With all wisdom and understanding, he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ. Eph 1:9 (NIV)
Identity Crisis – Stories Part 1
Ephesians is blowing my mind at the moment! I read on a blog recently, and then discovered for myself, that it has a beautiful narrative. In the first three chapters of his letter, Paul lavished the Ephesians in kindness. He built them up with his words; reminded them of their true identity and worth, and that they were chosen, purposed, strengthened and filled with resurrection power. In Christ, they were facing a new reality. In the first three chapters he doesn’t mention the function of the church or the people, but he builds layer upon layer of truth around their internal and eternal value, identity and worth.
Paul goes on like this for 3 chapters, then at the start of chapter 4, he shifts from identity building and into how to function and walk out your life from a place of grace and love. God, through Paul, is building a story not only with the words contained in Ephesians, but in the way the letter itself was written. If you only tell people WHAT to do, you’re only giving them half the story – maybe even less. And they wander around trying to gain their identity and acceptability from what they DO. But if you help people discover WHO they are, and who they are in Christ, they’ll figure what to do just fine. And what they do will be built upon a healthy sense of identity and purpose. They won’t be living to gain acceptance, but will be living from a place of love itself. Wholehearted, authentic and aware.
I said all that to show that God is an incredible story teller. When you think about how you learn, some of the most effective ways are through story telling. Metaphors, poems, characters, narrative, songs (I learnt half the bible through Psalty the Singing the Song book – all you late-80's, early-90's churchies will get it!), films, documentaries, design, novels… they all communicate to us through story. Story telling is especially good at communicating the hard stuff. The stuff that’s hard to explain, hard to talk about, hard to say. A story steps in and does the work for us. And when it’s being most honest, the story never ends.
One of the main narratives (if not THE main narrative) of the stories through the Bible is exodus and redemption. The notion that we have been separated from the divine in ways we don’t even know how to communicate – the internal stuff: the ache in our guts when a loved one dies, the anger at injustice, the exquisite warmth of love, the protective power that rises up within us over our children, the calling of the wind and the ocean and the moon and the stars and if we could listen a little more keenly we’d be able to make out the incredible mysteries they’re trying to tell us – this separation from our origin.
This condition, this separation that affects us all whether we are awake to it or not, is the antagonist of our story. He weaves this deception across the ages through division. Trying to weave a story that ‘separate' is how we should live – estranged, disconnected, fingers pointed, guns raised, walls built… us against others.
But the hero of our story, the protagonist (Jesus) tells it differently. He retells it to us through grace. His words are wisdom and kindness; heavy with faith, hope and love. The way he retells the story of our lives and the universe makes redemption and divine connection seem possible in a miraculous way.
“Because of the sacrifice of the Messiah, his blood poured out on the altar of the Cross, we’re a free people—free of penalties and punishments chalked up by all our misdeeds. And not just barely free, either. Abundantly free! He thought of everything, provided for everything we could possibly need, letting us in on the plans he took such delight in making. He set it all out before us in Christ, a long-range plan in which everything would be brought together and summed up in him, everything in deepest heaven, everything on planet earth.” Eph 1:7-10 MSG.
Go to The Story – Stories Part 2
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