Not A Tame Lion

You’ve heard me say before that I love The Chronicles of Narnia, written by C.S. Lewis. We read them over and over again to our children as they were growing up. Maybe a year ago one of them, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, came out in a very successful movie. That inspired me to read them all again just for myself and just for fun.

In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, a little girl named Lucy is playing hide and seek with her brothers and sister in a huge old country house, which was owned by an eccentric professor. She goes into a big closet, that’s the wardrobe, to hide among the coats hanging in it. But as she pushed through to the back, she comes out in a very strange land. It’s the land of Narnia. It’s under the control of a wicked witch, who makes it always winter and never Christmas. It’s populated by talking animals. And this is the beginning of some amazing adventures for Lucy and her family.

One of my favorite scenes comes when she is visiting with two talking beavers, who are telling her about Narnia. They tell her that the wicked queen has no right to rule in Narnia, the rightful king is the great and mysterious Aslan. Aslan hasn’t been seen for years, but he will come some day and throw the queen out. And the word is that Aslan has been seen in recent days and the beavers are going to take Lucy to meet him.

Lucy asks if Aslan is a man, and the beavers say, no, he’s a great lion.

That’s scary for Lucy, so she asks, “Is he quite safe?”

And the beavers answer, “Safe? Who said anything about safe? Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good.”

You don’t have to read very far before you see that Aslan represents Jesus in the land of Narnia. And C.S. Lewis does a wonderful service to the church by reminding us that Jesus is not safe, but he sure is good.

Too often churches put an awful lot of energy into making their lives together safe. We keep our noses out of messy things out in the world. There are a whole lot of subjects that you just don’t talk about in church because it might make conflict. You stick to the routine of the same old same old, over and over again, because routine is safe. Change is risky.

In today’s scripture we see Jesus as not a tame lion at all. He upsets everything right in his own home synagogue. It’s a shocking story, but a very important warning for every Christian.

Three weeks ago we looked at the first half of the passage that describes his triumphant first visit home after he had started his public ministry. I imagine that his parents and neighbors were just beaming at their favorite son. He started out by announcing that God had called him to some very noble things, bringing good news to the poor, release to captives, sight to the blind, freedom to the oppressed. They really liked what he said. He was inviting them to be part of something wonderful, things like what we saw that UMCOR is doing all over the world, exciting things, things that would really make a difference on this earth.

But Jesus knew these people. He knew that they would be happy to talk about doing such things, but when it came to actually doing anything about them, they had a thousand excuses. And Jesus, who was never a safe lion, laid it out on the line for them, that there were some things that would need to change if they could be part of his movement. As Joe reads for us now, feel the shock of what Jesus did in his home church, with his family watching, ruining a very happy day. You can find it on page 61 in the New Testament section of your pew Bible. Please stand for the reading of God’s word.

14 Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. 15 He began to teach in their synagogues, and was praised by everyone.

16 When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

18 `The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives