at an end.
I
recognize myself in Bilbo. I love my snug home, I love to have things planned
just so, and if I had to choose between a long adventure into the mountains to
steal gold from a dragon, or a morning curled up with a book infront of the
fire, I feel confident I would respond just as Bilbo did “We don’t want any
adventures here, thank you.”
I
also admit that children’s fantasy fiction is kind of an unlikely text for a worship
service. So I ask you to enter into this text with me as a metaphor for our own
life’s journey, not only physical but also spiritual. Generally speaking folks
tend to build themselves a theological hobbit hole, one that is comfortable and
safe, and settle in for the duration. Religious educator Gerome Berryman calls
this a “theological circle” and there is no reason to venture outside of this
theological circle unless it is broken. There are, he tells us, two ways such a
circle can be opened. One is by tragedy- something happens to us that just
cannot be explained and supported by the theology we have been dwelling inside
of; our circle of beliefs is ruptured. The other is by choice- sometimes we decide
to go on a theological adventure, to consciously open our circle and enter the
wider world.
But Bilbo is right- adventures are
“disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner!” It is counter-intuitive
to leave your comfort zone, whether a cozy hobbit hole or a system of beliefs. It
is inherently disturbing and uncomfortable. Right at the beginning of his
journey, when Bilbo first rushes out to join the dwarves on their adventure, he
has a shocking realization:
“I’m awfully sorry,” said Bilbo, “but I have come
without my hat, and I have left my pocket-handkerchief behind, and I haven’t
got any money. I didn’t get your note until after 10.45 to be precise.”
“Don’t be precise,” said Dwalin, “and don’t worry!
You will have to manage without pocket-handkerchiefs, and a good many other
things, before you get to the journey’s end. “
To go on an adventure
we have to give up not only our metaphoric pocket- handkerchief, but also our
precision, our mastery of the little world we usually inhabit. Adults hate
this. We have worked so hard and long to grow in mastery of our lives, and we
are just not used to being unprepared, being imprecise, being without our tools.
By the end of the first day of
journeying, Tolkein writes that: “just at that moment [Bilbo] felt more tired
than he ever remembered feeling before. He was thinking once again of his
comfortable chair before the fire in his favourite sitting-room in his
hobbit-hole, and of the kettle singing. Not for the last time!” Bilbo, the reluctant hero, gives us a new model for
approaching adventures that tumble in our front door. He illustrates how even
one who loves the quiet life, who would naturally choose bacon and scones over
dragon’s gold any day can still have an adventure. So my thought here this morning is not to
convince you that adventures
are “all pony-rides in May-sunshine” but
to inquire whether an adventure might be worth it, even for respectable
hobbits.
Bilbo
feels something of a fraud as he first sets out with this band of mostly
strangers. He has been hired as a burglar, a job for which he has no
experience. He must, very quickly prove to his party and to himself that he can
do the job he has been hired to do. But
as they encounter trolls, or goblins, or wolves, dark forests, huge spiders or
tall mountains, and eventually a dragon guarding a pile of gold, Bilbo begins
to learn what his talents are- he can be very quiet and stealthy, is clever in
a pinch, and eventually emerges as a leader of the group. By the time they
reach the mountain where the dragon hordes the stolen gold his comrades “had
come to respect little Bilbo. Now he had become the real leader in their
adventure. He had begun to have ideas and plans of his own.” Through their trials, Bilbo finds a role in
this adventure that is truly his own- one that none of his companions could
play.
When
I first read the book, I assumed that, like in most adventure stories, Bilbo
would be the one to slay the dragon (because really, you can’t steal a pile of
gold out from under a dragon who has already destroyed a dwarf stronghold to
get that hoard in the first place). I was quite surprised when it turned out
that (spoiler alert) an archer from the port town across from the mountain aims
the fatal arrow. No, Bilbo’s role is not
that of the usual hero. But when the dwarves and men and elves begin to fight
over the treasure, as is so often the way, it is Bilbo who decides to give up
the valuable “arkenstone” he had stolen from the dragon:
“This
is the Arkenstone of Thrain,” said Bilbo, “the Heart of the Mountain; and it is
also the heart of Thorin. He values it above a river of gold. I give it to you.
It will aid you in your bargaining.” Then Bilbo, not without a shudder, not
without a glance of longing, handed the marvellous stone to Bard, and he held
it in his hand, as though dazed.
Bilbo is willing to give up this
dazzling priceless gem in order to stop the impending battle.
Though
Thorin, king of the dwarves, is initially furious at this duplicity, as faces he
faces his own death, he says to Bilbo: “There is more in you of good than you
know, child of the kindly West. Some courage and some wisdom, blended in
measure. If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it
would be a merrier world.”
This
the crux of the whole thing I think. First, that there is “more in you of good
than you know;” Unitarian Universalists tend to think this is true of each one of
us. We have this great potential for good that often goes untapped. If we
didn’t have to face goblins, spiders, dragons or the very real trials we face in our real,
human lives, we might never have a chance to see that good, that courage, that
wisdom in ourselves.
Moreover,
there are some things in this world that can only be done by the particular person
that we are. In this case those very traits that made Bilbo an unlikely hero,
are the ones that allowed Bilbo his special role in this story; valuing “food
and cheer and song above hoarded gold.”
But
wait, some of you are undoubtedly saying, what about the ring? While the ring
our burglar Bilbo steals from the strange creature Gollum plays only the role
of a useful tool in this book, it is the crux of the whole battle for middle
earth in the “Lord of the Rings” series. In the same way that Bilbo has no idea
of the role this ring will play in the fate of middle earth, when Tolkein wrote
“The Hobbit” in 1932, he had no idea it would become so popular, nor that he
would be asked to write a sequel- the epic story “the Lord of the Rings.” Sometimes our paths are circuitous and
strange. The sparkle we stoop to examine on one adventure (or win in a riddle
contest- depending on which edition you read) can lead to unimaginable future
adventures. Whether you believe in fate or chance, way leads on to way, one journey
leads to another. One adventure can change us, can change the world.
Because the other thing about
adventures, is that when you finally come home again, you are changed:
“It is true that forever after [Bilbo] 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
neighbourhood to be ‘queer’... I am sorry to say he did not mind. He was quite
content; and the sound of the kettle on his hearth was ever after more musical
than it had been even in the quiet days before the Unexpected Party.”
This reminds me of a recent article by my seminary
professor Jeremy Taylor who writes that with
“the dreamer's increasing awareness of the deeper,
non-material sources of meaning and value in waking life, (which is one way of
defining "individuation") … it is not at all unusual to find that
these increasingly conscious understandings lead to less interest in
"small talk" and "cocktail conversation" - that which
lubricates the wheels of social acceptance… This can look like loneliness
and separation from those we are close to in waking life.” Taylor describes an
“archetypal separation which is very often one of the inevitable… consequences
of increasingly successful individuation. At the same time that …[we] celebrate
the achievements and joys of deeper spiritual awareness, they can also remind
the dreamer of a price that such developments so often require - a loss, or at
least a lessening of the "barn warmth" of the "puppy pile."
Perhaps
this is why we gather together these Sunday mornings in religious community.
Because sometimes our adventures, be they physical or spiritual, change us, and
we want to be with others who are willing to engage with us “the
achievements and joys of deeper spiritual awareness.” At its best, this
community is one where even when we return from our adventures changed, we are
still welcomed home.
It
occurred to me as I was watching the new “Hobbit” movie, that the twin tiers
maybe a little like the Shire. It is not often a destination for world
travelers, like Paris or San Francisco. It is not a center of Fashion and
finance like New York City. But I see a little of this congregation in those
words “If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoard gold, it would
be a merrier world.” Though not all of
us can slay the dragon, each of us has a special role to play in the epic stories unfolding in the world right
now: the struggle to preserve wild places and species, the adventure of
defending true democracy, the venture to end hunger, the journey towards ending
oppression. And there are private adventures in our own lives- finding meaning
in tragedy, forgiving betrayal, triumphing over addiction, the journey of
living with authenticity and integrity.
So when the unexpected visitors show up at your door inviting
you to join them in their adventure, consider doing as Rumi suggests and “meet
them at the door laughing and invite them in.”
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