The Power of Story Telling

Over the last few weeks the Gospels have been parables, stories that Jesus uses to make a point or to make several points.  The stories themselves may not be true, i.e. they happened detail for detail, but the parables contain “truth.”  I do not want to speak to you today about any of the individual parables or stories but to rather focus on God as the master story teller and the story that He has unfolded for us since the creation of the world.

When we read the great story about creation, especially today it invokes many feelings.  There are those who have made science their religion, it is science that gives us all the answers, the facts, if you will.  There are others who take the story literally, when I say literally, I mean each and every word.  They believe that religion or faith in Scripture is the answer to all or the only answer.  Then there are those who understand story telling or dare I say the meaning of “myth.”

When we hear the word “myth,” what do we think of?  Today it has come to mean a false story, fiction, or even a fable.  The dictionary defines myth as, “a traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining some natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events.”  A second definition is, “a widely held but false belief or idea.”  What is the best way to describe that we believe in myth or stories.

I am going to give way some spoilers here but I think they will help with our understanding of how myth or story telling is true and not false according to the spirit of truth and not so much to the letter of the law or in the details. Some years ago a great movie called, “The Life of Pi,” was released, a movie which did real well and received great praise by fans and critics alike.  The movie is a work of fiction.  The movie tells a story of a young Indian boy who becomes stranded at sea on a life boat along with a zebra, an orangutan, a hyena, and a Bengal tiger.  The hyena kills the zebra and the orangutan and eventually the Bengal tiger kills the hyena.  It comes down to the boy and the tiger, both survive.  When the boy is rescued he tells the insurance people of the boat that sank this story, the one with the animals.  The men do not believe it and demand he tells the truth of what happened!  So he tells them another story, one in which he makes it to the life boat along with the cook, his mother, and two others from the boat.  The cook kills the two others and the boy’s mom and eventually the boy kills the cook in order to survive.  This second story is the real one and the one that the insurance agents will bring back home.  At the end of the movie the Indian boy, now a man, asks the journalist who has come to document his story which story does he like better, the journalist tells him, “the one with the animals.”  The Indian man responds, “so too with God.”

The story with the animals is myth, it is not accurate to the letter, but it tells a truth and a deep one at that.  Another example is J.R.R. Tolkien’s work the Lord of the Rings.  Many if not almost everyone has either read the books or saw the movies or both realize that his work is fantasy, it is fiction, there is no middle earth or dwarves, elves, or orcs.  But the story tells a truth, it tells a truth about good and evil, of courage, perseverance, virtue, and even a parallel salvation history to that of the bible.

There is a scene in the movie, “The Hobbit,” when Gandalf the Wizard is trying to convince Bilbo to go on the adventure with the other dwarves by telling him a story of his great, great, great, grandfather Bullroarer Took who defeated the Goblin armies that invaded the Shire.  Bullroarer Took was the largest Hobbit ever and rode a horse and took off the chief Goblins head with one fell swoop sending it a hundred yards eventually landing in a hole.  The invasion was ended and the game of golf invented all at once.  Bilbo said to Gandalf, “I believe you made that up.”  Gandalf responds, “All good stories deserve some embellishment.”  The story of Bullroarer took is true in the world of the Hobbit, but Gandalf added some things but they didn’t mean that the entire story was false.

Another way to explain this is that we are all story tellers; we love to tell stories, of our families and friends, of the good old days.  We add to those stories, the traditions handed down in our families become larger than life, the stories in their essence are true, but analogies are added and even embellishment.

Could this be the case with the Scriptures?  We need some clarification here.  The Scriptures, both Old and New Testament contain many different forms of writing, i.e. poetry, songs and hymns, prophetic literature, e.g. Revelation, letters, books, reflections, and literal recording of events.  One has to know what type of literature is set before them.  You cannot read poetry as literal historical events just as you cannot take literal historical records and read them as poetry.

The Book of Genesis is a story.  How much of it is historically accurate I cannot say, it could very well be the same story as the “Life of Pi,” or even “The Lord of the Rings.”  Both stories tell a truth as does the Book of Genesis.  The Truth in the Book of Genesis is that there is a God, He created the world, we all come from the same parents, who somewhere along the line fell to sin, they could not redeem themselves, they would need God’s help, that’s it in a nut shell.  Some want to believe that the story is literal, but that can be disproven quite easily.  When you look at the light of certain stars in the night sky they are billions of miles away, that light would have taken 10,000 years to reach the earth, therefore the universe cannot be 6,000 years old as some claim.  On the other hand some would have us believe that Genesis is a myth in the sense of a lie, that it’s just a story someone made up and it’s a story to keep people in fear and intellectual chains.  They would also be mistaken as the story God is telling is true in the sense of Truth, just as all stories are.

I recommend that you watch a video on Lewis and Tolkien debating myths and lies on youtube, its acted out but it is done brilliantly, both men had great faith, Tolkien had a great influence on Lewis converting to Christianity and one of their great discussions was based on myths vs. lies, the meaning of storytelling.

We are all story tellers, maybe not as good as Tolkien or Lewis, but nevertheless we tell stories and we love hearing them, even Jesus told stories, almost all the time, for Him it was mostly in parables.  God Himself is the greatest story teller; it’s still the greatest selling book in all of history, the Bible.  I pray that you all will immerse yourselves in the greatest story ever told, from beginning to end, that when you read the story you will recognize the literature, but more importantly the “Truth” behind and in each every story.   But also to remember and this is important, you are all characters in the story, the story would not be complete without you. FJ

Good Ground For Hope

But though you are master of might, you judge with clemency, and with much lenience you govern us; for power, whenever you will, attends you.  And you taught your people, by these deeds, that those who are just must be kind; and you gave your children good ground for hope that you would permit repentance for their sins. 

What beautiful words in our first reading from the book of Wisdom, words that remind us that God is very merciful and always allows us to come back and ask for forgiveness.

I’ll share a story with you that will bring this to light.  Some years ago in a conversation with someone I asked, “If you were a priest and you had a penitent come to you to confession every week and repeated the same sin over and over again, each and every week. What would you do?”  He asked, “I need to know what type of sin.”  I realized then that I had a theologian in the making if front of me.  I said, “Really, it could be any sin, but for our purposes since there seems to be an unbelievable preoccupation in sexual sins in our time, let’s say the person has a sexual addiction, a serious one.”  I asked the person a second time, “What would you do?”  He responded, “I would withhold absolution until the penitent made some real effort to change, because obviously he is abusing the sacrament by using it as a way out of his sins.”

It is true a priest can withhold absolution if there is legitimate cause, i.e. the penitent was not contrite, made a mockery of the sacrament, or something to the like.  It should be rarely used, withholding absolution that is, since it turns the sacrament into power and fear, a power over the penitent and a fear of the sacrament.

God Himself judges with clemency as Scripture tells us, who is man to think he may set different standards?  The person asked me, “What would you do?”  I would grant absolution if they are contrite, it makes no difference how long the struggle has been, the penitent is fighting the good fight as St. Paul tells us the Christian life is, not a life free from sin, but a life that does not give up.

Think of how much God has been patient with us.  All of us repeat sins and all of us are allowed to ask for forgiveness, again, “you gave your children good ground for hope that you would permit repentance for their sins.”  It does not stipulate that it can only be once rather it leaves it open, the ability to ask for forgiveness, since God knows that in our weakness we fall.

It is true God desires that we never sin and we should have the same desire, to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect, but if we fall short we have someone that intercedes on our behalf, Jesus Christ, the Eternal High Priest who forgives seventy times seven, in a word, “ALWAYS!” 

FJ