"Not safe but good"
Narnia, Matthew 3:1-12
Advent 2A, December 9, 2007
A Sermon by Fr. James Haney V
This is the second of our four week look at the Advent themes in C.S. Lewis's classic, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. In the first part of the book, Lucy has gone through the magical wardrobe and discovered the land of Narnia, a cold bleak land under the rule of the evil White Witch, a land where it is always winter and never Christmas. On a subsequent trip, her brother Edmund follows her through the wardrobe, and he meets up with the White Witch herself. The White Witch bribes Edmund with enchanted Turkish Delight candy, and asks him to come back with his three siblings in tow. What Edmund doesn't know is that the Witch wishes to kill all four of them.
In today's section, all four of the Pevensie children have gone into Narnia together. There they meet up with, of all things, a couple of talking beavers. Mr. and Mrs. Beaver are part of the resistance movement to the White Witch. Mr. Beaver informs Lucy that her friend, the faun Mr. Tumnus, has been turned into stone by the White Witch. And then Mr. Beaver is the first creature in the book to mention Aslan. Aslan is the lion, the great Christ figure of the book. In ch7, Mr. Beaver tells the children,
"They say that Aslan is on the move." In other words, Aslan is coming.
C.S. Lewis has a wonderful description of the children's reactions. He writes,
"Now a very curious thing happened. None of the children knew who Aslan was anymore than you do; but the moment the Beaver had spoken these words everyone felt quite different… At the name of Aslan each one of the children felt something jump in its inside. Edmund felt a sensation of mysterious horror. Peter felt suddenly brave and adventurous. Susan felt as if some delicious smell or some delightful strain of music had just floated by. And Lucy got the feeling you have when you wake up in the morning and realize that it is the beginning of the holidays or the beginning of summer."
I love that the name of Aslan itself is powerful enough to stir up all kinds of emotions in the children.
It also elicits a different reaction from each of the four, three of them positive, and one of them, negative. Edmund is now so deeply in the clutches of the White Witch that the name of Aslan is frightening. But the other children had positive reactions, though each of them is unique in their response to Aslan, just as each of them will later be unique in their relationship with Aslan. It's a reminder to us from C.S. Lewis of how all of us experience the same God in many different ways. God relates to each of us as individuals, and wants relationship with us as unique individuals.
And yet we have to be careful. We can push the image to far. It's one thing to say that individually we have different experiences of God, which is true. It's another thing altogether to assume, as our culture often does, that God is whatever you want him to be. No, God meets us individually. But God transcends all of our individual pictures and images of him.
And C.S. Lewis makes that point very strongly in ch8. After dinner, Mr. Beaver tells the children that it's his job to take them to meet Aslan. A wonderful conversation ensues that tells us much about the nature Aslan. It's a rather extended section, but it's important, since C.S. Lewis is using these words to tell us about the nature of God and Jesus. He writes,
"Who is Aslan?" asked Susan.
"Aslan?" said Mr Beaver. "Why don't you know? He's the King. He's the Lord of the whole wood, but not often hear you understand. Never in my time or my father's time. But the word has reached us that he has come back. He is in Narnia at this moment. He'll settle the White Queen all right. It is he, not you, who will save Mr Tumnus."
"She won't turn him into stone too?" said Edmund.
"Lord love you, Son of Adam, what a simple thing to say!" answered Mr Beaver with a great laugh. "Turn him into stone? If she can stand on her two feet and look him in the face it'll be the most she can do and more than I expect of her. No, no. He'll put all to rights as it says in an old rhyme in these parts: Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight, At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more, When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death, And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again. You'll understand when you see him."
"But shall we see him?" asked Susan.
"Why, Daughter of Eve, that's what I brought you here for. I'm to lead you where you shall meet him," said Mr Beaver.
"Is--is he a man?" asked Lucy.
"Aslan a man!" said Mr Beaver sternly. "Certainly not. I tell you he is the King of the wood and the son of the great Emperor-beyond-the-Sea. Don't you know who is the King of Beasts? Aslan is a lion--the Lion, the great Lion."
"Ooh!" said Susan. "I'd thought he was a man. Is he--quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion."
"That you will, dearie, and no mistake," said Mrs Beaver; "if there's anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they're ether braver than most or else just silly."
"Then he isn't safe?" said Lucy.
"Safe?" said Mr Beaver; "don't you hear what Mrs Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you."
That's probably one of the most profound spiritual lines in the entire book. "He isn't safe. But he's good."
Because it's very easy for us to want a safe God. Someone once observed that God created humankind in his own image, and we've been trying to return the favor ever since. We want God to conform to our images and ideas about him, rather than loving God for who he is.
What C.S. Lewis captures so well in this section is the biblical tension between God's warm love, and his power and might. God's tenderness, versus God's holiness. God's desire for intimate relationship with each of us, versus God being very different from any of us. It's not that God is bipolar.
But God is beyond our human categories and images. He's not safe. But he's good.
We often want a safe God. We want a God to keep us safe, to do what we want without making too many demands upon us. Lord, help me find a parking space so I can do my Christmas shopping. Lord, please let me skip having a cold this year. Lord, please do whatever I want whenever I want it. Be my Sugar Daddy. Be my Santa Claus in the sky. That's a safe kind of God.
How different is the God of scripture. The God that called Abraham to leave his homeland behind and journey off to a new country. The God that called Moses to leave his father-in-law's flocks behind to return to a land where he was an escaped felon. The God that called David to leave behind his flocks in order to fight strong warriors and kings. And, as we heard in our Gospel lesson today, the God that sends wild prophets like John the Baptist to proclaim his will.
And then there's Jesus who called fishermen to leave their nets behind to follow him. Jesus who walked in the way of the cross. Jesus, who called his followers to take up their own crosses and follow him.
What C.S. Lewis is saying to us is, if you want a safe deity, you've come to the wrong place. God has a habit of stirring people up. God has a habit of challenging people and changing people. He's not safe, but he is good.
We all have the spiritual danger of making God too small. Later in chapter 9, Edmund visits the White Witch's house. In her courtyard he seed the stone statues of creature who have been frozen by her evil magic. He even sees a statue of a small lion. He mocks the lion, figuring he must be Aslan and that the Witch has frozen him already. He even takes out a pencil and draws a mustache and a pair of glasses on the lion. Edmund will later learn that he's made a grave mistake in confusing this small lion with the Great Lion Aslan.
But we shouldn't be too hard on Edmund. We make those same kinds of mistakes. Our images of God are often too small. There's even a classic book written around the same time as The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe that deals with that subject. It was written by J.B. Phillips, who was a friend and contemporary of C.S. Lewis, and it's titled, Your God is Too Small.
I'll just mention a few of J.B. Phillips's list of false images we have for God.
He speaks of God as a policeman, just waiting to catch you in some form of wrongdoing.
He speaks of God as parent, who often seems to embody all the worst aspects of our own human parents.
He speaks of God as some sort of puritanical celestial party pooper who wants to drain all the joy out of life, the kind of God who somehow loves babies, yet disapproves of the way they are conceived.
He speaks of God as meek and mild, a pale milquetoast God, the kind of God who never ruffles feathers, who never upsets anyone because he never makes any demands on anyone.
He ultimately deals with the myriad ways we have of wanting to pigeonhole God, to reduce God, to limit God to conform to our images, to place God in a box, to keep God safe or distant so that he will have little influence on us.
That's not the picture of Aslan in Narnia. That's not the picture of God in scripture. God is not safe. God will not stay safely confined in our little categories. But God is good. God loves us, and wants relationship with us.
Thus, when the children meet Aslan for the first time, they'll find him both aloof and accessible, both intimidating and welcoming. But we'll save that for next week.
In the meantime, let us worship the living God who is splendid and powerful, yet loving and gracious.
Let us come to his table to receive the gifts he so lovingly provides for us. And as we prepare for the celebration of Jesus' coming into the world, let us prepare him room in our hearts, so that we may welcome him, not as we'd like him to be, but as he is.
Christmas is coming. Jesus is coming. Aslan is on the move.
The Rev. James P. Haney V
Good Shepherd, Wichita
December 9, 2007
