Stories
/He did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples. -Mark 4:34
Jesus prefers stories to lectures. Oh sure, there are some passages in John that make Jesus seem like a theologian, but in the synoptic gospels, most of Jesus’ teaching is delivered either through his example or through parables.
In seminary preaching class, we were taught to illustrate any point we were trying to make with relatable stories. And as you practice preaching, you begin to notice when listeners are ‘with you’ and when you’re ‘losing them.’ Usually you begin to lose your listeners when you’re in the middle of trying to explain some complicated thing, but they’ll come right back when you begin telling a story. That’s how it works with us humans. Stories perk up our ears, hearts and imaginations. We all like to share stories with each other - not only stories from our own lives, but also stories from books we’ve read or shows we’ve watched, or stories we read about in the news. Human communication is delivered most effectively and enthusiastically through stories.
Parables are a particular type of story. Unlike a movie that is wrapped up neatly at the end, a parable is open ended, and encourages hearers to discern what it really means. Sometimes it contradicts itself or has many intersecting layers. Sometimes, like the parables Jesus tells in this Sunday’s gospel, they seem very simple, but leave you wondering what Jesus was really saying. They almost always make us think of things in a new way, challenging our assumptions of how things are supposed to work.
Human beings crave sharing a common story with others. We naturally seek kindred spirits that understand our stories and share theirs with us. We crave true community in this way, and we are not only individually and collectively defined by the stories we tell, we become the stories we tell. These days there is no end to the many different stories we can listen to from a variety of different sources, and many “communities” online that seem to offer us the basic human connection we crave. But when we begin to lose our actual, interpersonal, face to face communities that share a common story, we become vulnerable to propaganda and conspiracy theories that can be tempting imitations of the real community we actually crave.
What stories do you tell about yourself? About the world? About our country? About the church? We who follow Jesus as his disciples are called to stick close to Jesus and his teachings. We’re called to ponder, wrestle, argue with his parables in order to discover their many layered secrets. We trust Christ will explain his stories to us if we continue to engage with them. They have the ability to bring us back to center; back to God’s call to healing, justice and reconciliation.
So no matter what stories you’re listening to or telling these days, make sure, as Jesus’ disciple, that you take time with Jesus to hear his teaching and pray yourself into his stories.
