I have announced that we'll be starting a new sermon series next week on the parables and we're calling it, "The Stories Jesus Told." I don't know many preachers who don't like the parables. We all, I think, have our favorites. My favorite is "The Parable of the Prodigal Son" from Luke. It always has been. I see myself in it as the younger son and the older son, and sometimes like the Father. I think it's pretty much the Gospel in Parable form.
But, more than just liking the parables, part of the education I received had a focus on the narrative nature of our faith. Stories define us. They shape us. They provide context. Indeed, they form the basis of our communities. We are who we are because we share certain stories about each other and about ourselves as a group. Think of how stories defined your own family...perhaps the stories that were told when you gathered for Thanksgiving dinner or a family wedding. They are what we talk about and laugh about and tell over and over and over again. And if we don't have those stories? Well, then we just have awkward silences.
And so, for us Christians, the stories we tell define us. They shape our ministries and provide a context for our discussions.
If we forget the stories, then, in a real sense, we forget who we are.
When thinking about all of this, I was reminded of an essay I read of Stanley Hauerwas way back when I was in undergraduate school. Hauerwas is Christian theologian and ethicist. And I took a class under him when I was in seminary at Duke. Hauerwas wrote
"A Story-Formed Community: Reflections on Watership Down" back in 1981. I must have read it about 1990 while I was in undergraduate school. It's a good read. And from this we get a clearer understanding of the importance of narrative in our communities. If we forget to tell the stories or if we forget to take them seriously then we run the risk of losing our identities.
