In the House of Tom Bombadil

“Come dear folk… laugh and be merry…. Let us shut out the night. Fear nothing!”

In the last entry, I mentioned Tolkien and it got me thinking about his influence on me (which is significant). The power of story telling, the ideas of courage and loyalty, and the importance of character over against ability and physical stature are not only important life lessons, but indispensable biblical truths that Tolkien helped emblazon on my heart with his own story telling. There is one theme in his The Lord of the Rings that has also helped me better understand a crucial characteristic of the Church as God intended it to be: hospitable.

I have talked with literally hundreds of parishioners about their respective churches and their comfort level in inviting friends to church. Most say something like: “I love my church but I could never invite my neighbor. They just wouldn’t feel comfortable with ‘X,’” with ‘X’ being any number of things: style of worship, attire, preaching, etc. As I ask more questions, four times out of five I begin to sense that what this person really means is that they don’t believe their friend would feel welcome. The visitor feels awkward because of their dress or tattoos. If the person was not a Christian, the preacher talked as if they weren’t really but talked about them in a way which made them feel as if they didn’t belong. No one sought to put them at ease… or perhaps talked to them at all! If this is true, this is a terrible indictment on the Church.

In the larger tale of The Lord of the Rings, there is a story of how a beleaguered band of travelers finds rest in the House of Tom Bombadil. Bombadil is a mysterious character but he seems to carry in his presence the light of Creation as it was in the beginning: powerful, marvelous but also joyful and merry. His home in the Old Forest becomes a respite for the travelers. The quote written at the start of this entry is spoken by Tom's Wife, Goldberry, at the beginning of their stay. In Tom's house, they are reminded of how things should be and helps shut out the darkness of the world, even if for a short while. It is a place of affection and hospitality.

This is something of what fellowship in the Church should be: merry and joyful as we taste fellowship “as it was in the beginning” but mindful of the darkness outside and preparing to go back into it. The hospitality of this fellowship is not just for those “belong” (meaning those who have an orthodox confession of Christian faith) but for any traveler looking for… as Bob Dylan put it… “shelter from the storm.” Now, we can only begin to know the full extent of the respite as we drink deeply from the well of God’s grace and love, and we will never know it fully in this life. But we should pray and strive to realize some of it in the here and now.

In this way we begin to embody the picture Jesus painted of the Kingdom of God: “He told them another parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches.’” Matthew 13:31-32. We want to see people see the church fellowship as a place of shelter, just as God intends for it to be. What does this look like? You tell me.