It's God's Story; It's Our Story

This morning, we presented Bibles to our 3rd graders. This is a tradition, not only at SUMC, but at many other protestant churches. When our children reach the age where they are able to read with some fluency, we present them with the Holy Bible.

When I asked the children this morning what they had just been given, one of them answered, "The Holy Bible." I pushed further and asked, "But what IS it?" Well, 3rd graders standing in front of a whole group of grown-ups aren't the most vocal of folks, so I answered the question, "The Bible is the Story of God's love affair with human beings. It is the story of how God comes close to us and we come close to God."

We tend to devalue "story" in our culture, thinking that "stories" are some how not quiet real. They are "make believe" and so not rational and we dismiss them as untrue. But that totally misses the point of what "Story" is intended to be. Jerome Berryman, Director of the Center for the Theology of Childhood describes the purpose of story this way:

Stories are where all of us, children and adults, find our identity, our
family. Stories are where we challenge the deadly messages of the powers-
that be; whether greed and overwork or poverty and powerlessness, that rob
our lives of relationship and meaning. Stories are where we integrate the
experiences of our lives into powerful acts of recognition, celebration and
meaning as we make our way through time and space. Through story, we invite one another to make meaning of our world and ultimately of our lives . . .to carry stories within us is to become wisdom-bearers, God-bearers.

Episcopal priest (and professor of Pastor Joel’s at Duke), John Westerhoff, builds on this understand of story as he thinks about the Christian Bible:

Sacred stories speak to our deepest, unconscious longings and questions, our
problems and predicaments, our inner and outer struggles in human life. They exist in the form of truth that only intuition and imagination can provide, truth just as significant and real as that which comes through logical analysis and scientific probing. The biblical story is a symbolic narrative. That is why it enlightens us about ourselves and fosters our growth. It offers meaning on varying levels and enriches our lives in countless ways.


The Story told in the Christian Bible – that Story of God’s love affair with us and our response of love back to God – is THE meaning-making vehicle for Christians in all times and in all places. And it is quite the Story. There is nothing any of us experience in our lives that cannot be found in its pages. As we re-read and hear yet again the Stories of our ancestors in the faith’s struggle to make meaning out of their lives, we invite their struggles to help us make meaning of our lives’ questions, struggles, celebrations and disappointments.

So – dig our your Bible and re-visit it’s pages. Did you have a favorite Bible story as a child? Re-read and see what it tells you about the adult you have become. Is there a passage that you have held on to when hope was in short supply and you didn’t know how you were going to get from one minute to the next? Is there a favorite psalm that sums up how you felt the morning your child was born or the time when your parent died? Look at those passages again. Share them with your children. Talk about what they have meant to you, what they do mean to you and what you hope they will mean to them.

The Christian Story is an on-going one. While in Church language, the canon is closed and we add no more “books” or chapters to the official Story, one book remains uncompleted and continues to be lived out by every generation of Christians. That book is the Acts of the Apostles, which directly follows the four Gospels in the New Testament. The Acts of the Apostles is the chapter that tells us of how God’s people are continuing to live out God’s Story. What will you add to the Story?

Faithfully,
Elizabeth