First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans
Sunday, August 24, 2008
This morning we close our series of sermons on Uncommon Gospels -- the hidden or not-so-hidden messages that can be discerned in some unlikely places, from a wildly popular series of books ostensibly for young readers but avidly read by all ages, to an old and beloved children’s tale to a biting animated TV satire. We conclude today by looking at the spirituality and ethos of J. R. R. Tolkien’s trilogy Lord of the Rings.
We have chosen the title of this series advisedly. We use the word “gospel” for several reasons. First, the word can be provoking and irritating to some religious liberals, and I’ll confess that we Unitarian Universalist ministers like to be provocative (if not irritating) at least some of the time. A sermon that does not provoke somebody is not much of a sermon. Second, it is good for UUs to reclaim what UUA President Bill Sinkford has called “a language of reverence,” to use traditional religious vocabulary in our own way and not just rely on secular terms. (After all, “gospel” only means “good news.”) Third, utilizing the word “gospel” reminds us that in our Unitarian Universalist heritage and enshrined in our Principles is the affirmation that revelation, or truth, can be found in many times and places.
This morning’s examination of Lord of the Rings brings us to the most difficult message of all the gospels we’ve seen so far, the most multifaceted perspective on the deepest challenges of the human condition, and thus perhaps the one most suited to what is going on in our city and our world today.
The first book of Tolkien’s masterpiece trilogy was published in the U. S. on October 21, 1954, arriving, as C. S. Lewis proclaimed, “like lightning from a clear sky.” Fifty years and over 100 million American readers later, comes Peter Jackson’s epic movie trilogy, reigniting interest in this engrossing story of giant malevolent forces being fought by a ragtag band of brothers of different backgrounds. (The Two Towers was broadcast on TNT last night, but I didn’t know that when I scheduled this sermon.) Whether as books or as cinema, what we have is an old-fashioned tale of good versus evil, another in a long, long line of “the great tales” as the hobbit Sam calls them.
But if that were all there was to say about Lord of the Rings there would not have been so much attention paid over this half-century, nor would there be much point in a devoting a sermon to its themes and underlying theology. Rather than just another good ol’ story, Lord of the Rings can be seen as another installment in what Ralph Wood, professor at Baylor University, calls The One Great Story.
The One Great Story is the one inside of or behind all the world’s great religions; its plot revolves around the deepest, most profound questions and conundrums of human existence, questions like:
•Where does hope come from, and how can it be sustained in the face of loss, defeat, suffering, pain, illness, and death?
•What is the best, most human and humane way to stand up to evil and despair?
•What do we do about those whose selfishness, greed, cowardice, malevolence, or even carelessness causes great harm and destruction? How should we treat those who have wounded us?
These are eternal human questions, but they are perhaps most germane to New Orleanians, still suffering from great loss and destruction caused by human carelessness and malfeasance, but also to all Americans, as our country engages in close to 7 years of the so-called War on Terror. The answers that are given in Lord of the Rings are not only surprising, they are antithetical to the messages of our time and culture.
For us as religious liberals, this is as it should be. Any religion that merely parrots and affirms the culture and time in which it is embedded is false, an idolatry of the present and the status quo that is both unwarranted and unearned. The function of any real religion, and I would say especially Unitarian Universalism, is to stand somewhat outside of its culture, and offer the sincere critique that arises from deep spiritual principles and religious convictions. It is not the job of religion to say that things are fine, that God is on “our” side – it is the job of religion to point out how things fall short of the Ideal, how our situation could be made better. True religion urges, cajoles, inspires, and even demands that we come together to make it so. You might say, as one prominent UU minister did years ago, that it is the duty of religion to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.
It is paradoxical that in Lord of the Rings, as in our own lives, hope comes not from a sense of control, nor from knowing in advance the outcome and being assured of ultimate success or victory – neither of which, of course, we humans CAN have – but ironically from an acceptance of our relative powerlessness and ignorance in the greater scheme of the Universe, and a realization that in the end goodness and well-being lie beyond the reach of the forces and persons attempting to thwart them.
The character of Sam, whom we first meet as a rather dim-witted country bumpkin hobbit, emerges as the cycle of stories goes on, as a kind of moral center. It is Sam and Sam alone who never falters or strays, never covets the ring and vaunted powers, who never wants to give up and never once betrays the trust placed in him. So it is fitting that it is Sam who first shows us this quality of hope-against-hope, the hope that goes beyond present circumstance, however dire, to look toward Goodness as an ultimate and final reality. Near the end of the journey, deep within Mordor, Frodo sinks into an exhausted sleep, and Sam is alone in the night, watching the single unblinking star over the unholy mountain of Sauron.
The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty forever beyond its reach…Now, for a moment, his own fate, and even his master’s, ceased to trouble him. He crawled back into the brambles and laid himself by Frodo’s side, and putting away all fear he cast himself into a deep and untroubled sleep.
It is worth noting that up to this point, Sam has never allowed himself to sleep while Frodo slept. His deep inner conviction of the ultimate triumph of hope over despair, light over darkness, goodness over evil – even if he and Frodo fail in their mission – allows him for the first time to relax his vigilance and go peacefully to sleep.
Transcendent hope is also found in the character Aragorn, as he prepares for what he believes will almost certainly be death in the battle against Sauron and Sarumon. He says to Arwen, his love, the Elven Queen:
In sorrow we must go, but not in despair. Behold! We are not bound forever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory. Farewell!
The hope exemplified by Sam and Aragorn, as well as by Frodo and Gandalf, is, despite the fantastic elements of the story, rooted in something concrete and real – the fellowship forged by the 9 friends with the disparate backgrounds and life experiences. In all 3 volumes of the trilogy, the emphasis is not on individual strength and courage and power and heroism, but on the authority and sway of a diverse gathered community, bound by a shared vision and mission and purpose. Above all things, Lord of the Rings is not a standard hero’s tale, for neither Frodo the Ring Bearer nor even Aragorn the King is the sole hero, the kind of solitary rugged individual who wins the day through his own merits. Instead, from the very beginning of the stories, we see that dwarves and elves and wizards and high- and low-born humans and high- and low-born hobbits (for apparently even hobbits are divided by social class) do not usually hang out and socialize together, much less form common cause against a great evil – and yet they DO, overcoming petty differences and serious conflicts to forge a fellowship that will share and surrender, even giving up their lives for each other and their cause. The message is clear: against great odds, alone you would almost certainly fail miserably, but in community you not only might have a better chance of success, but you will also be deepened and strengthened as a person – as happens to each member of the Ring Fellowship.
One of the most important teaching moments comes when Frodo learns from the wizard Gandalf the story of how his uncle Bilbo, the central character in The Hobbit, the adventure that begins the Ring cycle, struggled with the treacherous Gollum over the ring of power. Why, asks Frodo, did Bilbo take pity and not kill Gollum when he had the chance, since Gollum surely “deserves death.” Gandalf answers with a speech that is the moral and religious heart of the entire epic:
Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. For even the wise cannot see all ends. I have not much hope that Gollum can be cured before he dies, but there is a chance of it…My heart tells me that he has some part to play yet, for good or ill, before the end; and when the end comes, the pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many – yours not least.
In The Gospel According to Tolkien, Professor Wood comments,
Frodo is in danger, Gandalf sees, of committing the subtlest and deadliest of all sins – self-righteousness. Self-righteousness convinces us that we alone are completely right and others are completely wrong, that we alone are in possession of all the facts, that we are in control, that we know best how to judge matters of good and evil, life and death. Gandalf’s warning is well taken by all of us born without superpowers and without divine omniscience.
Frodo gradually comes to the understanding that mercy and pity are the qualities that raise life above the endless circle of injury and revenge. When Saruman is finally captured and virtually courts death by scorning and goading his captors, Frodo firmly rejects that option, saying compassionately: “Do not kill him even now…He is fallen, and his cure is beyond us; but I would still spare him, in the hope that he may find it” – words worthy of our Universalist ancestors. Gollum may well deserve death, and Saruman too, but they will not be executed by the men of the Fellowship. The point seems to be that to deny even the slimmest chance of redemption to such as these is to deny it to ourselves – fragile, finite, and fallible as we are. Mercy and pity are what make us humane as well as human. It is not just the brotherhood of the ring that needs to learn this lesson.
Hope that breaks through in the face of unremitting evil and overwhelming odds, the necessity for us to confront life’s biggest challenges in relationship with others committed to the same goals and values, the realization that true heroism lies in mercy and pity—this is the gospel according to Lord of the Rings. And it is a message meant not only for Middle-earth, but for all of us. Our world may well depend on it. AMEN – ASHE´ – SHALOM – SALAAM – NAMASTE – BLESSED BE!
