A Story to Tell to the Nations

In one of the trancepts in St. Paul's Cathedral in London stands this portrait of Jesus, titled "Light of the World" by William Holman Hunt. In it, Christ stands at a door with no outside knob and knocks, asking for entry. This picture is a visualization of Revelation 3:20, "Listen! I am standing at the door knocking; if you hear my voice open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me." I like this image as an introduction to the next series of posts which will deal with Good News translation, discussing our opening the door for Christ and Christ's breaking down the doors we put up.

This post is a follow-up to my September 22nd discussion on how the PC(USA) could be relevant to a middle schooler. When I mentioned this to a fellow classmate at Columbia (himself not a Presbyterian), he said that this question should be expanded to "how do you translate the PC(USA) to someone who doesn't have a college education?" We tend to "intellectualize" a lot about our faith in our denomination, and our emphasis on education is one of our perceived callings as a denomination. This can easily be interpreted, however, as a kind of elitism and create an exclusionist idea about our church.

Pondering these questions, I have continued classwork in the last two weeks and have found several readings that haved helped me wrestle with this question. I have found that our challenge really comes in our translation of the Gospel message, how we translate our message to the world. Having read Brian McLaren's The Story We Find Ourselves In and Darrell Guder's The Continuing Conversion of the Church, I believe the translation of the Gospel is not a matter of teaching denominationalism or particular theological treatises, particularly if you are encountering those who are skeptical or unfamiliar with "church talk" (this can include middle schoolers and children too).

Basically, it comes down to narrative. First, we have God's narrative, which begins in the Hebrew Bible with the creation, moves through the primeval history, to the Exodus and the giving of the law to Moses, to the settling of Canaan with judges and later kings. In the monarchies we encounter prophets' warnings against worshipping false gods and exploiting the poor and the eventual exile of both Israel and Judah. The people return later and rebuild their land under occupation, and then God breaks into the story in human form in Jesus. We then follow the Jesus narrative through his teachings and miracles to the cross and the resurrection and the establishment of the early church.

There are many theological statements in this story, but we must first recognize that the story of God's people Israel parallels our personal and communal stories as well. This is where I feel the Presbyterian Church struggles in our translation of the Good News. Faith in Christ comes when we find how our story fits into the larger story of God and God's creation. We all have memories of betrayals, lies, pride, times when we forgot our responsibilities. We all have experiences of people who came into our lives to help lead us in a new direction (like judges or kings or prophets or what have you). And we all have experiences of grace and mercy. When we begin to see our story in the larger story of God and God's story fulfilled in Jesus, we begin a life of faith and not denominational or biblical knowledge.

Our narrative is part of God's narrative. We must learn, then, to encounter honestly God's story and learn of the God who reveals Godself in the scriptures. We must also learn to examine our stories honestly and begin to see how our stories are really part of God's larger narrative. This means speaking faithfully about our daily life experiences, looking for God in the ordinary dailiness of our lives, and seeing where God works and how we can join in.

More to come...future thoughts on...
1. Narrative and theatre- we learn through stories, not doctrines
2. A church focused on narrative will necessarily become one of relationships (this will address John Stuart a.k.a. stushie's comments about relationships for young people in the church)
3. How do we develop language for relating these narratives?