Questioning Nostalgia
Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings is one of the most influential books in the development of my sense of ethics, morality, and even (to some extent) my understanding of Christian theology. Not because it is a Christian series by any stretch of the imagination, but because if there is a modern(ish) series that is more clearly impacted by Christian thought and ethics than Tolkien’s, I haven’t found it.
There are a number of scenes in the books which happen to be some of my favorites and yet they are scenes that never really made the cut in the movie, one such scene takes place as Frodo and Sam are making their final trek towards Mount Doom* in The Return of the King. Frodo realizes as he’s traveling that his gear has become too heavy, by this point he’s being weighed down by the One Ring to the point of exhaustion and so Sam makes a suggestion:
“‘I’ve been thinking, Mr. Frodo, there’s other things we might do without. Why not lighten the load a bit? We’re going that way now, as straight as we can make it… It’s no good taking anything we’re not sure to need.’”… “he took out all the things in his pack. Somehow each of them had become dear to him, if only because he’d borne them so far with so much toil. Hardest of all it was to part with his cooking-gear. Tears welled in his eyes at the thought of casting it away… he carried all the gear away to one of the many gaping fissures that scored the land and threw them in. The clatter of his precious pans as they fell down into the dark was like a death-knell to his heart.” [1]
The scene packs something of a punch as we see Sam grow over the course of the series from a humble gardener of the Shire to Samwise the Brave, one of the only two characters in all the books who willingly gives up the One Ring (a feat in-and-of-itself as seemingly the only responsible thing to do with such power in Tolkien’s worldview is to give it up). It’s also impactful because it really serves as the moment Sam realizes they are not coming back. This is a one-way trip. I say all this in part to consider what it means to let go. To abandon something that holds us back, even if that thing is dearly beloved.
As the old adage goes, you can’t take it with you.
When we turn to John‘s scene of Jesus’ anointing at Bethany (John 12:1–8), here taking place in the home of Lazarus, Martha, and Mary, with Mary as the one kneeling at the feet of Jesus and pouring her “very expensive” nard over his feet and washing them with her hair. Reading this passage there’s a part of me that can’t help but be reminded of this passage from Tolkien. Because while there’s no indication of when Mary purchased the perfume, how long she had it, what she’d intended to use it for; what we find in this passage is that she ends up using it as best as she can, to serve Christ. She gives up that which is precious and important to her.
There’s not much to go on in this passage about these questions, anything we can really say will be little more than Midrash (that is extra-biblical speculation) but when combined with the rest of the lectionary texts this week this might be read as an act born out of leaving behind the old in favor of the new. Isaiah 43, Philippians 3, Psalm 126- all the passages this week, when read together, expand on this idea, abandon the old. Give it up. Embrace the new thing God is doing.
Confronting Nostalgia
We often get too caught up in the way things used to be. In the way we think it should be. Either because it genuinely did work at some point, or because we thought it worked. So many of our churches, mine being no exception, are caught up in this rut, in this trap of doing the same thing over and over with the expectation of a different or better result. Of doing that thing we used to do in the expectation that we can go back to the way things were or so that we can make things better than they were. Which is why I’ve listened as I’ve had people explain to me that if we can just get the bell working or the choir going again then the people will be reminded we are here and will return! Our church will live forever!
I might see the perfume then as being representative of our nostalgia. The things we clutch onto for the sake of preserving them. Mary, in light of seeing what Christ had done for her brother, what he’d done for her, she realizes she is no longer needing to cling so tight to this old thing, it will no longer satisfy, it will not save, and so she offers it up, she uses it for something better.
I would name these tendencies to be products of the Power of Nostalgia, this being the idea that Nostalgia itself is something with power over us and over the way we make decisions. It is a Power, meaning it is another one of the forces acting alongside the Principalities and offering us the narrative that in our submitting ourselves to them we can preserve ourselves and the things we love (not least of which being the other Principalities) from Death.
This is a Power to be constantly questioned, constantly examined. It may very well be a Power we may at times have to do everything we can to work against, especially in our local churches, otherwise we may remain trapped clutching our vials of perfume (or our beloved pans) close, refusing to let go, saving it for the day when we might really need it; the day it might save us.
God, where necessary allow us to move forward from the past. To not remember the former things but to prepare ourselves for something new, for what you are doing in our lives. Do a new thing for us, for our world. Show us a new way and lead us to abandon those things we cling onto. Rebuke in us our tendency towards Nostalgia for Nostalgia’s sake and allow us to take what is useful and leave the rest. Amen.
*In the books Mount Doom is the name Men give to Orodruin, the “burning mountain”. Tolkien, a linguistics professor, invented several languages for his series with Orodruin serving us as an example from the Elvin language, Sindarin as “orod” would translate to “mountain” and “ruin” as “firey red”.
[1] Tolkien, JRR. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1954. p 937–8.
