Psalm 118: 1-2, 19-29 (links validated 2/28/24)

In both the book and the film version, one of the more famous scenes from J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy is the Council of Elrond and its deliberations on how to deal with and destroy that evil Ring of Power forged by the dark lord Sauron. In this scene the man from Gondor, Boromir, reveals that he knows of only one way of getting things done: through power and force. When it is suggested one of the beings in attendance would have to destroy the Ring in the evil land of Mordor, Boromir cannot help but be incredulous. “Not with 10,000 men could you do this. It is folly.” Later Boromir will try seize the Ring by force, convinced that he would need the Ring’s power to take on Sauron, the creator of the Ring. Only power against power could prevail. Yet in the end the least powerful person of them all, Frodo Baggins of the Shire, steps forward to take on this impossible task. This pint-sized Hobbit would get this task done. No one expected a Halfling of the Shire would be the source of their deliverance from evil but so it was to be.

I asked Thisbe (Jeanmarie Simpson!) to help me reflect on this lovers’ wall. Her thoughts go to “The Fantasticks,” the modern musical version (Any-one care to organize a showing of both films sometime this season?) – where it becomes clear that walls are needed, even as we work past them – under them, over them, around them, and through them: “No, leave the wall! Remember, you must always leave the wall.” Jeanmarie relates it to the lyric “Without hurt the heart is hollow.” How do we know we love, how do we know we feel, without pain as well as joy? Without walls we may not know the limits of life -- Neither the risk nor the gain of pushing against and expanding our limits! Of exploring, discovering and daring to go and to follow where it seems none ever has been before. “Deep in December it’s nice to remember the fire of September that made us mellow. Deep in December our hearts will remember and follow . . .” Camus says it takes depth of winter to reveal the invincible summer within us. Remember and follow! Remembering Jesus, as he commands, every time we break bread and share cup together, every time we wash feet, perform acts of love, of justice, of mercy toward another – remembering Jesus is mending walls -- putting things back together that have been torn apart and asunder by violence and death. We do it in our own lives, in our relationships, in our communities, in our world. “All the kings’ forces” would drive us apart, tear us asunder, divide us and conquer us. It is the nature of kings and those who are reckless and heedless with power. Only a suffering nonviolent love can help “all the kings mend” again. There may be walls that break and walls that mend, walls that harm and walls that heal, walls that give death and walls that give life. Remembering Jesus this morning is mending not only the brokenness each of us does, or brokenness done in each of our names -- but also the brokenness each of us is – a “Brokeback Mountain” sort of brokenness -- of love gone far beyond old walls and limits!...

("Joy Hollyday tells the story a visiting schoolteacher who worked in a hospital. The teacher of a little boy who was in the hospital asked her to visit him in the hospital in order to help him with his homework. The classroom teacher told the visiting teacher, 'We're studying nouns and adverbs in this young man's class, and I hope you will help him.' When the visiting teacher arrived at the hospital, she was saddened to learn that the child was in the hospital's burn unit in very serious condition...")

They called themselves “Hobbits.” But to many outside their home in The Shire, they were somewhat derisively referred to as “Halflings.” Get it: half of a real person on account of their short stature. Even the short and stout Dwarves were taller than the average Hobbit, not to mention how the world of Men and of Elves towered over these diminutive Hobbits with names like Frodo, Sam, Merri, Pippin. Why, a regular-sized person could pick up the Hobbits like a toddler. “They would appear in your eyes like only a child” someone in Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy once said of the Hobbits. But, of course, it was the race of Hobbits that delivered Middle Earth from the peril of the evil Lord Sauron. And that fact, in turn, leads to the lyric scene near the end of Peter Jackson’s trilogy of films when, at the coronation of the new King Aragorn, the Hobbits come before the newly crowned sovereign only to begin to bow. “My friends,” the King tells them, “You bow to no one.” And then the assembled throng bows down to the four Hobbits, making them appear to stand taller for just a moment than any Man, Dwarf, or Elf in sight.

Since I don’t have easy access to my library at Seminary right now, I cannot replicate this in full. But I have always loved Frederick Buechner’s character sketch of Abraham in his delightful book Peculiar Treasures: A Biblical Who’s Who. Buechner begins by saying that if (in Yiddish) a schlemiel is someone who is always spilling soup onto his tie and a schlemozzle is someone who always get soup spilled onto his tie by others, than Abraham was something of a schlemozzle. He sort of bumped along in life, often having others get the best of him and just doing his level best to figure stuff out across the long journey God commanded him to take (a new journey he had to undertake at the very moment in his long life when rest and retirement, not becoming a wandering nomad, should have been the order of the day). But he lived on the promise: he would have heirs as numerous as stars in the sky, sand on the seashore. At the end of his character sketch, Buechner imagines a very old Abraham at a family reunion picnic. “They weren’t a great nation yet by a long shot, but you’d never know it from the way Abraham sits enthroned there in his velvet yarmulke with several great-grandchildren on his lap and soup on his tie. Even through his thick lenses, you can read the look of faith in his eye… and more than all the kosher meals, the great achievements, and Einsteins and Kissingers, it was THAT look that God loved him for -and had chosen him for in the first place.”...

They called themselves “Hobbits.” But to many outside their home in The Shire, they were somewhat derisively referred to as “Halflings.” Get it: half of a real person on account of their short stature. Even the short and stout Dwarves were taller than the average Hobbit, not to mention how the world of Men and of Elves towered over these diminutive Hobbits with names like Frodo, Sam, Merri, Pippin. Why, a regular-sized person could pick up the Hobbits like a toddler. “They would appear in your eyes like only a child” someone in Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy once said of the Hobbits. But, of course, it was the race of Hobbits that delivered Middle Earth from the peril of the evil Lord Sauron. And that fact, in turn, leads to the lyric scene near the end of Peter Jackson’s trilogy of films when, at the coronation of the new King Aragorn, the Hobbits come before the newly crowned sovereign only to begin to bow. “My friends,” the King tells them, “You bow to no one.” And then the assembled throng bows down to the four Hobbits, making them appear to stand taller for just a moment than any Man, Dwarf, or Elf in sight. Something about that surprising turn of events reminds me of that rejected stone in Psalm 118.

I have always loved Frederick Buechner’s character sketch of Abraham in his delightful book Peculiar Treasures: A Biblical Who’s Who. Buechner begins by saying that if (in Yiddish) a schlemiel is someone who is always spilling soup onto his tie and a schlemozzle is someone who always get soup spilled onto his tie by others, than Abraham was something of a schlemozzle. He sort of bumped along in life, often having others get the best of him and just doing his level best to figure stuff out across the long journey God commanded him to take (a new journey he had to undertake at the very moment in his long life when rest and retirement, not becoming a wandering nomad, should have been the order of the day). But he lived on the promise: he would have heirs as numerous as stars in the sky, sand on the seashore. At the end of his character sketch, Buechner imagines a very old Abraham at a family reunion picnic. “They weren’t a great nation yet by a long shot, but you’d never know it from the way Abraham sits enthroned there in his velvet yarmulke with several great-grandchildren on his lap and soup on his tie. Even through his thick lenses, you can read the look of faith in his eye… and more than all the kosher meals, the great achievements, and Einsteins and Kissingers, it was THAT look that God loved him for -and had chosen him for in the first place.” And then this: Who knows, Abraham thought to himself, one day they will be talking about my great-great-great . . . grandson, the Savior of the world.

When Maya Lin created the Vietnam War Memorial Wall, she ran into all kinds of opposition. Key among the critics was the U.S. military. They wanted to put a huge flag behind the Wall flanked by immense statues of soldiers in full battle dress, signifying victory. But she resisted, because she wanted the Wall to be a memorial to the dead. She said, “We have a hard time with defeat and death in the United States. We simply don’t want to face death head on. This wall does that.”...

Do you even pay attention when you walk through the door of your church? Do you mark the transition? Or are you focused on the people you need to talk to, the Sunday School lesson you need to review, the youth activities that are happening after worship? Do you walk into the church building thinking, "This is the gate of the Lord"? Do you imagine that you are making a triumphal entry?

("Chuck Smith recounts a popular myth about the building of Solomon’s Temple. The stones used to build it were cut at a different location, he says, and then shipped to the building site. The cornerstone happened to be shipped unmarked, and for a long while, no one knew what the piece was for or where it belonged. Later, the lead builder asked the stone makers when they would send the cornerstone. Of course they’d already sent it, and when the builders went looking for it, they found it in a field—grown over by a jungle of weeds, tossed aside, rejected...")

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(see Second Sunday of Easter)

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Virginia was 19 years old and pregnant when she went to live with her 15th set of foster parents. Her case file read like a textbook example of neglect, abuse and bureaucratic failure. She sat silently in a chair, hands neatly clasped, staring into her lap. The foster parents, whose three children were in school, had been appraised of Virginia's story and promised that this placement would be "temporary". (Temporary was the story of Virginia's life.) Finally, the foster mother said, "Are you frightened, Virginia?" "Kinda," she replied without looking up. Then, "I've been in lots of homes." "Well," the sympathetic woman tried to reassure the bewildered young mother-to-be, "Let's hope this time turns out for the best." Virginia's reply is one of those statements that sticks to your soul -- it was flat, without change of tone and without Virginia even looking up -- "Hurts too much to hope."...

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