Hobbit Giants
A Middle Earth Case for Open Communion
Disclaimer:
I know full well how much the old man abhorred allegory. It is with respect to Tolkien’s Catholicism and his literary inclinations alike that I proceed. Ours is a universe fraught with metaphor. So is his.
Everyone knows the story. Sauron is poised to engulf the world within his dark rule. Then at long last all the free peoples of Middle Earth unite to resist him and eventually overthrow him. What we must remember is the utter simplicity and unremarkable qualities of the creatures that bore the brunt of the undertaking. For all the grandeur of the elves, all the valor of the men, all the fortitude of the dwarves – it was hobbits that did the unbearable bearing. The savior of Middle Earth didn’t hail from Rivendell or Gondor or any wizard’s abode. No, it was simple folk from the Shire that wore that mantle.
Imagine the outcome of that story had the Hobbits not been allowed to participate in the lives of their betters. What if Gandalf had not immersed himself into the culture of the halflings? What if Elrond had prohibited them from sitting at the Council? What if Aragorn had insisted that he carry the One Ring instead?
I won’t designate Who’s Who Among Orthodox Christians here. However, we can view Church History as a long saga of Elves and Men and Dwarves being completely sundered from each other for all practical purposes, with Ents and Hobbits and the rest becoming mostly forgotten in the deliberations. As it is, our era of Church History is much like the Counsel of Elrond in which, for the most part, we don’t regard one another as enemies. But it is very unlike that table in that we never come to the agreements that matter. Neither do we relent on the disagreements that don’t. We have settled into a life of schisms where our dialogue is governed by doctrinal squabbles and further insistence on why we will not dine together.
From the point of view of Catholic and Orthodox theologians, Baptists would most certainly have a hobbit’s stature (we’ll let them contend with each other as to who the Elves are). They insist that the ecclesiology is too weak, the expression of the Eucharist too anemic, and many other points of doctrine just plain wrong for Evangelicals to be taken seriously. Perhaps they’re right. In fairness, the designation isn’t all wrong. Is there any other denomination with the same reputation for food?
Yet it was men like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Billy Graham, simple Baptist ministers, that God raised up to the prominence of toppling dark towers. It is endearing to see Orthodox ministers alongside of the great figurehead of the Civil Rights Movement. Nevertheless, they wouldn’t partake of the Lord’s Supper together. What kind of sense does that make?
The traditions that exercise Closed Communion insist upon a very strict indoctrination and ascent before one is considered worthy to partake of the Eucharist. It always comes back to the issue of the Real Presence in the Elements at the table. I wonder, though, would they say that God’s Spirit was not really present with Billy Graham in all his decades of evangelism? I also cannot help but wonder how many souls were converted at one of his crusades that would later find themselves in a Catholic or Orthodox church. Can one reasonably accept the harvest of God’s ploughman while simultaneously refusing to serve him at the same table?
We have a long way to go. Many, many hard conversations still await us, no doubt. Even so, I cannot help but see it as the gravest tragedy, the worst mistake, of all places to be divided, that the hardest line between us would be drawn at the Table.
