The Lion's Perspective (Reflections on The Horse and His Boy)

 Sermon as Preached at Lambs and Evington UMC on 7/27/14

Read Isaiah 43:1-7

Today we continue our Chronicles of Narnia Sermon series by looking at the book The Horse and His Boy.  This is one of the later written books of the series, but chronologically this book falls right after The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. Last week we mentioned that after the great battle and the defeat of the White Witch, the children ruled Narnia for years and years, until one day finding their way out of the wardrobe.  The Horse and his Boy takes place during that period in which the children reigned as Kings and Queens. Though the Pevinse children are the main characters in our series, in our book for today they play only a minor role.

            The book actually centers around a boy named Shasta. Shasta is a Calormene boy who works like a servant for his “father.”  As a baby Shasta washed up on shore and was raised by a local fisherman. One day a noble Calromene was visiting Shasta’s father, and as they met Shasta overheard them in discussions for selling Shasta to this other man.  Shasta was shocked, and went and waited in the stables for his new master. But then something shocking happened, the visitor’s horse, Bree, started talking to him. We are familiar with talking animals now after hearing about the Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, but this was not something that Shasta had ever heard before. Bree, the horse, tells Shasta of how horrible of a person their master is, and together they decide to escape to Narnia.

            The journey however is a long one, and while Bree is a noble war horse, Shasta is an unexperienced rider. Together they ride toward Narnia until they hear the last thing they want to hear, the roar of a lion. Now we have come to associate a lion with Aslan, but we must remember that in this part of the land non-talking animals existed, and were savage and ferocious like the animals we know in our world. Together they darted off at full speed and as they traveled they thought they heard something riding near them just on the other side of the river. Finally the realize indeed it was someone. It was a young girl name Aravis and her talking horse Hwin. Aravis is running away to Narnia as well, but unlike Shasta, Aravis is from nobility. She is running away because she refuses to marry Ahosta, who is the grand vizier to the Tisroc (the King of Calormen). Though Aravis views herself as better than Shasta, she admires the noble war horse Bree, and they decide to travel to Narnia together.

            To get to Narnia however they first had to go through the Tashbaan, the capital of Calormen. As they are traveling through the city the Shasta is separated from the others. It just so happens that the Kings and Queens of Narnia (the Pevenses) are traveling through Tashbaan because Prince Rabadash is trying to court Queen Susan. The children mistake Shasta for Prince Corin, Prince of Archenland, an ally to Narnia. They take Shasta away because they don’t believe him when he says he’s not Corin. While he’s with the children he overhears their plot to fake a party for Rabadash and then sail away for Narnia. Finally the real Corin comes back, and helps Shasta escape.

            Shasta escapes Tashbaan goes to the tombs in the desert,  just as the group had planned for if they were to be separated, but no one was there. As the sun went down, he heard a great horn from the city, the gates were closed, he was all alone in the desert. There he started to here strange sounds, he saw the shadow of a figure that looked like a lion approaching, he thought his life was over. But it was not a lion, it was a small cat, the cat snuggled up with him and kept him company throughout the whole night.

            While all of this was going Aravis had an adventure of her own. After Shasta was taken away, an old friend of Aravis recognized her and called her out in the crowd. To avoid detection, Aravis joined her friend and told her of her plan to escape. Aravis’s friend told her she would help her escape city, and that they would do it through the castle of the Tisroc, now that the gates were closed. As they are making their escape they here footsteps in the castle hallway, and so they run and hide behind a sofa in the nearest room. Unfortunately that is the room that the Tisroc himself, as well as Prince Rabadash, and Ahosta, the man Aravis was supposed to marry, decided to gather in. As the girls hid they heard them discuss plans to invade Archenland and Narnia. After the men leave the room, Aravis finally escapes and together with the horses rejoins Shasta at the tombs.

            Aravis tells Shasta of Rabadash’s plan to invade Archenland and Narnia and so the race off to warn the cities of the attack. The journey is long and grueling and the horses are getting tired until once again they find themselves in the presence of a lion. The lion chases the horses for a long time continually gaining on them, finally catching up to them and catching Aravis’s back with its claws, Shasta stop, runs at the lion and the lion flees. Aravis has a nice slash across her back, which is quite painful, but not life threatening.  As the group ventures forward they find that they are already right at the Edge of Narnia.  Shasta goes and warns the Narnians while Aravis heals with a hermit they met, and together the Narnians arrive in Archenland in time to stop the attack.  The most striking aspect of this story is that at the end Aslan appears to Shasta and tells him, “I was the lion who forced you to join with Aravis. I was the cat who comforted you among the houses of the dead. I was the lion who drove the jackals from you while you slept. I was the lion who gave the horses the new strength of fear for the last mile so that you should reach King Lune in time. And I was the lion you do not remember who pushed the boat in which you lay, a child near death, so that it came to shore where a man sat, wakeful at midnight, to receive you.”  Likewise Aravis encounters Aslan and his told that he scratched her back so that she would know the pain that she caused the servant who received lashings after Aravis’s escape from home.  The wild lion that they encountered throughout their entire journey, was none other than the great Aslan.

            Probably none of us have been on a journey with talking horses across unfamiliar lands as we escape from being sold into slavery. (If you have, I certainly would like to talk to you later). We have most likely never single handedly stopped an invasion of a foreign nation by warning the armies just in the nick of time. We have not had the same difficulties that Shasta and friends faced on their journeys, but each and every one of us have certainly faced difficulties in our own journeys of life.  Life can present us with some pretty difficult situations. We can lose our job or struggle to find one in the first place. We can become ill or we can lose someone so close to us. We can battle our own vices like addiction, or we can battle financial struggles. Life throws so many different things at us, and each of us has had to face it sometime in our lives. In the midst of all of these heartaches and struggles it is normal to feel alone. It is normal to feel as though the weight of the world is upon your shoulders, to feel as though there is no help to be found. Yet even in our darkest moments, even when we feel as though we have hit rock bottom and that we are all alone, God is with us. In our scripture for this morning God gives us words of encouragement saying, “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;  I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;  and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.

            Do not be afraid, I have redeemed you. I have called you by name, you are mine. These words were originally words of comfort for the people of Israel. The Israelites at that time were facing captivity at the hands of Babylon. Some people had fled, others were left behind, while many were taken as prisoners. In the midst of these troubles God tells the people do not be afraid, I have redeemed you. I have redeemed you what does that mean? It could be a reminder for how God has been faithful in the past, rescuing them from Egypt, guiding them through the wilderness. This is certainly true, but I think there is more to it than that. I have redeemed you does not seem to be  something that just happened in the past, but a reminder that they are still redeemed. It is a reminder that God’s presence is there with them. It is a reminder that each of their lives is precious in the Lord’s sight. “I have called you by name” says the Lord. “You are mine.”

            Our story reminds us of the beauty of the grace of God, because our story looks totally different when viewed from the perspective of the lion. In our story the orphaned boy unfortunately washes up by a fisherman who takes him home and treats him like a servant, but the lion sees a baby out on the water who is going to die, and pushes him towards a fisherman who fortunately happens to be there that day and who takes the boy home and rescues him from certain death. Before he even knew it,  this boy was receiving help from Aslan the lion, the God figure of the Chronicles of Narnia. Later on, from the lion’s perspective, there are two sets of riders both fleeing by themselves who would be great companions for each other and so he steers them together.  The lion saw poor, scared Shasta lay at the tomb and  in the form of a cat kept Shasta company, and it was the lion who without Shasta knowing it kept the jackals away that night. Finally, the lion saw the invaders gaining ground, and so he scared the horses into outrunning the invaders and arriving in time to warn the Narnians. From the perspective of the lion, everything was done out of a love, and yet until the end all of this was done without Shasta and the others even knowing.

            This story is an example of what we as Methodists call prevenient grace. It is a grace that goes before, a grace that at first we may even be unaware of, but a grace that pushes us back towards God. No one but the lion knew the lion’s intentions, in fact our travelers saw it as a danger, Shasta had never even heard of Aslan, and yet it was a grace leading them together, a grace to comfort them in times of fear, but most important it was a grace that merited a response. That’s the true beauty of prevenient grace, of all ways of experiencing grace really, that it merits a response. This response is often repentance. Just as the scratches on the back of Aravis reminded her of the pain she caused her servant and caused her to change, sometimes grace for us can actually be painful, it can show us our faults and where we need to change. Grace can come in the form of comfort or in the form of hurt that leads to repentance, but however we receive the grace, our response should always be to turn towards God.  When Shasta started this journey he was an awkward, scared little boy, but when the lion seems to be threatening the danger of his friend Shasta responds, he turns and faces the lion head on.

            When we are in our times in struggle and pain, when we are in our times of  despair, may we have the courage to turn and face the lion; to turn and face God. May we have the courage to respond to the grace we have been receiving, whether it is gently nudges or painful shoves. For when we turn and face the lion, when we turn and face God, we will finally realize that we were never alone. When we respond to that grace and turn and face God we can finally understand the love that God has for us. “I have called you by name, you are mine.” When we turn and face God, we may truly believe it when we hear Do not be afraid, I have redeemed you.  Like Shasta who after facing the lion had the courage to ride alone to warn the Narnians, we may have the courage through the grace of God to faithfully serve. That we may recognize that God has called us each by name because God sees the potential we have to do something special; even when we fail to recognize it in ourselves. Our story for today reminds us that we are never alone. It teaches us of that prevenient grace of God, that goes before us, even before we know it. Finally makes us search our souls and answer how we will respond to that grace; will we turn and face God?

The Lion's Sacrifice (Hebrews 9:11-22) Reflections on The Lion, the Witch, and The Wardrobe

 Sermon as preached at Lambs and Evington UMC on 7/20/14

Today as we continue our Chronicles of Narnia sermon series we turn to what is most likely C.S. Lewis’s most popular book, not just in the series, but probably out of anything he has written. The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe is one of the most beloved stories from Lewis, and as we explore it this morning we will find  it  probably has one of the most obvious Christian undertones in any of the books. 

            The book starts focusing on the lives of the four Pevinse children: Peter the oldest brother, Susan the oldest sister, Edmund, and Lucy, the youngest of them all.  The children are in London during the bombings in World War II, the government has set up a program allowing children to be housed by citizens who live out in the country. This is the situation the children find themselves in as they are taken away to the house of a Professor Kirke, who just so happens to be a much older Digory, the boy who saw the creation of Narnia.  The children are bored one day and decide to play hide and go seek, As the youngest child Lucy goes to hide she finds a wardrobe in an empty room; the perfect hiding spot. She enters into the wardrobe, and passes a great many fur coats when suddenly the coats look more like tree branches and she finds that she is walking in snow, in fact she is in a whole new world covered in snow. As she explores she meets a faun, a creature that is half human, half goat. Tumnus the faun is surprised to see “a daughter of eve” as he puts it and invites her back to his place. Lucy falls asleep, and when she wakes up, Tumnus is distraught, he tells her that he has turned her in to the White Witch, and that they must go now. Lucy leaves and returns through the wardrobe back to the house. She comes out screaming, I am here don’t worry, but the children have no idea what she is talking about, because time is strange in Narnia, those she stayed a day in Narnia, it was like she was never gone in our world.

            Lucy tells the others about the wardrobe but nobody believes her, they check it out for themselves, and strangely find just a normal wardrobe. One night Lucy decides to go back to Narnia, but this time Edmund is following her and to his surprise he finds himself too in that strange land. As Lucy goes to find her friend Tumnus, Edmund meets “the Queen of Narnia, the white witch. She is intrigued by Edmund, a “son of Adam” and is even more fascinated by the fact that he has a brother and two sisters. As she entices him with his favorite snack, Turkish Delight,  she tells him to go and bring his siblings back to her at her castle.  Edmund returns and finds Lucy and the leave the wardrobe. As Lucy tells Peter and Susan about this journey Edmund lies to his siblings and tells them he was never there.

            Time passes and one day while the house is being toured by visitors, all four children are forced to hide so they won’t be seen and so they all cram into that small Wardrobe, except this time all four sibling find themselves in Narnia. Finally believing Lucy, they follow her to Tumnus the faun’s house but it has been broken into and he was nowhere to be found.  Mr. Beaver sees the kids and takes them back to his home. There he explains that the white witch had taken Tumnus and like many others has turned him into stone. The beaver explains that the witch is scared because there is rumor that Aslan is on the move, and that prophecy foretold that two sons of Adam and two daughters of Eve would come and end long winter of Narnia. As Beaver is explaining all of this, Edmund sneaks off and goes to the White witch’s castle.

            When Edmund arrives, the witch is furious that he did not bring his siblings with him, she no longer pretends to be nice to him, and instead she holds him hostage using him as bait to bring the siblings to her, and together she goes on a chase after the other siblings. While this is going on, Lucy, Susan, Peter, and the Beavers make their journey to the Stone Table, an ancient and almost holy ground where it is said that Aslan has now set up camp.  As  they get closer and closer to the Stone Table, the winter begins to melt and spring is upon them. This stops the witch from catching them before they reach Aslan.

            As they reach the Stone table, the children meet Aslan, the lion, and are told of their role in the upcoming battle; they are also told of Edmund’s betrayal. At that time however, creatures from Aslan’s army were rescuing Edmund from and bringing him back to the Stone Table. The children rejoice in seeing their brother’s return, but their celebration was short lived. The white witch comes and demands the life of Edmund. According the Deep Magic,  the almost law that rules Narnia, the life of any traitor belongs to Jadis, the white witch. Aslan and Jadis talk in private and come to some agreement, but nobody knows what it is.

            Late that night, Lucy and Susan are awoken by a quiet noise, it was Aslan walking by himself towards the Stone Table. The girls join him in his journey, but are told to go back when he got close to the Stone Table.  They disobeyed, and soon they witnessed the most awful scene, Aslan was willingly giving himself up to the Witch. His feet were bound, he was shaved of his beautiful hair, and there on the Stone Table he was killed. Lucy and Susan stay at the Table all night long, weeping over their beloved leader and friend. When morning arrived the girls were still at the Altar but the boys and the rest of the Narnians were marching into battle against the Witch and her army. They fought valiantly, but slowly and surely the Narnians were losing.  Meanwhile, something amazing happened at the Table. There was a great rumble and the huge stone Table was broken in half and the body of Aslan was gone. Finally, there in glory, Aslan, alive and as magnificent looking as ever, appeared to the girls. Together they journeyed to the witch’s castle, Aslan awoke the Narinans who had been turned to stone, and the went and joined the battle. With Aslan reinforcements had arrived, the Army of the Witch was destroyed, and Aslan himself kills the White witch. The four children reign as kings and queens of Narnia for years until one day they find themselves back in a familiar part of Narnia, and end up back in the wardrobe, and finally back in professor Kirke’s house, children once again as if no time had passed at all.

            As I said earlier, this story is probably the most blatantly Christian stories of any of the Chronicles of Narnia books. I sure many of you have already made the connect for yourselves. Aslan the great lion sacrifices himself and rises from the dead, just like Jesus who sacrificed himself on the cross and rose again. While the message of this story is really that simple at the same time there is a deeper meaning that we can draw from our story.

            Edmund is a traitor, or if we want to use church language to describe it, Edmund is a sinner. According to the deep magic of Narnia traitors or sinners were to be handed over to the Witch, the evil one.  Lewis is brilliant with his depiction here, everything has a purpose. We find that this Deep Magic that we read about in our story is in fact shockingly similar to the Law we find throughout the Old Testament. If we want to do a quick crash course refresher on some of the themes of the Old Testament we must remember that early in Genesis God made a covenant to the Israelites to be their God and that they would be God’s people. Later in Exodus we find that this covenant was ratified through the Law that Moses received on the Mountain from God. From then on, the way in which in which the people of God lived as God’s people was through following those laws. Yet,  as humans the people continued to sin, and so the people needed a way to atone, to make up for their mistakes. At that time the way this was done was through animal sacrifice.  Animals would be brought to the Altar, and the priests would then take the sacrifice behind a curtain, into the inner room of the Tabernacle in which it was believed where God resided.

            This was the structure of law and atonement that the people lived by, but how could those sacrifices make up for a perpetual state of sin? What could save the people from the depths of hell, from being handed over to the evil one? What type of sacrifice could cleanse all humanity of their sin?  The blood of the Messiah, the pure and innocent son of God. 

            And  just as Aslan handed himself over to be sacrificed though he himself committed no crime, so too did Christ sacrifice himself for all humanity.  In the story we find the witch rejoicing, she had just defeated her greatest nemesis, she had fooled the poor sucker into giving himself up and now nothing was to stop her from ruling Narnia.  She could finally launch an attack on the rest of the creatures without having to fear the wrath of this great lion.  The great witch had won, or so she had thought.  In fact however it was the witch who was fooled.  Aslan rose from the dead, the sacrifice of innocent blood trumped the sacrifice dictated by the Deep Magic. The Stone Table was shattered, never again will a sacrifice be necessary. The lion reawoke the witches prized stone creatures which she collected like trophies, and she was defeated once and for all, the trick was on the witch.

            This story helps me to picture a quite similar scene with the crucifixion of Christ.  As those nails are pierced into Jesus’s side, as he cries out in his last breath, I can almost imagine the evil one celebrating, thinking that victory is his, and yet the trick is on him. He doesn’t understand the true nature of God, that through love, through the blood of Christ selfless sacrifice, the Law is fulfilled in Christ. As our scripture says, “How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death,^[c] so that we may serve the living God.” In Christ’s sacrifice, Satan lost everything, and we gained eternal life.

Through the blood of Christ there is no need for any more sacrifice. Just as the Stone Table broke in half, we read in Scripture that with the death of Christ, the curtain of the temple was torn in two. The place for sacrifice was gone. God was no longer hidden behind a veil, but now to be experience by the whole world. A new covenant is formed in which the sacrifice necessary for atonement has already been offered up on our behalf.  As our scripture says, “ For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.  Through Christ’s blood we have a new covenant, it is why during communion were are told, “this is my blood of the new covenant poured out for you and for many in the forgiveness of sins.

            Through a selfless sacrifice something amazing happened, the forces of wickedness were conquered. Like the love that Aslan showed by sacrificing himself for Edmund, Our Lord has shown us the greatest love by his sacrifice for us. And yet the sacrifice is not something to mourn, for in it sin and death were conquered. Like Aslan Christ rose from the dead, his power cannot be contained. The devil like the Witch has been defeated.  This story reminds us of the triumph that was obtained through sacrifice. It reminds us that we like Edmund have been save from a punishment fitting for our crime. It reminds us that a new covenant has been formed, and it reminds us that like Aslan, the Lord lives and reigns forever. This may be just a children’s story and yet it reminds us of the reality of the greatest story we’ve ever heard. That the innocent Lord was willing to die for us, As Charles Wesley says in his great hymn,  “Amazing love how can it be, that thou my Lord would die for me?”

"The Lion's Song" (Reflections on The Magician's Nephew) Genesis 1:1-25

Sermon as preached at Lambs and Evington UMC 7/13/14

This morning we begin our sermon series focusing on C. S. Lewis’s  “the Chronicles of Narnia”  These are stories that as a child I loved, these books would let my imagination go wild as new worlds and creatures were introduced to me. It was in seminary that my eyes were once again opened to these novels.  I was taking a course on C.S. Lewis, and of course we studied many of his important personal and theological works such Surprised by Joy,   A Grief Observed,  The Screwtape Letters, and of course Mere Christianity. Surprisingly, in the class we actually spent more time on his fictional writings, including the Chronicles of Narnia, and it was there it began to make sense to me; these stories though fiction, speak to the truth of God and of Christian living. Over the next seven weeks we will look at each book, and I hope that your eyes are too opened to the wealth of knowledge these books have to teach us about God.

            This morning we begin not with C.S. Lewis’s first and most popular book, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, but rather with The Magician’s Nephew, a prequel to all the other stories.  This was Lewis’s preferred reading order,  and it makes sense because the Magician’s Nephew is a story that teaches us about the wonders of creation.  Our story starts out with a young boy named Digory who along with his mother have moved into his Aunt and Uncle’s house because his mother is deathly sick. As he’s there he notices that his Uncle acts very odd, and is often locked in his room for hours with only the sound of random laughter coming from behind the door.  One day, Digory and his friend Polly go on an adventure in the attic like area above the house, when they find a way to sneak into the Uncle’s room. The Uncle is delighted to see the kids and tricks Polly into putting on a ring, and the moment she does, she disappears. The Uncle explains that the rings are magic, one takes you to away, and one brings you back; but the Uncle was too cowardly and too proud to ever explore where they went for himself. The only way Digory could save Polly was if he put on a magic ring himself.

When Digory puts on the magic ring he finds himself transported to a strange woods, full of many pools of water. The kids decide to explore one of the pools and find that the pools are portals to different worlds.  The first world they encounter is a place called Charn, a desolate world, at the end of its days. There are no living creatures, just a great castle ruins, full of royal looking stone statues. In the middle of the courtyard there is a bell with an inscription tempting Digory to ring it. When Digory strikes the bell, it awakens an evil witch, and from there on in the story chaos ensues.  The kids try to escape from the witch using their rings, but the witch grabs them and it transported with them back to our world.  After the witch goes on a spree of destruction,  Digory, Polly, the Uncle try to use the rings once again to bring the witch back to the other world. They are successful in bringing her back to the woods and they go into one of the pools taking them to another world.

            As they come out of the pool they find that they are in complete darkness, they had entered into a world of nothingness. Suddenly they heard something, it was a voice singing, and soon other voices were harmonizing with it. As they listened to the song they noticed that above them the sky was suddenly dusted with stars.  Slowly a light on the horizon began to show and a sun had been born. As the light grows they are able to see a strange figure in the distance, it is a lion, and to their surprise the voice was coming from the lion.  The lion would sing and creation seemed to stem from the song. The song would become deeper and slower and  from the song mountains and trees appeared, and as the song sped up and became lighter, flowers and plants and streams popped up all around. Finally near the end of the song creatures of a kind, two of each, started to sprout up from the ground. The lion went to each animal and they touched nose to nose, and when the song was over the  lion cried out, “Narnia, Narnia, Narnia, awake.” The children had just witnessed something spectacular, they had just witnessed the creation of Narnia. 

            A story like this just stirs at our imagination, we start to picture in our minds the amazing possibilities of mountains and rivers and animals all sprouting up from the sound of a song. We try to start to even hear in our minds what the lion’s song might have sounded like.  There is such power and wonder behind a story of creation like this, and it can help us to remember the wonder behind the actual creation story that we have in Genesis. I think that we have become so familiar with this story that we fail to stop and appreciate the beauty of creation.  How often do we look out at the mountains or pass over the rivers? How often do we hear the birds singing and tend to the cows and horses in the fields?  How often do we watch the sunrise or the stars shine at night?  We interact with nature, with creation, every day and yet so often we forget to truly appreciate it. We fail to recognize that everything around us is because of the work of God. The fact we have day and night is because of God. The reason we have water to drink, or plants to eat is because of God. The reason that we are even here in the first place is because of God.

            It is easy to forget about the amazing nature of creation because it is all we have ever known.  All we have ever needed, all we could ever imagine has already been created.  We as humans now have simply been finding ways in which creation can be used.  It is pretty impressive the ways in which we as humans have used creation as well.  From a dark ashy material we call coal, we have extracted light and energy. From trees and from minerals found in the ground we have created not only dwelling places for ourselves, but entire cities for business and entertainment as well. From silicon we have made machines that can store, process and transmit information all around the world.  It truly is remarkable what we have been able to do with the fruits of creation.

            The wonders of industry and technology can however make us believe that we are greater than we are. We can start to become like Uncle Andrew from our story, who views himself as an amazing and noble scientist. He marvels at all that he has been able to create, he puts himself so much on a pedestal that he views himself more important than other creature. He sends poor like guinea pigs into the unknown worlds because they are not as important as he is. He even sends Polly and Digory into the worlds, because he is greater and nobler than they are. Uncle Andrew is a great creator, and yet our story teaches him and teaches us that we have really created nothing.

            Because imagine yourself like Digory, Dolly and Uncle Andrew in a world that is simply nothing. No light no trees, no mountains, no water, no animals. Imagine the vast nothingness, the hopelessness of that world, and then imagine seeing everything spring into creation through the voice of a lion. When you go from absolute nothingness to creation right in front of your eyes, you begin to realize how small we really are. All of those amazing “creations” that we as humans have made, and only an adaptation of what has already been created, but God creates out of nothing. Genesis starts out by saying, “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth,  the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep.”  Darkness, nothingness, this is what God had to work with but just like the lion who sang and creation sprung from nothing,  God spoke and creation began. God said let there be light and there was light. God said, “Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” The waters separated and sky and oceans were formed. God spoke and vegetation grew all over the earth, God spoke and all living creatures inhabited the land. God spoke and male and female were created, created in the image of God.  We can lose the wonder of this story when it becomes too familiar, and we need to be reminded of the amazing fact that out of nothing God created everything. We as humans are not God, what we create is already created, and we ourselves are just a part of the whole creation story.

            And yet psalm 8 reminds us that we are special. “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them,  mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor. You have given them dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field,  the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.” In the grand scheme of things we are reminded that we are really nothing. When we survey the amazing wonders of creation, “the work of God’s fingers” as the psalm puts it, we start to understand some true perspective. We can begin to feel small and insignificant; that we were only a day was spent on us out of the whole week of creation. We begin to look at our own abilities and understand that we really have very little power. We cannot create out of nothing, we are not creators we are the created. In that moment in which we feel like our lives don’t really matter at all, when we ask God, “who are human beings that you are mindful of them” we are reminded that despite our insignificant stature, God has made us just a little lower than himself, and we have been crowned with glory and honor. We have been given dominion over the works of God’s hands.  We are nothing, and yet we have been given everything. We have been given honor, and yet have done nothing to deserve it.

            This is the basis for the understanding of our lives as humans. This is the basis for our interaction with God, that we as humans are nothing special and yet God treats us as if we are a most precious possession. The Magician’s Nephew allows us to put is all in perspective. It allows us to imagine ourselves in the most spectacular occasion. This story helps us to imagine what that first act of creation could have really felt like. What it could have felt like for there to truly be nothingness, and suddenly from that nothingness to see life sprout up. It allows us  to imagine hearing the divine song or divine voice that brought it all into existence, for if you haven’t figured out the lion, whose name is Aslan, will be the metaphor for Christ and for the triune God.  This book allows us to put ourselves outside of the creation story and become witnesses, because as we read Genesis, we are not witnesses of creation, but rather we are part of it.

            This imagination gives us the appreciation for the works of the hands of God, and gives us perspective as humans. God spoke, and we were created.  We were nothing but a word on the lips of God, and now we crowned with glory and honor.  We must take this perspective to heart. We have been given dominion of the Earth by God and yet we do not deserve it. We failed our duties, we put ourselves as greater than God and yet God sent us the prophets to guide us back. We rejected and killed the prophets, and so God sent his only son. We killed Jesus Christ and yet his blood was used to wash us clean, and the power of the Holy Spirit was given to all those who believe. Time and time again have put ourselves above God, and yet God continues to love and forgive us. In comparison to God’s almighty power, we are insignificant, and yet God still chooses us to continue singing that song of creation.  It is time as Christians that we humble ourselves, and in lowering ourselves we may rise up to the glory the Lord has prescribed for us. We must finally acknowledge that creation is not something for us to consume, but to take care of. We must realize that dominion does not mean ownership, we did not create this Earth; God did out of nothing. Therefore just as God treats we who are nothing with honor and glory, we must too treat all that has been given to our dominion with that same honor. We must remember that those things which many seem insignificant to us, like us, were spoken out of nothing by the one who creates the great symphony of creation. Our job is simple, we must let that voice continue to sing, and join in harmony with its sweet, sweet sound.

Haters Gonna Hate (Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30)

Sermon as Preached at Lambs and Evington UMC on 7/6/14

When I was growing up there was a phrase we used to say about people who criticize us. That phrase was “haters gonna hate.”  What the phrase meant was that people who are looking for something the criticize are always going to find it. It could be about the way you dress, you could show up to school in the nicest Ralph Lauren Polo or in my case in high school in the newest football jersey and Nike’s, and yet someone would criticize you for your brand of jeans. “Haters gonna hate.”  You could be in the upper percentile of your graduating class, hold a steady job six days a week on top of that, and yet still somebody would remark that you should have been involved in more extra-curricular activities at school. “Haters gonna hate.” And yet none of that compares to when you put on that dark shade of blue down in Durham, North Carolina. It doesn’t matter that the school used to be a Methodist school or that it still has a United Methodist Seminary. It doesn’t matter that the school is ranked highly in academics and that their student athletes are not only world class athletes but are also true scholars (unlike that other school down the road from it). None of that matters for when you put those four letters D-U-K-E across your chest, well haters gonna hate.

            The phrase haters gonna hate certainly did not exist in the time of Jesus, but if there was one phrase to summarize what Jesus was talking about in this passage it would be that phrase. As Jesus talks to the crowds in our passage for this morning, he points out all the ways in which the people have rejected messengers of God.  He first mentions John the Baptist and his ministries. Earlier in the chapter Jesus talked about John the Baptist was a prophet preparing the way for the Messiah. But John was rejected. The people did not like the message of repentance and preparation that John had to preach. John was too stern, to strict, too rigid. People would talk and criticized John because he did not drank and because of his long fasts. They thought that John was not one of them, he was an outsider, his views were radical and they did not have to listen to him.

John was rejected for his stern strict lifestyle, and so here comes the Son of Man. He is one of us. He drinks and eats with sinners and tax collecters. He touches the unclean. He comes speaking words of love and peace. This cannot be the Messiah, the Messiah will be a mighty warrior, the Messiah would not associate with sinners and tax collecters, This man Jesus is not the Messiah, he is a glutton and a drunkard… Haters gonna hate.

            Just like the crowds that Jesus is speaking to, we also too often look for the fault in someone rather than for what it holy.  Someone can speak some truth to us, but because it is not what we want to hear, because it is not what we expect to hear, we find reasons to reject them.  We have found ourselves now hunkering down to our own sides, and viewing whoever has a differing opinion as someone who is  misguided, evil, and detestable.  If you want to see this at work, we have to look no further than here in our nation with our own political ideology. We are no longer able to talk through issues that matter to us, we can no longer try to find compromises for the good of the country. Our country has become polarized, conservatives and liberals, and there is no room for anything in between.  Politics has become more of a game of winning on your position rather than working for the common good. All of this has most of us to drawing our battle lines, and whoever is against what we believe, is someone who is detested.  Don’t believe me, simply say the name Michelle Bachman to a liberal or Barack Obama to a conservative, and see the reaction that you get. Where did we go wrong? When did we stop listening for the good and the truth in people, and start looking only for hate and anger?

            Sadly, this hate, this vilification is not limited to our political sphere, but it has snuck into even the church.  Some of you may be aware that the United Methodist Church is going through a lot of turmoil over the issue of human sexuality. This same sort of vilification and hate has become deeply imbedded in supporters of both sides of the argument. Things have become so serious that there are pastors calling for a split in the United Methodist Church. This is an issue that we as United Methodists do in fact need to wrestle with, but how can we,  if we simply reject the other before truly listening to what they have to say? Are we too like the crowds who rejected John the Baptist and Jesus?  Are we rejecting the prophets of now because they speak a word contrary to what we want to hear?

            At Annual Conference this year, Bishop Cho announced that the Virginia Conference who be hosting conversations about human sexuality throughout the year.  I pray that this is true. I pray that these will truly be conversations rather than debates. I pray that as we discuss an issue that is near and dear to many of our hearts,  we may still be able to view those with differing opinions not as evil or as villains, but as people expressing their love and belief in God in a different way. It doesn’t mean that our minds will be changed, it doesn’t mean we have to give up what we believe, but it does mean that we recognize why this is so important for our brothers and sisters who disagree. It means that we can listen, truly listen to what they are saying and believe that in what they say there might just be some truth from God being spoken.  John was rejected for being other-worldly, for being strict and rigid, while at the same time Jesus was rejected for eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners, for being too much of this world.  Yet we know that both John and Jesus spoke the truth of God.  As Christians, as we discuss and have these controversial conversations let us not look first to reject the other, but instead look to see where God may be speaking through them. Sure, Haters gonna hate, but Christians are called to love.