ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
August 5, 2022
I have always found it a bit baffling how Christianity has become so dogmatic, claiming absolutes in the name of a teacher who, according to Mark 4, climbed into a boat, sat down, and began to teach a large crowd using parables/stories. He did not say, “Here are the seven necessary truths one must know and claim as holy-conferred…” He did not provide a well-structured and philosophically sound statement of faith. He shared with them stories. Some of the people who stood along the lake and heard Jesus that day might never have heard another word he shared. Yet Jesus didn’t feel it necessary to get them all on the same page with a universally held doctrine with three points. He told them a story, and he seemed OK knowing that many would take that story home as the only insight they’d ever receive from him. Is there something important in the fact that he used stories? Is it possible that Jesus wanted to see his followers swept up in their imagination, engaging the questions a story might raise and then yearning to tell others the story so as to invite them to join the conversation? How is it that we have gotten to a place where some think their well summarized belief system necessitates threats of damnation or even violence toward those who do not concur? I think it might come from the misconception that being right and having power go hand in hand. Instead, might we begin with a story of compassion that leads someone to think more deeply about compassion and then live life with a little more compassion? I sort of like the storytelling teacher named Jesus, who upset the most powerful empire because that empire understood how a good story could change the world.
May the stories of life, beauty and challenge engage my curiosity. O Living Word who was enfleshed in a storyteller, call me to the edge of the water where you will tell me another story. Amen.
