For more than a half a century, “The Chronicles of Narnia” have been used to delight children and to gently introduce people to the mysteries of the gospel.  In a way akin to the way that Jesus used parables, C.S. Lewis uses fantasy to point in the direction of that which is ultimately true.

“The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe”, the first story written in the Narnia series has been showing in the theaters for about a month now and has placed the stories back in the center of public awareness. And it seems right to use the story as a spring board for this series of sermons, “Questions from Narnia.”

Allow me one disclaimer. I am following the book rather than the movie. While the movie is a faithful telling of the story, there are some subtle differences. So if you saw the movie and what I say doesn’t quite fit, may I point you to the written stories.

The first question from Narnia is this:  “What are you?”

When Lucy first slips through the wardrobe into the strange land of Narnia, she is met by a faun, a strange creature that appears to be part goat and part human but in fact is neither. He is a faun named Tumnus.  Listen to a part of their conversation.

“Good evening, good evening,” said the Faun. “Excuse me – I don’t want to be inquisitive – but should I be right in thinking that you are a Daughter of Eve?”

“My name’s Lucy,” said she, not quite understanding him.

“But you are – forgive me – you are what they call a girl?” asked the Faun.

“Of course I’m a girl,” said Lucy.

“You are in fact Human?”

“Of course I’m human,” said Lucy, still a little puzzled.

“To be sure, to be sure,” said the Faun. “How stupid of me! But I’ve never seen a Son of Adam or a Daughter of Eve before. I am delighted….”

And listen to the conversation when Edmund first meets the White Witch, the embodiment of all that is evil in Narnia.

“And what, pray, are you?” said the Lady, looking hard at Edmund.

“I’m – I’m – my name’s Edmund, Said Edmund rather awkwardly. He did not like the way she looked at him.

The White Witch informs Edmund that she is the queen of Narnia and then returns to her first question.

“But what are you?” said the queen again. “Are you a great overgrown dwarf that has cut off its beard?”

“No, your Majesty,” said Edmund, “I never had a beard, I’m a boy.”

“A boy!” said she. “Do you mean you are a Son of Adam?”

Edmund stood still saying nothing.  He was too confused by this time to understand what the question meant.

“I see you are an idiot, whatever else you may be,” said the Queen. “Answer me, once and for all, or I shall lose my patience. Are you human?”

“Yes, your Majesty,” said Edmund.

There is a question with which to begin your day. Stand in front of your mirror, still groggy from your night’s sleep, with you shaving lather over your bearded face and ask, what are you?

The Bible asks the same question. Look at Psalm 8.

³ When I consider your heavens,

the work of your fingers,

the moon and the stars,

which you have set in place,

⁴ what is man that you are mindful of him,

the son of man that you care for him?

⁵ You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings

and crowned him with glory and honor.

“What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?”  The White Witch demands of Edmund, “What are you?”  The Psalmist looks to God and asks, “What is man?” or better, “What is a human being?” Why are you mindful of us?

Read the story carefully and you will see that the story is about being a human being. It is about our potential for goodness and our propensity for evil. It is about our relationships with one another and our relationship with God. It is about the decisions that we are required to make.  So let’s look in the mirror and ask, “What are you?”

The Narnian answer is this; you are the one who has been created to sit on a throne in Cair Paravel, the great castle of Narnia. You have been created to be a ruler in the Kingdom! 

C.S. Lewis, no doubt, intended to say that we have been created for the Kingdom of Heaven. We have been created as the sons and daughters of God. We have been created for eternity.

We have been created with enormous curiosity. When Lucy discovers that she has stumbled into Narnia, her impulse is to explore the new territory. She could not just look and leave. Her curiosity required her to explore.

A couple of weeks ago, my extended family gathered in Tallahassee for the Christmas break. Would you believe it, somebody decided that we all should do a hayride and bonfire and hot dog roast together we all traveled to a place out in the country and rode the hay wagon around and returned to a huge fire that had been prepared for us and as we traveled, we started looking at the stars in the sky. And somebody started to point out the constellations. “There’s Orion,” somebody said. “Where?” “There, can you seek his belt, that row of stars right up there.” “Can you see him?”

As far as I know, Orion has been identified as a stellar constellation for nearly as long as human beings have been looking at the stars. And the question is this, what is it that causes us to want to connect the dots? What curiosity is it that causes us to look for the patterns and for the meaning that may exist in things? It is a part of our humanity. It is a curiosity that is distinctive to all of creation as we know it.

My nephew Paul will earn his PhD. in physics in May. He is associated with a group that is searching for a new part of the atom. I have heard about neutrons and protons and electrons and quarks. Well, the physicists believe that there is another part to be found and they are looking for it with all of the energy they can muster. Why? It is a part of our God-given humanity. It is what we are!

It is this God-given curiosity that compels us to wonder about our origins. From whence did we come? From whom did we originate? 

And at the same time, we wonder about our destiny.  When life in this world has run its course, what next?  Were we born simply to die? Or is there something more and if there is something more, what might it be.

The ancient burial ritual says it this way, “Earth to earth, ashes to ashes and dust to dust….” Is that all there is? But the Christian ritual continues, “In sure and certain hope of resurrection to eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord….” 

Is there any other creature that has such an insatiable curiosity about its origins and its destiny? It is a part of our God-given nature.

And it is that essential curiosity that prepares us to receive the word that we have been created by God, in God’s image, for citizenship in God’s Kingdom. That is what we are!

What are we? We are creatures with an incredible capacity for compassion. In “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” Tumnus has been ordered to kidnap any humans that he may find. But in his conversation with Lucy, risking his own life, he reneges on his duty to the queen and provides her with safe passage back to the wardrobe.

The beavers become guides for the children in their search for Aslan, again at great risk to their lives and property. In the process, their home is destroyed by the agents of the White Witch.

The non-humans point in the direction of compassion in a very cold land.

Look at our recent history. Terrible natural disasters have taken more lives than I can count and destroyed the property of millions of others. And look at the compassion that has poured out in behalf of those who are suffering.

More personally, this week I read about a small group of women in a church in Huntsville Alabama who spend their time knitting. They knit things for the babies of the church and more, they knit prayer shawls for the needy in their community. It’s a simply personal act of compassion.

And while we have this capacity for compassion, as the human race, we have an enormous propensity for cruelty. How else can we describe the realities of holocaust and ethnic cleansing and mass murder and human torture that have been a part of this world during our life times? 

Let me say it another way. We are the only creature that I know that has the ability to obey the commandments of Jesus to love God with all of our being and to love our neighbor as ourselves. We have the capacity to love and we have the capacity for compassion.

And we are the only creature that I know that has the capacity to sin, to willfully ignore the best inclinations of our nature, to deliberately refuse to obey the commandments of our Creator.

We are the creatures who must live with a never ending choice, to love or not to love, to be compassionate or to be cruel, to obey our Creator or not. We are the ones who bear the burden and rejoice in the privilege of freedom.

So, what are we? We are the creatures who have the freedom to love or not to love, the freedom to obey our Creator or not, and the curiosity that allows us to receive and respond to the reality of our Creator.

What are we? In our curiosity and creativity, in our love and in our freedom, we are the ones who are created in God’s own image. However, that image has been distorted and requires a special love from God. And that we will talk about next week.

For today, let me say this. If you want to know what a real human being looks like, look at Jesus of Nazareth. This morning, I have offered you a partial description. He is the picture, the model, the prototype. The ultimate answer to the question, what are you is this, I am the sister or brother of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ.