Christian Storytellers Pt IV

So now we come to another story...

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Some would say, "Christianity is it's own meta-narrative; it is a framing-story all its own."

...and on the face of it, perhaps, and after we define some terms, it is; but it isn't so simple as "this is the story of the Christians." We have already alluded to the fact that different people have told the Christian story in many different ways, some in an attempt to tell it faithfully, others in a deliberate bid for control, and still others out of ignorance to God's authorship, design, direction, and action...

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From the outset the story of God, is precisely that, a story about His activity and creativity. We tend to tell stories about a reactionary God, we are the primary actors, He the responder. (If we will just X, then He will Y)

The unfolding narrative of scripture says it quite differently... "in the beginning God..." "...and then God spoke..." "...and God said to Abram..."

It is a story of a God who creates, a God who calls, a God who initiates and invents, a God who imbues and inhabits.

This is a story that we are offered a participatory role in, but it is not our story!

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However, the very role that we are offered, the chance we were/are given to shape the unfolding story, to 'put our fingerprints on the world' as it were, is God's risk. He risked love, created something other than Himself, and gave Himself to it in communion. In a sense, God became vulnerable to our choice...

...and we chose poorly. We choose poorly still.

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And so the story continues. The actors on the stage are ignoring the cues of the director, rewriting the lines of the playwright, and abusing the props made by the set director...

Many an author I know would simply pull the play! Fire the actors and find new ones!

God takes another approach. He begins to interact with the actors on their own terms. Within the scope of the story they have hijacked, He makes promises to a man and his descendants, He begins to act decisively on behalf of that people, He teaches and shapes them, He speaks to them of a future hope, of new creation, of redeemed lives, of holy purpose...

And then He writes Himself into the story.