Keeping the Faith – Now that’s a different story
The Hasidic philosopher Martin Buber told the tale of a Jewish grandfather confined to his wheelchair. A master storyteller, one day the old man’s grandchildren gathered eagerly around his chair and asked him to tell a story about his life. Happy to oblige, the grandfather began telling a story from his childhood, how his rabbi would leap and dance during his recitation of the Psalms.
The more into it the old man got, the more he seemed to incarnate his rabbi, until unexpectedly the grandfather jumped from his wheelchair! In telling the story – and acting it out – it gave new life to the old man, and his grandchildren needed no further explanation. Martin Buber concludes his tale by saying: “Now, that’s the way to tell a story!” And, I would add, that’s how to live a life, particularly a life of faith.
People of faith, and I include myself in this assessment, often fall back on hardened dogma or cascading Scripture references to explain our way of life. But frozen facts and biblical sound bites do very little to inspire life or to invite others to explore faith. These do even less to heal a fractured world.
But if we become so immersed in the story of a gracious God, so connected to his powerful narrative of redemption, so skilled in incarnating Christ that we are animated and enlivened by it, then others just might be attracted to
it. It just might do some good in the world. Faith just might become a story worth telling; a story worth believing; and a story worth living.
What does his story look like? It looks like Jesus. He was humble and compassionate; full of grace and truth; the epitome of sacrificial love; forgiving toward all, and welcoming to the most repugnant among us. If our reading and living of the Bible isn’t making us more like that – more like Jesus – then, simply, we are doing something wrong.
If, in reciting our favorite verses, memorizing the text, and proclaiming the truth, we only get more angry; more suspicious; more judgmental and fixed in our self-righteousness; more indifferent and apathetic toward the world; more greedy and egocentric – then we might know some religious quotes, but we haven’t yet learned to tell the story. But when we become what Christ was saying, rather than offer trite, formulaic answers, then that, is another story altogether.
Ronnie McBrayer is a syndicated columnist, blogger, pastor, and author of multiple books. Visit his website at www.ronniemcbrayer.net and listen to his talks by clicking on his YouTube channel.
