is to be human. Humanity is incorporated into the being of God and this is an unchangeable reality. In the beginning of scripture we learn that one human being is an incomplete creation; God created us to be many. Jesus is Lord because he is the word, the wisdom of God incarnate, the one who is before all things. Jesus is Lord because he earned this exalted title as the one who conquered all that inhibits human beings from being temples for God.
Face to face we shall behold the one whose mercy endures forever. Face to face we are welcome at the table of God where life is the sustaining food and drink. Face to face the vulnerability of God humbles the children of God
Tell Me a Story
When Storytellers Rule the World
‘I’ am a story
From the highest heaven he watches
Leaning forward he waits
The drama of history has captured me as one among many
Defined by particularity
At risk to chance
My freedom to choose is always only a will away
Bound by reality
Equipped to defy reality
Now I hear his call
To change the world is simply to be
The courage to be is the faith of a saint
Today ‘I’ write my own story
a story infused with all the pain of the present
a story untold, never lived before
a story of peace in a land of war
He is my father and ‘I’ am living his dream
My story has eternal meaning
I am a child of God
But there are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.
John 21:25
Tell Me a Story
An omniscient narrator, an unknown author, evidence of editorial work by another, or of sources utilized by a compiler, yet none of these characters are capable of determining with certainty that their reader will ascribe to their intended meaning. Every contributor to, or editor of the biblical text is a guide within a larger framework of the history that has brought the reader to hear their story.
Stories circumvent questions, delay answers, and cloud certainty, yet they ignite imagination, invite critique, and seal their mark on the soul with a power unseen. Stories carry spirit and appeal to spirit. A story has power to change the one who hears and the one who hears has the power to change a story through their uniqueness.
Once your story is told it slips from your hands into the life of another.
We bring ourselves to the text. This being said, the bible is only as good as the person reading it. The cry for a clean heart is a cry for ears to hear. The task is to hear the voice of God amidst the infusion of humanity’s perceptions in a story of both God and humanity.
Christianity cannot grow stagnant if it remains as story, as a living witness to the dynamics of revelation in a people, in a person and in history. Ceremonies attempt to seal a story, but a story can be told in a multitude of ways and defy the institutional drudgery of a ceremony. Stories are like God, like Spirit, they cannot be confined and controlled.
The metanarrative of scripture is an uncontainable story. The error of classical theology and church tradition has been to confine the story to the control of an institution rather than to the lived witness of a people.
In the present age the academy has privileged itself as the interpreter of scripture based upon the arrogance of intellectual technique and privileged access to learning and information. However, without a story, without a life lived in conjunction with God’s presence among the poor and oppressed then interpretation becomes about maintaining power rather than serving others. The tedious repetition of academic effort apart from the face-to-face encounter with God among the people is vanity (hevel).
So, tell me a story of grace, a story of justice, a story of liberation, a story of unbound love, of sacrifice and joy. Tell me a story of hope against hope, of dramatic personal challenge, of change and growth into the image of God in Christ Jesus. Tell me a story where people learn to hear the voice of God and see thy kingdom come in the present, where people enter the rest of heaven in the hell of the present. Tell me a human story infused with the life of God.
Prophetic Denunciation
When Prophets Weep
Broken beneath the weight of divine pathos
Longing for eternity
Holding onto the present
Speech alone releases the load
Unable to release his own humanity
Or escape the God who will not let him go
He Speaks
Overwhelmed
His vision of humanity belongs to God
There is no hiding
Laid at the gate of a globalized world are the children of Lazarus
Capitalism displays contempt for life
Empire is indicative of God’s absence
There is no hiding
Militarism belongs to those who crucify the innocent
God’s army is disrobed
Bearing words for weapons
There is no hiding
The consumption of the gods of the earth
has sent God’s children to scavenge refuse
The warring of the god’s of the earth
threatens all of humanity
They ignore their mortality
There is no hiding
when Prophets speak
Do not trust in
