Breaking Out of Our Cages: The Nerd Version

When I was preparing for Sunday’s sermon about pursuing God’s adventure, I wanted to use an example from J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit.” Sadly enough, I did not…something about having to spend half the sermon setting up the story, explaining what hobbits were, etc…

(A friend once complained about why pastors are allowed to use sports analogies but not Star Trek analogies…)

Online, however, is a different story – a lot of you folks are nerdy like me!  Therefore, I am going to tell you the story I wanted to tell the church. 😛

Here’s the set up…remember, the sermon is dealing with breaking out of one’s cage (fears, responsibilities, guilt, traditions, etc) and following God in His adventure….

Breaking Out of Our Cages: The Nerd Version

Bilbo Baggins was a respectful hobbit from a long line of respectful hobbits:

“The Bagginses had lived in the neighborhood of The Hill for time out of mind, and people considered them very respectable, not only because most of them were rich, but also because they never had any adventures of did anything unexpected: you could tell what a Baggins would say on any question without the bother of asking him.”

This all changed the day Gandalf and 13 dwarves showed up for tea – quite unexpected, of course as a good hobbit wouldn’t be seen in such company!

Yet as things happened, Bilbo some begin to get lost in the music and songs of the dwarves:

“As they sang…something Tookish woke up inside him and he wished to go and see the great mountains, and hear the pine-trees and the waterfalls, and explore the caves and wear a sword instead of a waking-stick. He looked out of the window. The stars were out in a dark sky above the trees. He thought of the jewels of the dwarves shining in dark caverns. Suddenly in the woods beyond The Water a flame leapt up – probably somebody lighting a wood-fire – and he thought of plundering dragons settling on his quiet Hill and kindling it all to flames.”

Something very “Tookish woke up”… that is what God is telling us today.

We have been made a-new in Christ – we have something Tookish inside us that wants to pursue God and all His adventure. The question is, are we going to let this Tookish part of ourselves wake up? Or are we going to try to lock it up in a cage?