Tell the story, then sing a song in the spirit of Jesus

How did a handyman from a largely abandoned village of a couple of hundred poor people become the most important person in the history of Western civilization?

He was a storyteller. His stories were so good that they were unforgettable. The poor, illiterate people of this small town and the surrounding area remembered the stories and kept repeating them. Every storyteller was free to add details, but the basic stories survived and eventually were written down. The stories were too good and too relevant to life to disappear.

Obviously, I am writing about Jesus from Nazareth. I am an addicted believer. I have never considered not being a believer. Somehow the faith that I have has been so deeply imbedded in my heart and mind that I cannot imagine being anything other than a believer of a particular kind. I am a Christian believer, a follower of Jesus from Nazareth. I ponder how I got to be the person that I am. The answer is simple. I heard the stories. Out of my childhood and youth experiences dozens, probably hundreds, of songs course their way through my mind. The one just now that will not allow me to stop singing is “Tell Me the Old, Old Story.”

Tell me the story simply. Tell me the story slowly. Tell me the story often. Tell me the old, old story of Jesus and his love. Somehow over the centuries Jesus became the stories that he told. The storyteller became THE story.

I now read a good bit of speculation about the future of the Christian churches. The world is moving very fast. Churches are certainly different than the churches of my childhood, youth and young adulthood. Music, church architecture, worship forms and ethical concerns have all changed drastically. The most prominent theologians of my seminary days, Kierkegaard, Barth, Brunner and Tillich, have disappeared from relevance. Bonhoeffer is still read, but more for what he did and his challenges to Adolph Hitler than for his thinking. The Bonhoeffer story has become more important than his theology.

Theologians and customs pass away, but some stories persist and will not go away. Observing the past, I strongly suspect the future of Christianity will be bound up with those who best live and tell the Christian story.

The Israelite/Christian tradition exists today because of faithful telling of great stories. The first of those great stories is the story of Abraham. According to the story, Abraham responded to the call of God to become a great nation. The wandering Aramaean went out at God’s direction not knowing where he was going. The second great story tells of Abraham’s progeny as slaves in Egypt who are freed under the leadership of Moses, the lawgiver. The third is the story of David, the great conqueror, who established a powerful kingdom with a capitol city on a hill called Jerusalem.

Along the path of the history of the children of Abraham there are numerous other lesser stories, but these three stories are so imbedded in the minds of Jewish people that Jews cannot be removed from their central importance in world history. The power to shape civilizations is bound up in the faithful telling of these stories.

It is upon the foundation of the stories of Abraham, Moses and David that the story of Jesus from Nazareth has been built. Two stories about Jesus are the basis of our two great holidays, Christmas and Easter. These two stories have been corrupted by commercialization. However, the story of Jesus’ miraculous birth will not go away. Neither will the story of his crucifixion and later resurrection from the dead.

There are two central celebrations in the life of Christian churches: baptism and communion. The first is a celebration of birth. The second is a celebration of crucifixion and resurrection. They are critical tools in remembering the essential story of Jesus. The preacher’s task is to repeat the stories and to give meaning to the stories for everyday life. Preachers come and go. Their sermons, even the best of them, become throwaways like yesterday’s newspapers. Their sacred pulpits will become tomorrow’s kindling. It is the stories about Jesus that will not go away.

Theologians suffer the same fate as preachers. I find Augustine, Luther and Calvin to be strange thinkers, locked in their own eras. The best of theologians take their chosen tasks too seriously. I suspect that every theologian would be better at their task if they had a well-developed ability to laugh at themselves. Theologians come and go. It is the story of Jesus that persists.

Among the church’s communicators, my favorites are songwriters and musicians. I love a well-delivered sermon and appreciate a good liturgist. But it is the music in a worship service that moves my heart. True, just like the preachers and the theologians, musicians come and go, but for me they have a special role in the telling of the Jesus story.

What is the future of Christianity? First, Christianity will not go away. It will persist and flourish. It will persist because people cannot stop telling the story. The interpretations of the story will be unending and constantly changing. The story itself will not change. The future of Christianity will belong to those who best tell the story. I have a preference. Let’s put the story to music and sing another Jesus song.

The Rev. Howard Bess is a retired American Baptist minister, who lives in Palmer. His email address is hdbss@mtaonline.net.

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