This blog serves as an outreach for Pastor Randy Powell of the First Baptist Church of Franklin, PA. Feel free to ask questions or send me an e-mail at pastorpowell@hotmail.com
In J.R.R. Tolkien's masterpiece, The Fellowship of the Ring, the titular fellowship arrives with its nine members at the Gates of Moria, the old entrance to the ancient dwarf kingdom long since abandoned. The fellowship are in desperate straits, their first attempt to move forward with the quest of destroying the One Ring had been defeated soundly when a blizzard closed the mountain pass. Now, with wolves approaching they find themselves facing a locked door. Gandalf purposes to lead them under the mountain to the other side, but the way forward is blocked. Unless Gandalf can decode the door's cryptic message, "Speak friend, and enter" by recalling the password that will open the magically sealed doors, this entire mission may end in failure before it accomplishes anything.
As the scene unfolds, Gandalf tries potential solutions in great number, all end in failure. Despite all his wisdom and skill, nothing works. That is until someone with a lot less wisdom and skill, the hobbit Merry, realizes that they had the answer all along. The door's message should have been translated, "Speak 'friend', and enter." As soon as Gandalf spoke the Elvish word for friend, the doors came open. The mystery of the sealed doors was really no mystery at all, the answer was written in plain sight.
As the Easter narrative begins in Mark's Gospel, we see Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome on their way to the tomb to honor Jesus by further preparing his body for its final burial place. Having come very early in the morning, after a Sabbath when few of Jesus' followers could have known any peace following his horrific murder on a Cross, the women don't realize until they reach the garden that they don't have a plan to remove the large stone from the tomb's entrance. Thus, "Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?" is a question that needs an answer, one the women don't have. Or so it seems to them.
In reality, God had already moved the stone, the tomb of Jesus had already been transformed from a place of sorrow, into history's most incredible victory monument. There was nothing wrong with the women being concerned about the stone, it was a legitimate obstacle from their point-of-view, but keeping with the pattern found in the scripture's of God's will and purpose being in motion whether his people are aware of it or not, God had answered their question before they even asked it.
We sometimes forget this, or at least don't act like we know it, but God has already answered all of life's most important questions for us. There are no riddles left for us to solve before we can move forward, when Jesus rose from the grave, the question, "What is the meaning of life?" had a full and powerful answer. So too did, "How am I supposed to live my life?" and "What happens to us when we die?" God has not called us to serve a cause that we can hope might succeed, but one in which the victory has already been secured, no need for us to worry about rolling away the stone.
My congregation knows that I will use an illustration from the Lord of the Rings whenever one comes to me, its either a gift to them or a curse, depending upon one's view of Tolkien's masterpiece. That being said, while I was re-reading the LOTR for the 15th+ time this past week, I was struck by the wisdom of a conversation between the wizard Gandalf (who is actually an immortal Maiar named Olorin {nerd alert!}, akin to an angel), and the leaders of the resistance to Sauron (also a Maiar, i.e. a fallen angel or demon). Gandalf tells Aragorn, the next king of Gondor, Eomer, the next king of Rohan, Prince Imrahil, and the sons of Elrond that, "it is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule."
What, then, is the relevance of the advice of a fictional wizard given to fellow fictional characters regarding a fictional moral and existential threat? As it turns out, a great deal. J.R.R. Tolkien's mythology, while embracing at times a Norse attitude of fatalism influenced by a belief in Ragnarok (seen in the ride of the Rohirrim to battle to aid Gondor, despite the near-certainty of defeat), remained fundamentally an ethos that reflected his own Christian worldview. Tolkien believed in God as Creator, in God as Savior, and in God as the ultimate judge of humanity. He believed that our actions, and our attitudes, matter. He believed in the reality of Right and Wrong. And so, when faced with a seemingly insurmountable evil, the advice of Gandalf, a voice that could double as that of Tolkien himself, is to do our best with what is in front of us.
It has become common in politics, and more frighteningly, for some within the Church, to look at global problems, national problems, or even localized problems, as being too big to solve. If the problem cannot be 100% fixed with any particular attempted solution, then the effort is dismissed and nothing is done. In other words, if the whole problem can't be solved in one fell swoop, don't bother trying. This myopic pessimism is both morally reprehensible and extremely dangerous. If 1,000 children were starving in the midst of a famine, and you only had food enough to save 10, how would you explain to Almighty God that you decided to do nothing, not even save those you had the power to save, because you couldn't do everything? To do nothing is an act of moral cowardice, to do nothing is a violation of what has been entrusted to us by God.
What moral evil is starring you right in the face? What problem is in your very neighborhood, as an individual, a church, or a community, that you could impact with the resources you already have? Do something, try, make an effort in the battle between Good and Evil.
Consider the words of the 18th century philosopher Edmund Burke, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." We must act, we must strive, for evil does not sleep.
With more authority, a few examples of the call to action from Scripture:
Matthew 25:14-46, the parable of the Talents (in which the one who is condemned buries his responsibility in the ground and does nothing) as well as the famous line, "I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mind, you did for me."
Ephesians 6:10-13, Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.
Hebrews 12:1-3, Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
James 2:17-18, 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. 18 But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.” Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds.
Steven Spielberg uses this same notion as the capstone of Schindler's List, a variation of a quote from the Talmud (Sanhedrin 4:5) spoken by Ben Kingsley's character, Itzhak Stern: "Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire."
As is well known, my favorite book is The Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien. In this masterpiece that launched the modern fantasy novel genre, the character of Samwise Gamgee follows his "master" Frodo on the journey to Mordor to destroy the one ring. It is well known that Tolkien modeled the relationship between Frodo and Sam after the relationship between officers in the British army during WWI and their assistants, known as a "batman". The relationship between Frodo and Sam is one of the greatest example in literature of brotherly love, loyalty, and friendship. It should come as no surprise, then, that some would rather view this relationship through a sexual lense, wanting to see the Sam/Frodo relationship as a homosexual one. Such a view would obviously ignore the intent of J.R.R. Tolkien, as the author, although for many this hurdle means nothing, but it would also destroy the nobility of the relationship for it would take away its most important quality: selflessness. Sam is loyal to Frodo, and loves him like a friend, is there something wrong with leaving it at that? Must every relationship have a sexual angle, can nothing be altruistic?
A similar thought occurs with J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, it has been reported that the author considered having Harry fall for Hermoine, instead of what she actually wrote which had Harry's friends Ron and Hermione end up together. What was written is far superior, however, for it makes the friendship between these three paramount, and their willingness to risk their lives to support Harry in his quest is more noble without the angle of sexual attraction and romance that would have made Hermione's choice to stay with Harry when Ron left temporarily in the Deathly Hollows a self-centered one instead of a self-sacrificial choice.
Romantic love is crucial to society, helping to hold marriages together, but there is something to be said for simple brotherly love, devoid of sexual connections, for love such as this has often changed the world. "For God demonstrates his own love for us in this, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)
There's a line in The Lord of the Rings that reads, "all that is gold does not glitter" which is Tolkien's rearranging of the well known proverb from Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, "all that glitters is not gold". Tolkien was trying to emphasize that not all things of value shine on the outside, whereas Shakespeare's point is that not everything that looks good on the outside is worth it on the inside, but both metaphors utilize the fact that gold has a hold on the imagination of humanity. It has been sought after, fought after, killed and died for, for as far back as we have records. I just finished watching "Klondike" on the History Channel last night, a mini-series based on the actual experiences of miners who went to Dawson City in the Yukon during the gold rush that lasted from 1896 to 1899. In those few years, an estimated 100,000 people headed for the Yukon with only about 30-40,000 surviving the journey and only about 4,000 of them finding any gold. After Dawson City the gold craze moved on, just as it had before from California and before that North Dakota; the list goes on and on back into history. The craze for gold continues to this day, it actually has intrinsic value now in the electronics industry beyond its age-old use for currency and jewellery. The show "Gold Rush" on the Discovery Channel chronicles the lives of would-be gold miners, some of whom work like professionals and some of whom appear to be still amateurs. The human stories behind the quest for gold are interesting, but the question of why man has been so fascinated with this substance remains.
Gold isn't the only rare thing that has caused empires to rise and fall in history, but it does seem to rise above more practical commodities and has certainly been a part of some of the worst crimes of humanity against itself from the horrid working conditions of the South American mines of the Spanish Empire to the gold extracted from the teeth of Jews killed by the Nazis. The insatiable quest for gold over thousands of years has yielded roughly 377 million pounds of gold; surprisingly, that amount would only be a cube of 68 ft. on each side. All that risk, all that killing and death, for a pool sized cube of metal?
If gold didn't exist, humanity would be fixated on something else. Gold isn't the cause of the sickness that is associated with it, simply the window through which the human soul is illuminated. The same attributes and potential terrors can be ascribed to the pieces of colored paper that replaced gold as the currency of humanity, or even the electronic money that doesn't even exist apart from the computers that keep track of it.
Which topic does the Bible spend the most time talking about? Which human vice fills more pages of God's Word than any other? To hear many preachers and Christian lay people talk, you think it would be sexual sin, whether that be pre-marital or extra-marital sex, pornography, homosexuality, or abortion. We certainly have great troubles in society connected to our misuse of God's gift of sex, but it isn't the number one vice discussed in the Bible. The Bible spends more time talking about the proper use of, and abuse of, money than anything else (over 800 times) except love. So why are we so reluctant to talk about money? Perhaps it is because we as Americans have so much of it. Perhaps it is because we do such a lousy job of utilizing our money for the good of the kingdom of God and such a great job spending it on ourselves.
How often do I preach about money? I haven't analyzed each of my sermons over last seven years to have stats, but since I normally preach verse by verse through a book on the Bible once I start, I'm guessing that its pretty often. Do yourself a favor, don't skip over the next part of the Bible you read about money, actually take some time and figure out if you're doing what the Bible says you should be doing with the money that you've earned through the blessings of work, life, and health that God has given you.
We live in a world of fast paced change. It seems that something new appears almost every day. Yet is any of it really new? Solomon realized 3,000 years ago that human existence was simply repetition of the ideas and efforts of previous generations. The earth remains, we are here for but a moment. How can we find purpose and meaning if human existence never really improves? It is only through God's effort that we are able to accept the sacrifice of Jesus which will begin the process of transforming our human nature and removing the sin which dooms human attempts at self improvement. In the end, without God's help, there will be nothing new under the sun.
To watch the video, click on the link below: Sermon Video
