I like to read stories. I also like to write stories. I have done a fair bit of both and, over the years, I have learned a few things about what stories do and do not do. In essence, a story is a trajectory. It sets the reader or listener on a path toward something or someone. It has a beginning (a specific starting point in time), it has a middle (in which characters face various challenges, setbacks, and victories), and an end (which is not really the end, but an invitation for the reader to imagine past the last sentence). Stories are always partial and incomplete. They never tell it all, but they do set us on a particular journey. What stories do NOT do is seek to make a case for absolute truth statements. Stories do not prescribe a particular plan of action in order to achieve certain results. Stories do not give us universal rules and regulations. When we try to force stories to perform apologetic, didactic, or juridical tasks, we end up mishandling them. A story invites people to embark on a journey. It is not meant to bark commands and caw shrill judgments. Unfortunately, many of our church practices can resemble the latter.
Story is central to church practices and liturgies, and so often, I have been unaware of this. Our spiritual habits and practices and actions tell a story, whether we mean them to or not, so it is best for us to be mindful and attentive to what type of story we are telling, what trajectory we are setting in motion. Let's take a brief look at three church practices and what stories they embody.
Reading the Bible:
The Bible is, for the most part, a collection of stories about particular people in a particular setting. When we forget this, we can be prone to some mishandling of the biblical witness. Instead of reading the texts through the lens of story, we can strip away the context and look for absolute proof statements. We can interpret ancient rules and regulations given to a prophet-led tribe of newly-freed slaves as unequivocally transferable to those of us living in a modern day democracy fueled by individualism, intellectualism, competition, and consumerism. When reading the Bible we are meant to see a story of an ongoing relationship between Creator and creation, always moving toward unity, not specific plans of action to ensure our safety and security and prosperity.
We learn who YHWH is by reading story after story of covenants made between the Creator and creation, and then witnessing them being broken time and again by humanity. We learn the ways of Jesus by observing how he interacts with people. These stories show us the relentless pursuit of a divine Lover, intent on being united with the object of his affection. If we distill this complex love story down into commandments to follow and promises to claim and judgments to pronounce, we become followers of doctrines and rules instead of lovers of God. Stories invite us to live in them, to fall in love with the lead character, to empathize and identify with those not like us, and to be transformed by encounter.
Worship and Prayer:
Lately, I have become more attentive to the stories we tell in our gathered times of worship, especially our sung worship. (I wrote more on this in a blog called The Songs We Sing). What stories are we inviting people to enter into? I find it helpful to do a simple grammar exercise: who is the subject of the song? If most of the songs we sing are filled with "I" and "my" and "me," it seems obvious that we are focused on ourselves instead of on God. Do our songs make us the main character in the story or are we telling the story of Jesus? Do we sing of the character and nature of God or do we mostly sing about how God fills our needs and wants? Don't get me wrong, it is important to sing songs about our own experience, be it joy or lament or brokenness or repentance or love or longing (just look at the Psalms), but we must be mindful not to make our own healing or prosperity or freedom the focus. A well-told worship story (in my opinion) includes songs about the nature and action of God, songs about the human experience, songs about interacting with God, and songs about God's love for the world.
The same questions I posed about worship can also be applied to our times of prayer: are our prayers exclusively centred around our own concerns or do they include the world around us? Do they sound like someone talking to a customer service agent or do they reflect friendship with God? Do they tell the story of a compassionate God who saves, who heals, who provides, who is with us in every situation? Are they bathed in gratitude for God's generosity and kindness?
Teaching:
A few years ago, I spent the better part of a day crafting a fine sermon. When I took a moment to read through my notes, I realized that it was pretty much a self-help talk. I had expounded on some great principles which would help people to live well-rounded and fulfilling lives, but I did not tell the story of Jesus. So I scrapped the whole thing and started again, this time with Jesus front and centre. Now I ask this question every time I speak: am I telling the story of Jesus? In other words, am I leaving people with a list of things to do, ideas to try, things to repent of, or concepts to consider? Or am I leaving them with Jesus? Are my fun facts or personal anecdotes or profound hermeneutics eclipsing the grand story of how God loves the world? Am I trying to make people feel better, top them up spiritually, or get them to change their behaviour? Or am I telling them about Jesus? Am I inviting people to thrust themselves into the story we find in the biblical witness, the story of God's immense love for the world, and to respond to Jesus's invitation to "Follow me?"
Stories are trajectories. In contrast to static dogmas, stories help us to learn from the past, to embrace and live into the present, and to hopefully imagine the future. Let us proclaim and live into the story of Jesus in all our spiritual practices.
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