Leigh, Lewis & Letterman

By the time C.S. Lewis reached the virtue called “faith,” his famous British Broadcasting Corporation radio talks had already covered social justice, psychology, sex, marriage, forgiveness, pride, charity and hope.

Many people, noted Lewis, seem to think the goal of a life of faith is to achieve a winning bargain with God. This is a strange proposition.

“When we talk of a man doing anything for God or giving anything to God, I will tell you what that is really like,” he said, in a talk that would, in 1943, be published in a series of essays that would, collectively, become known as “Mere Christianity.” “It is like a small child going to his father and saying, ‘Daddy, give ME a sixpence to buy YOU a birthday present.’ Of course, the father does, and he is pleased with the child’s present. It is all very nice and proper, but only an idiot would think that the father is sixpence to the good on the transaction.”

The witty Oxford don was speaking to a broad media audience, but he knew he had time to lay one concept atop another to build a framework of logic and images.

Things move so much faster in today’s digital, post-modern age. Nevertheless, Jesus did tell his disciples: “Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature.” But how could a Christian apologist pull this off when facing the likes of David Letterman?

During a recent appearance on “The Late Show,” a young Christian named Leigh Nash – the lead singer in a band called Sixpence None the Richer — found herself sitting in the spotlight next to the czar of irony. One thing led to another and she ended up trying to explain C.S. Lewis to Letterman, in front of a studio audience of hooting New Yorkers and tourists.

Letterman called Nash over for a chat, after the band in which she sings lead performed it’s gentle hit “Kiss Me.” This song contains an unusually innocent note that the two youngsters doing the kissing will let their romance “take the trail marked on your father’s map.”

Letterman asked if the band’s name was a literary reference. Perhaps to Dickens?

“Thanks for asking. I will quickly tell you,” said Nash, fighting her nervousness. “It’s from a book by C.S. Lewis. . The book is called ‘Mere Christianity.’ ”

What happened next was typical late-night talk show banter, with Nash admitting that she was scared and then adding that being on this show was a dream come true for her. Then her band mates started laughing and the crowd kept cheering and Letterman started doing that straight-faced riff in which he wiggles his tongue in his cheek and acts like he can’t understand what’s going on. Anyone who has watched American television in the past decade has seen this routine a thousand times.

Nash hung in there through it all, even when the host asked the beautiful singer – who is married – if she was staying in town. Could he drop by the hotel? Clearly, Letterman is not used to handling sincerity and innocence.

“I really want to tell you the story,” said Nash, at one point in the silliness. “Do you want to hear it?”

Letterman said he did.

“A little boy asks his father for a sixpence, which is a very small amount of English currency, to go and get a gift for his father. The father gladly accepts the gift, but he also realizes that he is not any richer for the transaction because he gave his son the money in the first place.”

“He bought his own gift,” noted Letterman.

“That’s right, pretty much,” said Nash. “I’m sure it meant a lot to him, but he’s really no richer. C.S. Lewis was comparing that to his belief that God has given him and us the gifts that we possess and that to serve him the way that we should, we should do it humbly – with a humble heart – realizing how we got the gifts in the first place.”

“Well, that’s beautiful,” said Letterman. “Charming.”

It was a charming, yet very strange moment in the marketplace of mass media – with a simple message of faith leaping from C.S. Lewis, to Leigh Nash, to who knows where. Certainly, Letterman got more than he bargained for.