Hobbits, Ewoks, and Emperor-Eyes

Whoever has looked upon the small and half-sized season with narrowed or rolled eyes will be shown the truth and if they’re on the side of truth, they will belly-laugh at the surprising joy of it all.

In the final scenes of third part of the original Star Wars trilogy, The Return of the Jedi, the evil Emperor boasts of his prescience and planning. “Everything is unfolding as I have foreseen,” he says. And not just as he has foreseen, but as he has orchestrated. He has set the trap (shout out to Admiral Ackbar), and the Rebels have walked into it. Their plan to disable power for the Death Star’s deflector shield on the forest moon of Endor has failed. Luke Skywalker will soon turn to the Dark Side, and darkness will drench the galaxies like a tsunamic tide.

In the third installment of The Lord of the Rings, the evil Eye of Sauron seems to see all. The power of elves and men to withstand the ocean of armies of Uruk-Hai and orcs will, it seems, inevitably collapse.

Except the eye of Sauron and his armies have overlooked two little hobbits hobbling through the dark valleys of Mordor. And the evil Emperor has dismissed as negligible the indigenous Ewoks of Endor, who look more like teddy bears than world-transforming warriors.

The political calculus of emperors and dark lords always dismisses the unmenancing mildness of half-high opponents. They despise them, not in the sense so much of “passionately hate” but “dismiss as insignificant or unworthy of attention.”

We do the same thing. We look on half-high or under-sized things with eyes-of-emperors. We despise monotony, ignore the glory of the grind, dismiss the rhythms of our days as mundane. We dream big. We try to launch rockets to Mars, and we despise the day when we only make it to the moon. We pray and plan and believe God for hundreds of conversions and despise the day when we can count on one hand those God has saved under our ministry. We hope for influence across the nations and the ages, and despise the dozens who truly listen to us. We imagine filling buckets with listed adventures so we end up despising changing diapers, making dinner, punching the clock, and coaching soccer.

Again, despise does not mean “passionately hate” so much as “dismissively wave the hand.” It’s seeing with emperor-eyes, as we tell ourselves that these half-sized things don’t matter, that they won’t divert the trajectory of destiny or the work of God in the world. If we’re honest about our self-interest, that they won’t make us happy.

But every so often the truth startles us; and we remember that God has promised that “whoever has despised the day of small things shall rejoice” (Zech. 4:10). Whoever has looked upon the small and half-sized season with narrowed or rolled eyes will be shown the truth, and, if we’re on the side of truth, we will belly-laugh at the surprising joy of it all.

We will see that often the greatest victories hinge on the faithfulness of the weak and the small, the half-high and the under-sized. That armies of Ewoks and caravans of hobbling hobbits and unknown ministries and small churches and catechized kids are just the kinds of things that the evil ruler of this age will tend to overlook.

And by the time emperor-eyes notice the threat of the halfling efforts of the resistance against evil, it’s too late. Mount Doom and the Death Star are already exploding while the good guys are flying away in victory.