Read Daniel 3:13-27
This
week as we start to wind down our sermon series on “The Chronicles of Narnia,”
we turn to one of the lesser known books of the series, yet in my opinion one
of the better ones. Our book for this morning, The Silver Chair picks up where the Voyage of The Dawn Treader left off. All of the Pevinse children
that we have come to know and love throughout the series are all gone; having
been told by Aslan that they were now too old to come back to Narnia. Our story
for today then centers around their cousin Eustace, yes the same annoying
Eustace from last week, the same Eustace who was turned into a dragon and back
into a human. Eustace has changed
however from this experience. People at home have noticed a difference in him,
even a girl at school name Jill has noticed a difference. One day at school
while Eustace and Jill are trying to escape from some bullies, they find
themselves opening a portal back into Narnia. This time however they were in a
land they were not supposed to be in, nor were they supposed to be able to
leave, they were in Aslan’s land. They found themselves on top of a huge cliff
so high that it was even above the clouds. As Jill is playing dangerously close
to the edge and as he moves to save her, he himself falls off of this cliff. Just as all seems lost a gust of wind seems
to carry Eustace away out of sight. It was Aslan, blowing him to safety and
blowing him to Narnia. Aslan tells Jill that he will blow her to Narnia as
well, but gives her some instructions to follow once she gets there. He even
has her repeat them over and over so she won’t forget.
When she arrives in Narnia she quickly
finds Eustace and tells him the first instruction, “immediately talk to the
first person Eustace recognizes.” As the
approach the Castle in Narnia, the see an elderly king embarking boarding a
ship, obviously about to embark on a journey; the kids stop to watch. After the
king leaves, the children find out that the elderly king they saw was none
other than King Caspian embarking for the Aslan’s land, the place he had been
to the edge of, but was convinced to leave. The children had already failed
their first instructions.
Their
next instructions was to find the Prince Rilian, which they learned was the son
of Caspian. While Rilian was a baby his
mother went out north and there she was bitten and killed by a large green
snake. Later in his youth Rilian went out in search of this snake to avenge his
mother, and he never returned. Many parties were sent out all never returning
and so the search was finally called off by Caspian.
The kids venture off in search
of Rilian themselves and along their journies they meet a strange creature
named Puddleglum. Puddleglum is the ultimate Debbie downer. If it rains he
assumes it is going to flood. If you tell him good morning, he will tell you
the reasons why it probably won’t be. When the children tell him that they are
going north to the land of the giants, he tells them all the ways they will
probably die on their journey, and yet he accompanies them anyways. As the
journey the miss another one of the signs because Jill forgot it, and the find
themselves as guests at the house of the giants. Only later do they realize
that they are not being prepared as guests for dinner, but that they were for
dinner.
The group escapes and find
themselves buried underground, which was
in fact where they were supposed to be the whole time. As the venture they get
to a place that is so dark that they cannot see, until a dim light appears and
strange underworld people take the group to an underworld city. When they arrive the meet a young prince of
the area, who seems to be just a little zany.
He tells them about the queen who is off at the moment, but invites his
guests to stay. Later that evening he tells them that a curse has been put on
him that turns him into a green serpent unless he is bound to a silver chair
until the curse passes. He asks his friends to stay with him during the cursed
time, but tells them not to unbind him no matter what he may say. Sure enough later that evening the prince
began to shake violently, almost as if he was being tormented, and then he
shouted something strange. That his mind was free, that he was the prince
Rilian and all the other time he is under the spell of the wicked green witch,
the same one that killed his mother. The group is shocked, but thought it might
be a trick to get free until Rilian said, “In the name of Aslan please let me
free.” With the evoking of Aslan’s name the children free Rilian and break the
chair, just as the witch enters the room.
At the moment the witch calmly puts
something into the fire to create a pleasant smell and then picks up her harp
and begins to pluck pluck pluck. All of
the group’s mind at that moment became a little fuzzy and a little unclear, she
was putting them under a trance. They tried to tell her that they were from the
world above but through a strange logic she convinced them that that was crazy.
In fact she started to convince them that everything that they believed was
simply made up, even Aslan. As the children are mostly under the spell and
Puddleglum finds himself close to being as well, Puddleglum steps on part of
the fire and reawakening himself for just a moment. What he say is a little long,
but I want to read it to you because I find it to be so poignant. “One
word, Ma'am," he said, coming back from the fire; limping, because of the
pain. "One word. All you've been saying is quite right, I shouldn't
wonder. I'm a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best
face I can on it. So I won't deny any of what you said. But there's one more
thing to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those
things-trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we
have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good
deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of
yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a
funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game,
if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which
licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play world.
I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live
as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia. So, thanking you
kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready,
we're leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives
looking for Overland.” At this
the others come to their senses, the witch turns into a giant serpent, which
Rilian kills, the kids escape the underland, return to Narnia, and Rilian and
Caspian are reunited just before the elderly Caspian passes away.
This story, especially the part that I
read from Puddleglum reminds me of a sermon that was preached by the former
Dean of Duke Chapel Sam Wells. This sermon was so powerful to me that I still
remember the title, “But even if not” and those words still speak to me[1].
As I read the Silver Chair in conjunction with our scripture for today, the
same scripture that Dean Wells used, I hope he does not mind if I use a little
from his great sermon. Our scripture for
today focuses on Daniel chapter 3, but our story is not about Daniel, even for
how great he is, but rather it focuses on his friends Shadrach, Meshach, and
Abednego.
At the time of King
Nebuchadnezzar, when the Israelites were still in captivity in Babylon, a
decree was made that all the nation should worship the king. Those who refused
to worship the king would be thrown into the great fiery furnace. Shadrach,
Meshach and Abednego were faithful to the Lord and so they refused. Our
scripture depicts the scene of these three friends being brought before the
King as they await their fate in the furnace.
The king gives them one last chance to defend their actions and but the
friends answered, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to
present a defense to you in this matter. 17 If our God whom we
serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire and out of your
hand, O king, let him deliver us.[b] 18 But
if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods and we
will not worship the golden statue that you have set up.”
If
our God is able to deliver us then let him, but even if not, we will not
worship your golden statue. Our scripture for today as well as our story from
C.S. Lewis are perfect examples of faith. They are true examples of putting our
whole trust into the Lord. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, had the utmost
confidence that God was able to rescue them, they had faith that they would be
saved, but even if not they still followed and obeyed. Likewise as the children in our story for
this morning were falling under the spell of the green witch; as they were all
being convinced that Aslan did not even exist, Puddleglum thwarted the witch
through his faith. “I’m on Aslan’s side, even if there isn’t an Aslan to lead
it.” Puddleglum’s act of faith wasn’t
that he simply believed in Aslan, it wasn’t even that he believed that Aslan
would save him, the true aspect of his faith was that he was willing to trust
in Aslan, even if there was no benefit
to him, even if Aslan didn’t exist at
all.
Hebrews 11 tells us, “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance
about what we do not see. 2 This is what the ancients were
commended for.” I think that over
time this verse has been taken out of context.
It kind of reminds me of On-Demand TV. Some of you know what I’m talking
about. There is now technology that instead of waiting for a show to come on at
a certain time or if you miss a show on tv that you wanted to watch, you can
now simply watch pull up On-Demand or pull up Netflix and watch any show you
want when you want it. Even sporting events can be watched on demand, even on
your phone if you are away from the TV. I mention this because far too often we
treat this verse from Hebrews much like On Demand television. We read faith is
confidence in what we hope for an we imagine Jesus-on demand. We begin to believe that if we are sick and
we only pray hard enough if we only have enough faith then we will get
better. We pray that we get the job we
want, that that conflict gets resolved the way we want; sometimes we even pray
we win that sweepstakes or lottery that we want. We somehow have turned having faith in God,
into having faith that God will give us what we want; but that is not faith. Don’t get me wrong, God can heal the sick,
God can provide for us in times of need, God can help us in conflict, but there
is a difference between can and will. Faith is not about our will, but
God’s. Faith is the hope that God can do
whatever we ask, but it is also the assurance that even if not, God is with me. It is not the assurance that all will be ok,
but the Christ will be with us during whatever our hardship may be. For Christ himself endured his own hardships
in his life, and in his prayer in the garden the night before his death we here
his own statement of faith, “Father, if you are
willing, remove this cup from me; yet, not my will but yours be done.” Or
we could say but even if not, not my will but yours be done. At that moment
scripture tells us that, “Then an angel from heaven
appeared to him and gave him strength. 44 In his anguish he
prayed more earnestly, and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling
down on the ground.” The
heartache was not removed from Jesus, sweat on his brow became like blood
falling down on the ground, but we hear that the angel gave him strength.
Many of us face many battles in our lifetime, emotional, financial, physical, spiritual. There are
struggles with jobs, death, conflict and family. In these times I pray that you may have faith. A faith
like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, who had faith God would rescue them from the fiery furnace,
but even if not, they would not betray their God. I pray that you may have faith like the lovable
pessimist Puddleglum, who would proudly fight for the side of Aslan, even if there was no Aslan to
fight for. I pray that you may have the hope in God that anything is possible, but with the assurance
that even if what we pray for does not happen that God is with you. May we all live in that faith, in
that hope and in that assurance, but even if not…..
[1]
Wells, Sam “But Even if Not” Duke Divinity Baccalaureate Service, Durham,
NC May 12, 2012
No comments:
Post a Comment