SHARING STORIES, CONNECTING WITH GOD

(Preached on Sunday, September 25, 2005)

This is our story.  This is where we came from.  When you hear this story, you must also tell it, so that others may also know where they came from.                                                                                          -Psalm 78:4

 

He is now a young man in his twenties.  But it wasn’t long ago that he was struggling with a problem familiar to many of the internet generation.  “I was 11 years old when my parents divorced,” he writes in an online testimony.  “And as my dad moved out, I felt empty because I knew we were not going to spend as much time together like we used to.”  Despite the split-up, the young man managed to build a strong relationship with his father.

A few years later, however, another tragedy struck.

“I remember the day my father told me he had AIDS.” 

The news, he writes, came “like an unexpected blow to the face.”  He was fourteen when his father told him.

The young man became withdrawn and sad.

“Little by little, my heart grew cold to everyone except my dad.”  Watching his father waste away, he prepared for the worst.  During his father’s last week of life, the young man explains, a family member shared Christ with is father.  As soon as his father ended the prayer, “he said that he saw several men dressed in white saying that they were going to stay with him until he went home.  I couldn’t understand then, but now I believe they were angels sent by God.”

 

The young man’s story ends on this note of hope for teens who have seen AIDS devastate their loved ones.

“AIDS is a deadly disease that affects everybody — not just the one infected.  I went through a lot of emotional distress when my father passed away, but through God’s help, I once again feel joy.  If anyone reading this is infected with the HIV virus or knows someone that is, my advice to you is to pray to God to give you comfort, peace, and joy.  I guarantee he will.”

 

The young man’s testimony is one of many woven throughout a Web site called Hopenet.  This site is a virtual community for teens, with chat rooms, discussion boards, and an online game designed to help teens learn to make good decisions along the road of life.  But the key to Hopenet’s appeal is its stories: stories written by young people for young people; stories about divorce, peer pressure, broken friendships, and broken hearts; stories with which teens can relate.

 

We all love stories.  I know I do.

I love to read books, I love to watch movies, I love television dramas.  Even people who claim to only watch the news, that is really all news is, stories, contemporary, up-to-the-moment now stories.

Stories entertain us, they intrigue us, they help us laugh and they invite us to cry, they help us learn and they help us grow, they deepen our experience and understanding of life, of the world around us, of ourselves. 

They also help us connect with God.

 

That is the wisdom this Psalm is passing on as it extols the importance of telling our children about our faith.

People have always told stories to help people connect with God — that’s what the Bible is, a collection of stories of the experiences and encounters people had with God. 

But rather than “preach at” you about this truth, let me share with you another paraphrase of this Psalm by a man named Jim Taylor, which makes the point clearly.

“We all need family histories.  No one is so poor as the person with no roots.

If I say, “Once upon a time,” everyone knows a story is starting.  I do not know the meaning of my stories, I merely pass them on as they were passed on to me.  Only you can decide what they mean to you.

This is our story.  This is where we came from.  When you hear this story, you must also tell it, so that others may also know where they came from.

Our story is not limited to our own lives.  We belong to a long line of travelers, snaking in single file through history; We bear with us the beliefs, the convictions, the experiences bequeathed to us by those who passed this way before.  From Abraham and Sarah, from Rachel and Jacob, from David and Bathsheba, from Mary and Jesus, we learn our family story.  Only by knowing where we have come from can we know where we are going.  Only by knowing who we are can we know that God is with us.

Once upon a time, we were slaves.  We were exploited for economic growth and held captive by capital.  But God freed us from the prisons of our past, God flung open our minds, and let us see new possibilities.  By signs and symbols, God led us to new life.  In arid canyons of crisis, God showed us how to drink deeply of life.  In barren wastelands of despair, God gave us joy.”

 

It is vital that we tell our stories to one another about where we encounter God, for that is how we will help one another connect with God and find hope for living.

People have always learned through stories. 

First it was done by listening to stories, but eventually we came to rely more and more on the written word and on reading the stories preserved in writing.

But more and more our culture, due to television and movies and even the internet, is a spoken word culture and less and less a written word culture [that might sound strange to include the internet, but the truth is that the language of the internet is more like spoken language than written language in its patterns and rhythms and usage.]

People do not read the Bible or other faith stories, they listen and they watch, and so we need to become storytellers.

 

Actually, we already are, for what do we do when we gather with our families?  We reminisce.  That is, we tell stories.

What we need to include in our storytelling routine are the stories of our experiences of God, of the deep mystery in life, of the sacred.

Now I could tell you more stories from others to illustrate my point, I could regale you with stories from my life, and I often do during this time and I will continue to do that in the future. 

But what I really want to encourage you to do is start telling your own stories for we all have them.  Stories of when God got us through a tough time, consoled us in grief, gave us the courage to keep on going, filled us with hope in a dark night.

We have stories of moments when the sacred mystery broke through the everyday drabness of life and we were startled to remember there is more than what we see — those moments the world calls coincidence, but our faith filled hearts know it speaks of something more.

We have dramatic stories and we have quiet stories.

But all our stories can encourage, console, strengthen, and share hope with those with whom we share.

So, to end this time of reflection I want to invite you to share one of your brief stories of encountering God in your life with someone sitting near to you this morning.  Don’t worry about the time, I will give you each about 2 minutes to share.  You share what you are comfortable sharing.  But please, share part of your life, your faith, and let us help one another connect with God. 

(Give 2 minutes each, after they have paired up.)

 

It is important for our children that we share family stories with them, to help them better understand who they are and from where they came.  It is important for our nation that we rehearse and remember the stories of our founding and the important events that have shaped our national identity.

It is important for us all that we share the stories of the Bible, of the encounters God had with people down through the ages.