Sermon: Genesis 4:

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The Power of Story

By Julie Yarborough

November 12, 2006

sus 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. Listen to the explanation that Jesus gave to his disciples, and gives to us today:

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, NRSV)

According to Jesus, the seeds sown on good soil are the ones that take root. They grow and prosper and produce much fruit. Those who hear the word of God and let it germinate within them are those who live prosperous lives. They are the ones who, in the words of the proverb we heard earlier, bind loyalty and faithfulness around their necks and write it on their hearts, finding favor and good repute in the eyes of God and all people. This is what we wish for all of our children, isn't it?

I 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 became my stories and they helped to shape who I am today. 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 misfortune will be averted, 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.”[1]

I once met 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 in the context of her own life and her mother had never told her that they were from the Bible. Little did she know that in telling her these stories, her mother had been committing a subversive act!

The stories of the Bible are universal. They inform our lives, regardless of the context. They help us to make sense of our world. Educator Gretchen Wolff Pritchard tells about teaching the story of Cain and Abel to a children's Sunday School class.[2] 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. They are an antidote to our own anxieties and fears. They offer us a glimpse of grace and redemption in the midst of the banality of life. However, we must know the stories in order to share them. 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.

In 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.[3]

To overcome misfortune, we must learn to tell the story! And to tell the story, we must read it and make it our own. I know that reading the Bible can be intimidating, especially for those who did not grow up going to church, or who went to a church that didn't put much emphasis on reading the Bible and learning the stories. Where does one even begin to read? Well, don't start at the beginning and try to read the Bible straight through – it wasn't meant to be read in that way. The Gospels are a good place to start – or the books of Genesis and Exodus, which are full of stories of God's chosen people, who are just as flawed and fallible as they can be.

If you don't have one, I do suggest that you purchase a study Bible for your own personal use, and I would recommend the Oxford Annotated edition of the New Revised Standard Version, or the NRSV. Study 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. If the archaic language of the Bible is intimidating to you, you might want to try the fairly new translation called, The Message. It is written in the vernacular and is very accessible, although it loses a lot of the poetry of the more traditional English translations. (Check to make sure that the version you buy has chapters and verses marked in it.)

If you want to learn more about the Bible, but don't know where to start, I encourage you to consider a Bible study group. The Bible study we had a Christ Church this fall has just ended, but we will be starting at least one at Christ Church in January, and will start more than one if there is sufficient interest.

Another good way to begin learning the stories of the Bible is to read to 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.[4] 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.[5] 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. And if you don't have children, but want to learn more of the stories yourself, it's a great place to start.

I also encourage you to talk to the children about the stories that they are learning in Sunday School. Our classes for children in preschool through 6th grade focus on one bible story for five weeks at a time, using a variety of methods to help teach the stories, and taking into account that everyone learns in different ways. This has proven 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. Better yet, teach Sunday school! The lessons are prepared for you – all you have to do is read the story and familiarize yourself with it, so that you can share it with the students. Many adults teach Sunday school so that they can learn along with the children.

It is our hope that our children will make these sacred stories their own and that they will link their own lives to these stories in order to help them make sense of things that they are dealing with at home, at school, on the playground and the soccer field. We hope that they will bind them around their necks and write them on their hearts. And as they grow and encounter more difficult problems, anxieties, and fears, we hope that these stories, which have become their own, will offer them glimpses of hope and redemption, and that misfortune will be averted.

May we be like the seeds sown on good soil: 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.

[1] Bill Moyers, Genesis: A Living Conversation, New York: Doubleday, 1996, p. xvi.

[2] Gretchen Wolff Pritchard, Offering the Gospel to Children, Boston: Cowley Publications, 1992, pp. 29-30.

[3] Bill Moyers, Genesis: A Living Conversation, New York: Doubleday, 1996, p. xvii.

[4] International Children's Bible, New Century Version, Fort Worth: Word Publishing, 1988.

[5] Selina Hastings, The Children's Illustrated Bible, New York: DK Publishing, Inc., 1994