Issue #3
We take the Bible, His Story as revealed in Scriptures
as the meta-narrative to locate all our stories.
Hence, God in our stories, Our stories in God’s Story.
The Bible – The Story of God
The Bible has been referred to as the Word of God. It is through the words of the Bible that we come to know God. From its pages come teachings and stories related to life; rules and guidelines; theology and doctrines, and the great commandments to love God and neighbour.
So, we are taught to examine, analyze and even memorize various passages of the Bible. We read, study as well as listen to sermons on the Bible. We buy books and commentaries, take bible courses and attend bible conferences. These are the various acts of engaging the Word of God.
The Bible, however, is not just merely words about God to be studied. It is filled with stories about real persons. 2000 years ago, the Apostles were bursting with life on the day of Pentecost. 1500 years earlier than Peter, John and Paul, a baby was rescued from the river and included in God’s story of great deliverance. Moses became the deliverer under God as well as lawgiver of a new people-nation, Israel. 4000 years before our present time, God brought another man into His story, and Abraham became the father of the nation of Israel.
Words and stories, teachings and persons, commandments and lived experience – we find all these in the Word of God. In CSF, we have shifted from reading the Bible as a source book for theology or doctrine that must be studied and understood to seeing it as a record of many stories about real persons encountered by God in another time and place.
The Bible is a world that we enter to know about the Person of God. This is a fully immersive encounter, not merely with the mind, but with our emotion and imagination of sight, sound, smell, taste and touch. We come to understand that reading (or studying) the Bible is not really about me and my needs, my growth and my ministries. (These are outcomes, not objectives.) The Word of God is about God. It tells His story.
And the story did not end with the last book of Revelation. God’s story continues down the centuries to our present time. The apostolic fathers in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, disciples of the apostles read the Bible and had their own unique stories of martyrdom to tell about God’s presence and providence. The desert fathers and mothers in the 4th century, in the solitude and silence of their desert habits, showed the deep wisdom of a single-minded life lived that comes from a sustained rumination of scriptures. Benedict of Nursia in the 6th century, put together a rule book for communal Christian living, making lectio divina (divine reading) of scriptures the core daily spiritual discipline in their seven times of daily prayers.
Down the centuries, more stories were added from that first story of the good news of Jesus Christ. The missionary outreach of St Patrick, the deep devotion and exploration of the interior life by the monks and mystics, the renewal and reform movements that took place in the Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Protestant traditions.
What rich stories we possess, each told through the prism of individual lives or communities, each refracting the Person of God, revealing His Presence ever with us.
You and I are also in the Story of God. Today, reading the same Bible, we joined the cloud of witnesses from centuries past to tell our own personal stories of God. As the latest prodigals and elders to be forgiven, welcomed home, we are now included in the story of God our Father in heaven.
Hence, this second value that anchors the community here at CSF:
We take the Bible, His Story as revealed in Scriptures
as the meta-narrative to locate all our stories.
Hence, God in our stories, Our stories in God’s Story.
The Bible – The Meta-narrative To Locate All Our Stories
What do all these mean? What happens when we live into this reality of our stories in God’s meta-narrative?
First, we will no longer be alone. Imagine, no, not imagine, it is true! We view our lives and stories as part of this great cloud of witnesses and testimonies. Read the Bible. Read the stories of God in the lives of the saints down the centuries. You will find bearings and insights to live your story well. No saints are sinless. It is the goodness and mercy of God that He included them in His Story. This cloud of witnesses includes stories of the failures and faithfulness of persons like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Samuel, David, Peter, Paul, Augustine, Bernard of Clairvaux, Martin Luther and Karl Barth.
Second, we are guarded from self-absorption. I am me. I am often the director of my lifelong movie called My Story. Mine is the most familiar story that I know. You may judge your story to be good or bad, unusual or ordinary, the best or the worst. Whichever, the focus is on yourself. When I recognise and embrace the truth that my story is located in the greatest narrative of God, together with others’ stories, my eyes are naturally turned outward and Godward. I am guarded from existing alone in a universe of my own making. It is not about me. It is about God including me, and others.
Lastly, located in the meta-narrative of the story of God means there is a great(er) director and writer who directs and shapes my life and story. There are primarily three voices that interpret our lived experiences: our own, the external voices, and God’s voice. Who do we listen to? It depends on which voice is stronger, more authoritative. The self-willed person will run his or her own life. The person still finding himself or herself is unsure of which voices to follow. As followers of Christ the Shepherd, He already assured us that we will be able to hear and know His voice.
On our website, we name this page “Our God Stories.” For at the closing of each life is the story of God in and through our life. At the end of each of our story, God is the one on stage, not us. But it does not mean that we, our selves have vanished, are insignificant. Far from it! In fact, our stories become even richer and more meaningful. How so? Instead of the “I, Me, My, Mine” universe, in the story of God, we have context, location, anchor and framing. We are invited into a multi-verse as it were, that exists within the benevolent, compassionate and almighty Being revealed in the Bible as Father, Son and Spirit. The horizon is without horizon, even as we being temporal creatures must die one day.
Our stories are simply a telling forth of a life touched and transformed by the triune God. Ultimately then it is God that we must take reference from. And the Word of God is full of stories of persons who once lived and experienced the presence and acts of God in their lives. Their experiences of God reveal to us how God can guide, form and nurture a life to be rich and life giving for the self and others.
God guides, protects, interprets and co-writes our story. God in our story. Our story in God’s story. What safety! What comfort! What joy! What alive-ness!