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When Storytellers Rule the World

‘I’ am a story

From the highest heaven he watches

Leaning forward he waits

The drama of history has captured me as one among many

Defined by particularity

At risk to chance

My freedom to choose is always only a will away

Bound by reality

Equipped to defy reality

Now I hear his call

To change the world is simply to be

The courage to be is the faith of a saint

Today ‘I’ write my own story

a story infused with all the pain of the present

a story untold, never lived before

a story of peace in a land of war

He is my father and ‘I’ am living his dream

My story has eternal meaning

I am a child of God

But there are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.

John 21:25

Tell Me a Story

An omniscient narrator, an unknown author, evidence of editorial work by another, or of sources utilized by a compiler, yet none of these characters are capable of determining with certainty that their reader will ascribe to their intended meaning. Every contributor to, or editor of the biblical text is a guide within a larger framework of the history that has brought the reader to hear their story.

Stories circumvent questions, delay answers, and cloud certainty, yet they ignite imagination, invite critique, and seal their mark on the soul with a power unseen. Stories carry spirit and appeal to spirit. A story has power to change the one who hears and the one who hears has the power to change a story through their uniqueness.

Once your story is told it slips from your hands into the life of another.

We bring ourselves to the text. This being said, the bible is only as good as the person reading it. The cry for a clean heart is a cry for ears to hear. The task is to hear the voice of God amidst the infusion of humanity’s perceptions in a story of both God and humanity.

Christianity cannot grow stagnant if it remains as story, as a living witness to the dynamics of revelation in a people, in a person and in history. Ceremonies attempt to seal a story, but a story can be told in a multitude of ways and defy the institutional drudgery of a ceremony. Stories are like God, like Spirit, they cannot be confined and controlled.

The metanarrative of scripture is an uncontainable story. The error of classical theology and church tradition has been to confine the story to the control of an institution rather than to the lived witness of a people.

In the present age the academy has privileged itself as the interpreter of scripture based upon the arrogance of intellectual technique and privileged access to learning and information. However, without a story, without a life lived in conjunction with God’s presence among the poor and oppressed then interpretation becomes about maintaining power rather than serving others. The tedious repetition of academic effort apart from the face-to-face encounter with God among the people is vanity (hevel).

So, tell me a story of grace, a story of justice, a story of liberation, a story of unbound love, of sacrifice and joy. Tell me a story of hope against hope, of dramatic personal challenge, of change and growth into the image of God in Christ Jesus. Tell me a story where people learn to hear the voice of God and see thy kingdom come in the present, where people enter the rest of heaven in the hell of the present. Tell me a human story infused with the life of God.