The Sum of our Stories

Deuteronomy 26.1-11

There’s a branch of theology called Narrative Theology which focuses on the stories we tell about God, the world, and ourselves. It focuses on these stories because, as the saying goes “What are we, if not the sum of the stories we tell?”

Our stories about who we are, what the world is like, and who God is in this world fundamentally shape the way we live in the world and approach one another. And the way we tell and re-tell the events of our lives shape what we understand about what happened. A divorce can be described as “I’m a loser,” “they’re an ass,” or “we didn’t grow healthily in our marriage.” Each way to telling the event changes the weight of the story and the way we go on from that story.

We can read events in our past as horrible examples of what an utter foul up we are, or re-read them as mistakes and things from which we can grow. One renders our past into a series of anti-treasures which we carry around with us and which then weigh us down. The other gives us a place to start from in working toward health. That’s why it’s important to look at the stories we tell about ourselves during Lent.

This is a season of the year for self-reflection, for asking where we are going in our lives and whether we like that direction. Part of this reflection is going to have to be about the stories we tell because toxic stories debilitate us, leaving our lives less than whole because we inject this poison into our hearts each time we tell that toxic story again.

Knowing the power of stories, the Deutronomist insisted that once a year the People of God were to go to the temple with the first fruits of their labors: the first elk, the first salmon, the first quilt, the first paycheck and place it at the altar and tell a story of who they were. “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor, he went down into Egypt and became a slave there. But God brought him out of slavery and into this land. And so today I bring the first fruits in thanksgiving.” In other words, “my family were homeless wanderers and refugees whose backs were beaten in slavery but God did not abandon us and brought us to this place.”

Rather than tell a story about how ‘I did it all myself’ and ‘I am so awesome’ the person was to tell a story about how God has helped and guided them into life. The person was to look again at the events in their life and see that God has been involved in bringing them into life. The story then becomes a re-telling of our story with the hand of our caring God clearly present. It becomes an invitation to re-see our life as a gift given in love and us as cherished by the giver.

So this season of Lent, I invite you to re-consider your stories, the ones you tell out loud and the ones that echo in your heart. The ones that tell you who you are and who other people are to you. Look at them again and see if they are telling you a story that leads to life or perhaps elsewhere. And if the story is not leading to life, think of how to re-tell it so it does. Think of how God is involved in re-telling your story into life.