New Ark United Church of Christ,
Newark, DE
January 5, 2014
 |
| From The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013) |
The day after Christmas my family and
I went to see the second installment of the epic tale, The Hobbit. Funny thing was,
I couldn’t remember having seen the first one.
I asked, was I there? Oh yes I
was. It was when I heard the mixed
reviews of the second movie that I remembered the first, because it, too, had
been thought difficult to follow. And I
knew what I was in for with this one: it’s
the middle of three parts, which means it was going to be dark, full of
struggle, perhaps a sense of powerlessness or at least having to wait for
resolution at the most fearsome part of the story.
But
what was most enlightening about the movie was the string of previews before
it. Most of them were grim, violent;
some were dystopian: a fictional but
bleak, disturbing glimpse of our future.
Indeed, it seems the dystopian genre of both film and literature is
gaining widespread popularity, such as The
Hunger Games and Divergent
trilogies. But The Hobbit is far from dystopian.
While both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy tell the
saga of the conflict between good and evil in Middle Earth, they are also
stories about courage, living with heart and soul, having a sense of adventure,
and most of all, the power of friendship and love. Much like the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke,
and John.
Some
of us can remember having to read George Orwell’s 1984, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit
451, or Aldous Huxley’s Brave New
World when we were in high school.
These books were warnings, intended to disturb us enough to change our
present society to prevent the story from coming true. But to a certain extent we live in the world
of 1984. Big Brother is everywhere, with
video surveillance cameras, government wire tapping, the content of our emails
no longer private. Most disturbing of
all, we’ve mostly grown accustomed to it.
We
could say that we are living with elements of a dystopian society dressed up in
the clothes of decent civilization. Fear
mongering sometimes has the larger megaphone than the quiet voice of
inspiration and imagination. Environmental
disasters are increasing, our climate changing with severe consequences. Totalitarian governments continue to use
violence against their own people. There
are times that the speed at which technology is developed outpaces our ethical
capacity to do no harm. And we now know
that it is possible to sustain a war for more than a decade yet still giving the
appearance of little to no effect on our daily lives.
So it begs the question:
do these popular dystopian stories and films mirror our fears about the future or
do they feed them?
Certainly
in the time that Isaiah 60 was written, at the end of the Babylonian exile, and
also first century Palestine when Herod was king: both of these were dystopian times. Jews returning home from exile were in
conflict with those who had remained and now owned land. Herod, an Idumean Jew and puppet king for the
Roman Empire, was blinded by paranoia, terrified he would lose his cushy corner
of power.
But
because this is God still speaking, we hear “Arise, shine! Your light has come”. Or as Eugene Peterson puts it, “Get out of bed, Jerusalem!
Wake up. Put your face in the sunlight. God’s bright
glory has risen for you. The whole earth is wrapped in darkness, all
people sunk in deep darkness, but God rises on you, his sunrise glory breaks over you.” In Matthew we hear of magi following a star
so bright that it leads them from their homeland, across nations, to Jerusalem,
then on to Bethlehem. And we are
reminded that the light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not
overcome it.
Yet even though light travels at
186,000 miles per second, the dark was always there first. Darkness is part of the creation as much as
the light, and good and evil can occur in both.
We can be courageous or fearful in both the light and the dark. The question remains before us: will fear rule in our hearts or love? Is there a tyrant king within us or a
vulnerable child whose kingdom is not of this world?
We know that we live in difficult
times; that the weather will become increasingly unpredictable and harsh. We know that we cannot sustain our present
economy indefinitely. We know that we
must use renewable energy sources and detox from our addiction to oil and
gas. And these are just a few of the
problems before we the people of the United States, let alone our sisters and
brothers on this planet. We have the
most monumental tasks ahead of us as a human species. It doesn’t seem foolish to look even for a
star to guide us at this point. Anything
to point the way to healing and authentic living would be welcome.
And yet, the light shines in the
darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.
Arise, shine! Our light has come. Where we place our focus has the power to
determine our reality.
J.R.R. Tolkien, whose birthday was
January 3, wrote these words as part of his story of The Fellowship of the Ring. Things
are not as they appear in Middle-Earth, and we are reminded that what looks
bleak has within it a hidden strength.
All that is gold
does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.
The way
ahead will not be easy. Indeed,
sacrifice will be asked of us. But we have
been summoned to journey by another road.
Have we not been warned in our dreams of peace and justice not to return
to Herod and all that entails? But we
must remember: our faith is not one of
fear of any dystopian story but faith in a story of courage, of living with
heart and soul, having a sense of adventure, and most important of all, the
power of friendship and love.
We’ll walk in the light,
beautiful light,
come where the dewdrops of mercy shine bright.
Shine all around us by day and by night;
Jesus the light of the world.
beautiful light,
come where the dewdrops of mercy shine bright.
Shine all around us by day and by night;
Jesus the light of the world.
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