Parables and Stories

Something I think that Christians have lost is the power of story in our presentations of God to the world. May I remind you that the silly prophet named Jesus who walked around in Roman-occupied Israel spent most of time telling stories. I think the world is fed up with clever arguments for the truth of the "Good News" that Christians are preaching. There is something about being human and wrestling with truth that makes stories able to communicate truth in the best way that words can. The collection of writings that we have put together today and called the "Bible" (what a creative name) is mostly a collection of stories. In my own personal journey of seeking to find the truths of this world, I initially wanted concrete answers. I wanted to know the facts and everything else was a waste of time. But what I have been realizing is that truth can only be most clearly communicated in the context of a narrative. Embodied truth is far more powerful than disembodied truth.

I am pondering what it would be like if a Church would stop giving an instructive sermon one Sunday and instead told a Parable about the Christian life that communicated the same instructive truth through the different medium. I know that in our "post-modern" way of thinking we have twisted stories so that they no longer have real meaning. I want to avoid that and I feel this is the problem with my idea. I am not sure how one can present and story and insure that the audience does not take the story to mean something it doesn't. But then again, look at the parables of Jesus and how often they are over-analyzed by Christian preachers. I am sure God knew that his stories told through his son would be abused but he still chose to communicate truth through parables.

As an example of the power of story over argument and teaching, I am going to link you to a blog post by Michael Patton. He writes for a Christian theology blog called "Parchment and Pen". I want you to read his blog post about the Christian doctrine of Eternal Security and notice as you read that, regardless of whether you agree with him or not, his short parable he tells is the most powerful argument in his favor. It communicates what he is saying more powerfully than all his words before and after the story. You might argue for a middle ground here, that the words support the story and give the reader the ability to correctly interpret the story. I am fine with that. That might actually be the answer to the "post-modern dilemma" that comes with stories. I can think of a situation where Jesus takes his disciples aside and explains a parable to them so that they may more clearly understand the meaning (Matthew 13:36-43). My problem is that the Church tends to do more explaining of the story than actually story telling.