Posts Tagged ‘Narnia’

Knowing our sinfulness makes us more, not less able to serve God. Jesus chooses Simon

February 8, 2025

Epiphany 5 -2025

Luke 5:1-11

Marian Free

In the name of God, all-knowing, all-powerful, and ever-present. Amen.

Have you ever thought about what it would be like to come face-to-face with the living God? 

Would you be filled with a deep sense of security and love? Would you be overawed and want to step back in the presence of such power and majesty? Would you be filled with the knowledge of your unworthiness, suddenly conscious of all the ways in which you fail to come up to your own standards, let alone those of God?  Would you be terrified of what God might do to you? Or would you, preferring to continue on your current course of selfishness and hedonism be annoyed and angry that God’s presence should suggest that there should be any other way of being?

In his Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis depicts the reactions of his characters when they come face to face with Aslan, the God-figure in the narratives. In The Magician’s Nephew, in which we first meet Aslan, Uncle Andrew, the self-absorbed, thoughtless experimenter sees the lion only as an impediment to his plans – he wants to get away so that he can continue doing what he has always done free from scrutiny and judgement. The witch – the symbol of all that is evil wants only to flee from the presence of all that is good.  She prefers the darkness and dreariness of her own world.  

In the second book, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, four siblings enter Narnia. When three of them first see Aslan, they cannot believe that anything could be both terrible and good at the same time[1].  On seeing “the great, solemn, overwhelming eyes, they find that they cannot look at him and they tremble all over.” It takes some time before they find the courage to approach Aslan (who was after all the purpose of their journey) and when finally, they are face-to-face, the lion’s deep and rich voice puts them at ease, and they feel glad and quiet and not at all awkward. 

Edmund, the fourth sibling who had been beguiled by the witch, reacts quite differently. When he comes before Aslan, he experiences a choking feeling, knowing that it was he who warned the witch of Aslan’s appearance. He also has a desire to speak, to offer excuses which thankfully he supresses. 

The reaction to Aslan of each of these characters depends in part on their character – their arrogance or lack of it, their openness (or not) to scrutiny, their willingness (or not) to change, their wilfulness or their compliance, their innocence or their worldliness, and their sense of what is right and what is wrong. 

Lewis takes as his starting point the biblical stories of encounters with God and the various reactions of prophets, kings, disciples and others. 

Today’s readings – Isaiah, Corinthians and Luke – describe the ways in which Isaiah, Paul and Simon react when they find themselves in the presence of the divine. The experiences of the three are quite different, but each in their own way expresses a sense of unworthiness or sinfulness when face-to-face with the living God. Isaiah declares that he is lost – for no one can see God and live. Paul comes to see that his sense of right and wrong was misguided, he tells us that he is the least of the apostles and unfit to be called an apostle. 

Simon’s story is similar – though it includes many other details. According to Luke, Jesus is already known to him as a healer and worker of miracles, as Master, but not as Lord. Early in Jesus’ ministry Jesus visited the house of Simon and healed his mother-in-law. Perhaps this is why Simon is happy to let Jesus use his boat – he is already a little in awe, but not to the point of recognising Jesus for whom he is. When Jesus tells Simon to have one more try at a catch, Simon objects. A night on the lake has gained nothing. He calls Jesus, “Master” a term of respect for someone with authority – sufficient authority that Simon does what Jesus suggests though he has no expectation of success.  To his absolute surprise he nets more fish than his nets can hold, more than he and his fellow workers can bring in themselves, and more than can fit in the boats without causing them to sink.

We will never know what changed Simon’s heart – the catch of fish representing Jesus’ divinity, or the fear of sinking – being punished by God. Either way, he realises that he is in the presence of the divine and urges Jesus (whom he now addresses as “Lord”) to get away from him – stop the boat sinking or protect himself from Simon’s uncleanness. 

Jesus is having none of that.  He can see beyond Simon’s weaknesses to his strengths. He knows that the very fact that Simon is alert of his shortcomings, makes him an ideal candidate for a disciple.  Simon won’t be hampered by pride or self-confidence. His self-awareness will mean that he will be more receptive to instruction, more willing to rely on God than on himself, and more tolerant of the failings of others.

Scripture is filled with examples of people who felt unworthy to be chosen by God, who in the presence of the divine saw themselves for who they truly were – unworthy to be carry out God’s will.  

God choses them anyway and equips them to serve. God makes the lips of Isaiah clean so that he can speak the word of God. God changes Paul’s passion for the faith of his youth to faith in Christ and so the church is born. God tolerates the foibles of Simon, indeed of all the disciples knowing that there will be time when they come into their own. 

I am not at all certain that I could stand tall in the presence of God, but scripture tells me that God chooses those who are prepared to see themselves as God sees them, those who do not put up barriers between themselves and God, those who can stand God’s scrutiny and, of course, those who have nothing to fear. These are the people whom God can use – people who have room for the Holy Spirit in their lives, who know how little they can do on their own and who will allow God to work in and through them.

It is not the weak, the vulnerable and the foolish whom God rejects, but the self-assured, the self-contained, and those who are so pleased with themselves that they have no room for God.

“Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful person.”

“Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.”

Knowing our sinfulness makes us more, not less, useful to God.

[1] p 117

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Smashing boundaries, confronting stereotypes

May 28, 2016

Pentecost 2 – 2016

Luke 7:1-10

Marian Free

 

In the name of God who welcome all those who seek God. Amen.

C.S. Lewis had the most extraordinary ability to express complex theology in a way that is easy to understand. This is demonstrated above all in his stories. The Screwtape Letters proved a light-hearted insight into the subtleties of evil and The Great Divorce reveals Lewis’s understanding of the final judgement. Perhaps his greatest achievement is The Chronicles of Narnia – children’s stories that Lewis wrote for his god-daughter. In seven short books, Lewis manages to sum up some of the central tenets of our faith in story form. From an account of creation in The Magician’s Nephew to an imaginative presentation of judgement and the end of the world in The Last Battle Lewis manages to share the faith in an adventure story that is so compelling that even on the one hundredth read is impossible to put down and that even on the one hundred and first read still has greater depths to reveal.

Narnia is an imaginary land into which children from this world are unexpectedly thrown and in which they find themselves confronting, challenging and fighting the forces of evil. In Narnia the divine is represented by a huge lion – Aslan – who appears terrible to those who don’t believe or who have gone their own way, but full of light and love to those whose hearts are open and who have nothing to hide. Because Lewis is writing from a Christian perspective, it is clear to us that Aslan represents the Trinity and in particular Jesus. Readers observe Aslan breathing the world into being, being destroyed and yet being restored to life and being present as an invisible presence and power. Aslan is welcoming, forgiving and understanding, but not without expectations of those who would be his friends. He expects the children to trust him and to show the same sort of care for others as he shows to them.

Perhaps the most extraordinary book in the series is the last. In this story, he tries to capture the theme of Revelation – a difficult enough book for any of us to grasp. Suffice to say, the story deals with the destruction of the world and the final judgement. It is impossible to summarise the plot here and I simply want to focus on one aspect of the story. The final battle is between the cruel Calormenes and the Narnians. In the course of the battle the heroes are slain and find themselves in the most wonderful land in which everything is larger, brighter and somehow more real than the land from which they came. They are not alone in this new place. All the Narnians who have fallen in battle are there with them. There too are a small group of dwarves, huddled together in terror, so bound by their unbelief that they simply cannot see the beauty and bounty that surrounds them.

Also in this new and wonderful land is a Calormene who is wandering freely and in wide-eyed wonder. Emeth, for that was his name, had spent his life faithful to the god of his own people and was deeply disturbed by what the deceptions that had brought Narnia under Calormene control. Unlike the dwarves who were blinded by their skepticism and arrogance, Emeth was open to the presence of the divine, by whatever name it went. When he found himself in the strange new land, he was at first unafraid. It was only when he came face to face with Aslan that he threw himself to the ground, certain that he – a follower of the god of the Calormenes – would be struck down and destroyed. Instead he feels the lion bend down and touch his tongue to his forehead saying: “Son you are welcome.” Despite Emeth’s protestations that he is not worthy, Aslan assures him that his life, his goodness and his desire for God were all in fact in the service of Aslan and that he belongs in this strange new place.

There are a number of surprising aspects to today’s gospel. The centurion is not only not a Jew, he is a Roman and a soldier at that. He cares for his slave almost as a father cares for his child yet, despite his authority he does not feel that he is in a position to ask for Jesus’ help directly. Instead he sends some Jews to ask on his behalf. They assure Jesus that he is worthy of Jesus’ attention however, when Jesus’ nears the home of the centurion he sends another delegation – this time his friends – to tell Jesus that he is not worthy to have Jesus come to him.

It is clear that the centurion has seen the divine in Jesus and that, in the presence of the Jesus, he is acutely aware of his outsider status, his unworthiness. He is seeking Jesus’ help even though he does not worship the God of the Jews. The centurion knows that he does not belong, that in the eyes of many he represents the enemy, the oppressor.

Jesus sees in him, not an enemy but someone who is open to the presence of the divine, someone who is not so bound by his own ideas or by his skepticism that he cannot see Jesus for who he is. Jesus sees not someone who worships another god, but someone whose life, goodness and desire for God are in the service of the one true God. In fact Jesus rather than being disturbed is amazed – even among the Jews he has not found a faith to match that of the centurion.

Unlike Jesus, there are many who are quick to judge, who believe that they know who is in and who is out, who think that they know just what faith entails and how God will judge their faith and the faith of others.

The gospels are quick to destroy the arrogance that insists that there is only one way to God and only one way to be accepted by God. Rather than creating strict definitions of who belongs and who does not, Jesus is constantly smashing boundaries, confounding stereotypes and confronting the self-confidence of those who think that they are the only ones who will be saved.

Then who will be saved when that final curtain falls and Jesus comes again to judge? Those who seek God in the ways that are known to them and whose understanding of God is not limited to a prescribed set of ideas but who are open to the presence of God in themselves and in the world, those who have the humility to recognise their own unworthiness and who do not feel that the world/God owes them anything and who understand that they do not cannot deserve Jesus’ attention. In other words salvation belongs to those who trust in God – whoever and whatever God may be – and who, instead of trusting in themselves, admit their faults and throw themselves on God’s mercy.

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