New Year, New You?

Aslan the Lion un-dragons Eustace Scrubb

A version of this post appeared in the All Saints Parishioner the week of January 12th

Happy New Year! And, Happy New Decade! In the world around us, this means not only celebrations, but also invitations. These invites coming from gyms, financial planners, diet programs, home improvement stores, and many others essentially say: “It’s a new year and a new decade, so it’s time for a new you!” Not to burst your bubble, but I have bad news (I also have good news, so hang with me).

Every year, when marketing experts roll out ads for a new you in the new year, they are relying on a big, little lie we tell ourselves: "I can make myself new." On the surface, this statement sounds appealing. Having a new start is awesome, and we are all about new starts in the Jesus Movement. But, the trouble comes from believing we are the source of accomplishing this newness. Here's the bad news: we aren’t the ones who make life new. There is good news though...

In the crazy, mystical vision that John the Gospel Writer had on the island of Patmos, God spoke about newness. The Almighty One said, “See, I am making all things new” (Revelation 21:5). This is the good news! For God not only makes us in our individual lives new, but God also makes everything, everywhere new. So, you may be wondering, “We don’t have any part in this?” Well, we do and we don’t. Let me retell a story to help explain.

In C. S. Lewis’ fictional tale, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, a character named Eustace became a dragon by watching another dragon die and sleeping “on a dragon’s hoard with greedy, dragonish thoughts in his heart." We might think that being a dragon would be awesome, but several days later, Eustace was miserable. He wanted nothing more than to be made a boy again.

Late one night, a lion met Eustace the dragon, and told him to follow him up a high mountain where there was a giant well. Eustace yearned to plunge into the bubbling waters; however, he couldn't as a dragon. The lion told him he must undress first. What did this mean? Eustace had to shed his skin, like a snake. So Eustace tried as best he could to un-dragon himself by peeling away his scales. After three attempts, he saw in the water’s reflection that he was very much still a dragon.

It was then that the lion told Eustace that he could not shed his skin on his own—the lion had to help. So, Eustace lay on his back, and when the lion’s claws cut through his dragon scales, Eustace thought the lion had gone right to his heart. While it was the most painful thing Eustace had ever experienced, having the scales and skin fall away was the greatest pleasure too. All of a sudden, Eustace was a boy again. Then, the lion grabbed hold of Eustace and threw him into the restoring waters. There he was made new.

This lion’s name, as you may already know, is Aslan, and in this series, he represents Christ. Sadly enough, we are represented by characters like Eustace (perhaps that’s the real, bad news). Try as we might, we can shed layers of our skin, but we cannot un-dragon ourselves. That work of being made new must be done by God. How does this happen?

While none of us will turn into an actual dragon, all of us may become quite beastly and yearn for nothing more than to be made new by becoming our truest selves. Fortunately, we have a loving lion who comes to us. A lion who will tear right to our hearts to transform us into who we truly are.

We find that lion all over the place at All Saints. We see Him in the pews on Sundays and Wednesday mornings. There, we have opportunities to be made new by meeting Christ in the Word and in the prayers, in the songs and in the silence, in the confession and in the absolution, in the peace and in the offertory, in the bread and in the wine. Throughout All Saints, you will find other ways to be made new with, between, and through one another. Whether it is during a Taize service, an Oasis program, or a Sunday School class; going to Cursillo, volunteering to serve, or joining the Church through Episcopal 101, there are many ways that our lion-hearted God is inviting us to the well. 

How will Christ un-dragon you revealing your new, true self this year?

The Curious Journey We All Walk

Clive Staples Lewis—or Jack as he was known to friends—wrote in Mere Christianity “You must make a choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up as a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon, or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God.” These are the words that Holy Women, Holy Men, the trial lectionary resource depicting the lives of blessed ones, use to begin their commemoration of Lewis. And, these words possess within them not just the Truth of what Jesus’ life, death, and Resurrection compels us to do, but also a glimpse into the inner struggle of one of the most popular and widely read defenders and explainers of Christianity in the 20^th Century!

My life would certainly not be the same without C.S. Lewis. Growing up my family had a few noteworthy routines that eventually turned into cherished traditions: decorating the house for various seasons, going out to eat whenever my sister or I made straight A’s on our report cards, and most importantly for the purposes of today’s sermon ironing the upcoming week’s outfits on Sunday afternoons. During the school year I did not have very many outfits that needed to be pressed except for church clothes but everyone else did. While my parents or sister ironed their things we took turns reading the Chronicles of Narnia by Lewis. The only time this changed was during Advent when we read his letters to children. To this day I have a strange love of ironing clothes that I believe stems from reading those books together, but that is not why Lewis’ life remains so impactful.

Lewis did not begin as a faithful son of Christianity. Yes, he grew up in the Church of England; however, his early formation did not stick, at least not immediately. After service in World War I, he began a struggle both with academia and with God. Eventually Lewis would become a lecturer at Oxford and later a Professor of Medieval and Renaissance English Literature at Cambridge. While he pursued these outward posts inwardly Lewis marched from devout atheist to skeptical agnostic to curious theist and finally to “dejected and reluctant convert” to Christianity. His pathway of intellectual inquiry matched with wonderings of faith truly make his diverse works what they are. 

In college I can recall my own similar (but much more accelerated) journey from childhood believer to atheist to agnostic to theist and finally to Christian. The works of Lewis were annoying in many of those phases. Every person who cared enough to try to “convert” me back to the Christian side during college seemed to throw Lewis’ works in my face. Today, I am sad to say I could not take them serious, but I also realize that Lewis himself probably would not have been so pushy. His reluctance to fully take hold of the mantel of Christian was precisely what I felt. And at least for me I struggled with this both because I did not want to take something so serious on half-heartedly and because I knew that I could not really be sure of something like Faith.

The challenge for us is to have a mature faith that involves our entire selves. Doubts are helpful in this process. Without doubts and questioning we would not have Lewis as this figure who could articulate in so much diversity what it is like to be a Christian in the modern world. Curiosity allows us to grow deeper in our relationship with God. And, this is what C. S. Lewis’s questioning helped me to understand, primarily that the questioning and curiosity will lead us not into less faith, but into a deeper Faith!