The Power of Story
By Rev. Julie Yarborough
January 31, 1999
Genesis 4: 1-16, Mark 4: 1-9
his
Gates of the Forest, Elie Wiesel tells how
. . . the Baal Shem Tov, sensing misfortune awaiting
the Jews, made his way to a certain place in the forest where he
lighted a fire and said a special prayer so that the misfortune would
be averted. In time, his disciple, the Magid of Mezritch, also foresaw
calamity threatening his people. He went to the same part of the
forest and prayed, 'Master of the Universe, I do not know how to light
the fire, but I am still able to say the prayer.' This disaster, too,
was averted. More time passed, and catastrophe loomed again. Now
Rabbi Moshe-Leib of Savov made his way into the forest and said, 'I
don't know how to light the fire, and I don't know the prayer, but I
know the place, and this must be sufficient,' and it was. Then it fell
to Rabbi Israel of Rizhyn to overcome misfortune. He said to God, 'I
am unable to light the fire, I don't know the prayer, I cannot even
find the place in the forest, all I can to is tell the story, and this
must suffice.' And it did.[1]
The power of story!
I know a woman who grew up in Czechoslovakia when it was under
communist rule and all religious practice was outlawed. Each night
before she went to bed, her mother would tell her wonderful stories of
brave people who underwent suffering but never gave up hope. It wasn't
until she became an adult and came to the United States that she went
to church for the first time. In church she was surprised to hear the
same stories that her mother had told her. How did these people know
her mother's stories? All her life, she had heard these stories and
her mother had never told her that they were from the Bible. Little
did she know, that in telling these stories, her mother had been
committing a subversive act!
I too remember hearing Bible stories as a child, over and over again,
until they became a part of me. From time to time, my sister, brother
and I would spend the night with my aunt and uncle. One of my favorite
childhood memories is getting ready for bed at their house and then,
when we were in our pajamas and tucked in for the night, our aunt would
tell us a story from the Bible. She wouldn't read these stories, she
would tell them from memory and she knew them well. They were her
stories and they became our stories, too. She told us about Jesus'
friends Mary and Martha, and their brother Lazarus. As two sisters and
a younger brother, we could relate. She told us about the ten plagues
that God sent upon Egypt because the Pharaoh would not listen to
Moses. We loved the story of good triumphing over evil. She told us
about the friendship of David and Jonathan; about Samuel and Eli and
the call from God; about the sibling rivalry between Jacob and Esau;
about the strength of Samson and the betrayal of Delilah; about the
courageous Queen Esther, who risked her life to save her people; and my
favorite: the love story of Ruth and Boaz. These stories were better
than any fairy tale, for they were true.
By true, I don't necessarily mean that they happened exactly as they
were written, or that they are historically accurate. Some of the
stories in the Bible may not have occurred in history at all. As far
as I'm concerned, it doesn't matter. These stories point to an
existential Truth. They inform our faith; they inform our very lives.
The stories from the Bible are our stories. We see ourselves in the
women and men of the Bible: in all of their shortcomings and failures,
in all of their struggles to overcome adversity. And in the midst of
all the family dysfunction, sibling rivalry, parental favoritism,
sexual indiscretions, denial, betrayal, loss, death and destruction,
there is a promise of hope, a promise that all will be well with the
world once again. That good will triumph over evil, that justice will
prevail, that the meek will inherit the earth.
As Bill Moyers has written, "The dysfunctional family is not a modern
invention, and it is because these stories ring so true that they
retain their hold on us. They tell about the rise of a community of
faith and the struggle for real men and women to know what it means to
be the people of God. History, for these storytellers, was the
unfolding of divine action and human reaction.
Down through the ages, the stories have been told again and again so
that each ensuing generation could lay claim to them, for the sake of
remembrance, redemption and the future."[2]
The stories of the Bible speak to us. They inform our lives. Educator
Gretchen Wolff Pritchard tells about teaching the story of Cain and
Abel to a children's Sunday School class.[3]
One boy in the class, whose relationship with his brother was
particularly rocky, went home from church and processed the story with
his parents over and over again during the week. He was fascinated and
relieved to hear that he was not the only child who had ever had
murderous fantasies about his sibling.
The stories of the Bible are alive today because they speak to our
lives. These stories are our stories, and they contain power and truth
that show us how to live as people of faith. The problem is that for
the most part, we don't know these stories. We live in a culture that
is becoming more and more Biblically illiterate. And if we don't know
the stories, we can't pass them on to our children.
Sometimes, people are kept from reading the Bible because of what
they've been taught about it. For some people who had bad experiences
with church as children, the mere mention of the Bible produces
negative connotations. For others, especially those who didn't grow up
in a church or have had no Christian education experience, the Bible is
intimidating. Where does one even begin to read? The language seems
so archaic, and what if I read something that I don't like?
If you want to learn more about the Bible, but don't know where to
start, I encourage you to join the Wednesday night study group, led by
Sonja Breitenfeld, that meets each Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. The group
has just started and they are reading and discussing together Kenneth
C. Davis' book,
Don't Know Much About the Bible: Everything You Need to Know About the
Good Book but Never Learned.[4]
It's a good place to begin, and it's an interesting read for those who
already know something about the Good Book. Even if you can't make it
every Wednesday night, you are invited to drop in when you can.
Another good way to begin learning about the Bible is to read to your
children. There are many Children's Bibles and Bible story books
available today. The Children's Bible that we use at Christ Church is
the International Children's Bible,
New Century Version. [5]
This is the one that we present to our third graders each year, and it
is now the one that we use in Sunday School as well. A great Bible
storybook is this one,
The Children's Illustrated Bible,
published by Dorling-Kindersley.[6]
It is illustrated with beautiful drawings and photographs. This book
does not include the entire text, but the editors have chosen selective
stories from the Bible, presented along with historical information.
If you pick one story to read to your children each night, or even one
story each week, you will learn the stories together over time. I also
encourage you to talk to your children about the stories that they are
learning in Sunday School. The preschoolers are learning Bible stories
each week through our Young Children at Worship program. And our new
workshop rotation model for children in grades K-5 is proving to be a
much more effective way of teaching the Bible stories than the
curriculum we've used in the past. The children not only hear the
stories, they become immersed in them as they hear them each week act
them out, play games and illustrate them. Let your children tell you
the stories they have learned in Sunday School.
One more suggestion that I have for you is to purchase a study Bible
for your own personal use. These Bibles generally have commentary in
the margins that help to explain what is going on in the text. They
also offer historical background and often have maps in the back. The
study Bible that we have purchased for the high school youth group is
The Student Bible,
New Revised Standard Version.[7]
I used it with my adult Bible study group earlier in the year, and the
adults liked it so much that several of them purchased their own
copies.
Jesus knew the power of telling stories, and the truth stories could
impart. He often used stories to illustrate a point or to teach a
concept. The stories he told were often puzzling or troubling to his
listeners, but each story contained the truth for those who had ears to
hear. And when those who were listening didn't understand his stories,
Jesus often explained them. The parable of the sower was one he had to
explain to his disciples. The sower represents Christ; the different
types of soil represent those who hear his teachings:
The sower sows the word. These are the ones on the path where the word
is sown: when they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the
word that is sown in them. And these are the ones sown on rocky
ground: when they hear the word, the immediately receive it with joy.
But they have not root, and endure only for a little while; then when
trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they
fall away. And others are those sown among the thorns: these are the
ones who hear the word, but the cares of the world, and the lure of
wealth, and the desire for other things come in and choke the word, and
it yields nothing. And these are the ones sown on good soil: they
hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirty and sixty and a
hundredfold
(Mark 4: 14-20).
May we be the ones who hear the sacred stories and accept them, and
tell them again and again, bearing fruit thirty and sixty and a
hundredfold.
Amen
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[1]
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Bill Moyers,
Genesis: A Living Conversation,
New York: Doubleday, 1996, p. xvii.
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[2]
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Ibid., p. xvi.
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[3]
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Gretchen Wolff Pritchard,
Offering the Gospel to Children,
Boston: Cowley Publications, 1992, pp. 29-30.
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[4]
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Kenneth C. Davis,
Don't Know Much About the Bible: Everything You Need to Know About the Good Book but Never Learned,
New York: William Morrow and Co., Inc., 1998.
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[5]
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International Children's Bible: New Century Version,
Fort Worth: Word Publishing, 1988.
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[6]
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Selina Hastings,
The Children's Illustrated Bible,
New York: DK Publishing, Inc., 1994
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[7]
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The Student Bible: New Revised Standard Version,
Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing
House, 1996.
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