The Lament of Eustace Scrubb
A parable for the state of pastoral ministry
There is a moment in the voyage of the dawn treader by C.S. Lewis that serves as a modern parable for the current state of pastoral ministry and its continued unravelling in our culture.
Eustace is an unpleasant boy who makes his unpleasantness apparent in the opening pages of the story.
At one point, wandering alone on an abandoned island He finds the body of a dead dragon and its lair of hidden treasure. In his own greed he reaches for a golden bracelet and after slipping it on his arm he drifts to sleep only to find he has woken up a dragon himself.
After convincing his party of cousins and Narnia royalty not to kill him something peculiar happens. Eustace had always been a dragon and putting on that bracelet let him get a glimpse into how everyone else experienced his beastliness, yet they didn’t dislike him more, they actually loved him even better than before.
This unavoidable confrontation with his own beastliness led Eustace to an honest acceptance of his inner poverty and stirred compassion and empathy from his cousins and Narnian royal company.
Then Eustace comes face to face with Aslan. He is led up to a garden pool and invited to step in and bathe but he is told he must first undress himself of those dragon scales.
After countless attempts to remove the scales himself with no success Aslan speaks,
“Then the lion said - but I don't know if it spoke – ‘You will have to let me undress you.’ I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it.
“The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I've ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know - if you've ever picked the scab off a sore place. It hurts like billy-oh but it is such fun to see it coming away.”
...
“Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off ... And there was I as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me - I didn't like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I'd no skin on - and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I'd turned into a boy again..." - C. S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
In our story many pastors have gone reaching for what they thought was treasure. They slipped onto their arms the cultural definitions of power, success, and accomplishment. That bracelet tightened around their hearts and changed them dramatically.
They hide their insecurity, run from accountability, and isolate themselves from community.
They too have been turned into something beastly.
Again and again many have been invited to wash in the pool like Eustace, yet they have chosen to feign change by peeling off the skin themselves, never able to cut deep enough to touch the place they truly need transformation.
The pain of being laid bare, exposed, and accountable is too high a price to them so they remain scaled and many suffer.
That bracelet chafes against their soul and the people they lead, causing immense pain and they become less of their true selves every day it remains.
What they do not realize and must learn from Eustace is that admitting their own brokenness will actually bring them that for which they are desperately searching;
Love and acceptance.
Freedom from the things that have trapped them.
Admitting the dragon like parts of their hearts will not cause their congregations to run and hide, it will invite them to do the same and to walk with empathy alongside them.
They do not realize the invitation of the Lion is for them to be whole again.
To be turned back into the one they were meant to be. To be free of those false treasures and their terrible consequences.
To swim and splash in the Fathers never ending love and find a vulnerability and a purity they’ve been desperate for all along.