Wednesday, April 22, 2009
The Untold Lessons of Narnia
Matthew Alderman, writing at First Things, looks at the fate of Susan Pevensie
Why do we play at faith? Like little girls at a pretend tea party, we dress up, we talk the talk, we bring the cup to our lips and tell ourselves we are drinking tea when all along the cup is empty. And yet, real tea, or in reality Christ's blood, is right there on the table.
Alderman has hope:
And therein lies the rub. Susan never learned what Edmund and Eustace learned through such difficult circumstances - and the church needs to learn to proclaim again and again. It is indeed a tea party, but getting in means actually admitting you are dirty so you can be really cleaned before you dress up.
It's not a "turn or burn" message - it's a message of real and genuine hope.
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But all we are told in The Last Battle is this: Susan has turned her back on Narnia in favor of nylons, lipstick, and party invitations. Boys, much less the joy of sex, don’t even merit a mention. More disconcerting is her quietly alarming capacity for self-deception: We are told that she also dismisses her fifteen-odd years of memories as Queen in Narnia as the product of childish fantasy.Does that make you as sad as it does me? And you know what I am not even sad for Susan, I am sad for the so many here that have met Jesus but have never grown up. Of course, there are those that hold Jesus in a box - only let "churchy things" penetrate so far into their lives. But they are not the ones that really concern me at the moment. I am more concerned with those that, like Susan at Aslan's resurrection, have danced with the Lord of the universe and yet are caught in some sort of perpetual childhood. Some, like Susan, view the dance as a dream, but more spend their lives trying to continue the dance when Aslan has bigger plans. Of course, when the dance never returns, the disillusionment may set in.
This detail gives a more poignant shading to Susan’s downfall. As Polly Plummer, one of the senior “friends of Narnia,” puts it in The Last Battle, Susan is set to become not a real adult, but a perpetual teenager locked into “the silliest time of one’s life.” She is a child’s caricature of adulthood. “I wish she would grow up!” cries Polly.
Why do we play at faith? Like little girls at a pretend tea party, we dress up, we talk the talk, we bring the cup to our lips and tell ourselves we are drinking tea when all along the cup is empty. And yet, real tea, or in reality Christ's blood, is right there on the table.
Alderman has hope:
Spiritual childhood—which is never childish—may take years to appear. God’s grace is bestowed on us as we struggle and fumble our way through life, descending upon us in the strangest places and coming to fruition when we least expect it. And, in that circuitous, delayed redemption, Susan is most like us as we rise and stumble over our own versions of lipstick and nylons and rise again through God’s providence. Like us, she is made for something better, for she is a queen and, even more honorably, a daughter of Eve.And note where that hope lies - in repentance.
It pleased the great Emperor-over-the-Sea to let her wander in exile until the time was ripe for her return. Only he knows when that might be. Susan’s future is unknown, as are ours, save to God. In spite of her rejection, I think she might yet have carried the treasure of her time in Narnia into true adulthood. For repentance—even from the sillier, frillier sins—may have the strangest roots. [emphasis added]
And therein lies the rub. Susan never learned what Edmund and Eustace learned through such difficult circumstances - and the church needs to learn to proclaim again and again. It is indeed a tea party, but getting in means actually admitting you are dirty so you can be really cleaned before you dress up.
It's not a "turn or burn" message - it's a message of real and genuine hope.
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