Citizens of a Strange Kingdom — Lessons from Frodo & Sam
The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
a planting of the Lord
for the display of his splendor.— Isaiah 61: 1-5
In 2020, it seems unprecedented how many times we hear the word unprecedented. Overwhelmed with disease, division and desperation, our age suffers from chaos fatigue.
Over scrambled eggs and bacon, My wife and I share casual conversations about the possibilities of civil war and democratic pedophiles sucking the blood out of little children after raping them. Could you pass the salt? I ask, moving seamlessly onto the next insane topic. Late at night, suffering through another bout of insomnia, I don’t even blink an eye when Vistaprint advertises custom-design facemasks in addition to business cards. Instead of experiencing shock, I consider uploading the Dallas Cowboys logo until I remember my team’s loss against the Cleveland Browns; a swiss cheese facemask might offer a better defense.
When the Saturday Night Live parodies don’t live up to reality, it’s hard to imagine a worse time. In our isolation, restlessness and fear, we search for hope on the horizon. But like the hobbit Pippin, overlooking Mount Doom, we can’t even get assurance from a wise and wizened wizard that things will be better.
Saturday evening we came together in a Gathering for the second time since Covid-19 forced us into isolation. Meeting outside in eights and tens, we plan to continue to come together through October to catch up, worship, tell stories, encourage one another, and take hold of the fool’s hope of the Gospel.
For many like me, sunk in depression, it seemed an appropriate metaphor. A fool’s hope indeed. Overwhelmed by the forces of darkness, we prayed in twilight for God to enlighten us through a similar-sized fellowship — JRR Tolkien’s story of the Lord of the Rings.
Surrounded on every side by dark and terrible forces, the Fellowship of the King places all its hope in two small hobbits, halfings, Frodo and Samwise and their quest to destroy the one ring of absolute power.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them. In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
As we shared together from our lives in the age of Covid, we spoke of various temptations — retreat, shellshock, fear, anger or burning through cartons of FatBoy ice cream sandwiches. I shared with them Saruman’s temptation of Gandalf.
My depression has been accelerated by the action of many Christians (including me), who seemed to be joining in the madness — the division, acrimony, and worldly politics — instead of realizing that the King we serve, during His brief and tragic time on this planet, chose the path of love, not power.
We read from Philippians 2 —
In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God
something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
It breaks my heart and pisses me off, I tell our Gathering, to see so many who claim to follow Christ on Facebook driving stakes of political power, adapting the necessary mindset of conquer and divide — the very opposite of Philippians 2. Instead of engaging in the Kingdom work of love, reconciliation, grace, so many seem to have abandoned the fool’s hope of the Gospel as stated by Paul in 1 Cor. 1:18
For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
An illustration of our dilemma, we watched a clip from The King’s Speech — the soon-to-be King George, a stammerer, preparing to give a speech to rally England in opposition to the Nazis.
Together, we prayed for a return to our true identity — the strange citizens of a different kingdom.
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As a follower of Christ, JRR Tolkien, author of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, reveals a strange kingdom — a world filled with elves, orcs, wizards, talking trees in Middle Earth on a razor’s edge of unprecedented evil. The Fellowship of the True King understood that the armies of Sauron could not be defeated in war. Instead, they trusted their future to a plan of diversion.
Together, one after the other, we read quotes about the kingdom of God.
From John Eckhart —
Often, we hear that the reason Jesus came to the earth was to die on the Cross. Jesus did come to die on the Cross, but that death on the Cross was for the purpose of establishing the Kingdom of God.
From Tim Keller —
The message of Christianity is, ‘Things really are this bad, and we can’t heal or save ourselves. Things really are this dark—nevertheless, there is hope. The Christmas message is that ‘on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned.’ Notice that it doesn’t say from the world a light has sprung, but upon the world a light has dawned.
From one of my favorite theologians, Mr. Rogers, states —
I'm fairly convinced that the Kingdom of God is for the broken-hearted. You write of 'powerlessness.' Join the club, we are not in control. God is.
From Frederick Buechner:
It is God alone who brings about his Kingdom. But there is something that we can do and must do, Jesus says, and that is repent. Turn away from madness, cruelty, shallowness, blindness. Turn toward the tolerance, compassion, sanity, hope, justice that we all have in us at our best. We can be kind to each other. We can be kind to ourselves. We can drive back the darkness a little. We can make green places within ourselves and among ourselves where God can make his Kingdom happen.
From Eugene Peterson —
The conditions that so often induce hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth among so many of us are relativized by thanksgiving. Hidden kingdom energies surge just beneath the surface all around us. Huge subterranean rivers of prayer — faith and obedience and praise, intercession and forgiveness and deliverance, holiness and grace — glow freely underground.
From Leo Tolstoy —
The only significance of life consists in helping to establish the kingdom of God.
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Citizenship in the Kingdom of God engages risk and suffering. Before leaving on his quest to destroy the ring, Gandalf warns Frodo —
“It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.”
During a time of pandemic and grave injustice, we also face the temptation to retreat. We may hide behind a mask of religion because it feels like we are in control. Many of us may look to the sky praying for the return of Jesus instead of stepping out into a volatile world in desperate need of grace and love.
U2’s song Breathe captures the call to Kingdom life well —
Every day I die again, and again I'm reborn
Every day I have to find the courage
To walk out into the street
With arms out
Got a love you can't defeat
While praying to commit to a creative Kingdom community, three words struck me — choose, encourage, and goodness.
In the place of religion, we choose faith in the knowledge of the sovereignty of God. Gandalf says it perfectly.
I tell our Gathering that, through my depression, they have taught me a new realization of the word encouragement — to build courage into another. It’s desperately needed in our world, but requires no small sacrifice.
In Tolkien’s literature with more than a few Christ metaphors, Samwise the Servant perhaps displays the love of Jesus the best, and sums up the work of the church.
Tolkien believed that all great stories pointed to the “true myth,” the metanarrative of the Gospel. Living on a broken planet, during the time of a pandemic, requires a perspective of a citizen of an upside down kingdom. I love how the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins captures this strange movement —
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
As Frodo wrestles with hopelessness and resignation, Samwise encourages his dear friend.
Awash in soft solar lights, warmed by fires, we closed our Gathering with a prayer to help us imagine a kingdom that moves with mystery, grace, and love. And then, together, fight for what’s good.