Lent 1 (2/25/07) “Telling the Story”

Deuteronomy 26.1-11

Perhaps it is my long-standing interest in genealogy that draws me to the first lesson this morning, where Moses says “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor.” Or perhaps it is my general love of history. Whatever it may be, as I read the texts for this week, it was this piece of a speech by Moses that grabbed me. It comes from Deuteronomy 26, and it consists of words spoken by Moses to the people of Israel as they were about to go into the promised land. In some ways it is a peculiar text, for it is consists of a liturgy Moses tells the people to perform when they bring their thank offerings to the priest. But what captivates my attention is that this liturgy consists primarily of recounting the story of Israel and God’s dealings with her. Israel’s prayer, as they bring these fruits to offer to God, is just “telling the story.”

Now I know that the word “history” clicks the off switch in many minds, but really history is all about “telling the story.” And that is a vital part of the Christian faith. There are many religions in the world, particularly in the East, that are completely ahistorical. To them, history doesn’t matter. But for the Judaeo-Christian tradition, and for people of faith from Moses and the Israelites to us today, “telling the story” is a vital part of what it means to know and to love God.

Why is it so important? I want to talk about this under three headings. The first is this: “Telling the story” is important for us because we are connected to the past. The past is our roots, and like any plant, if we are cut off from our roots we cannot flourish.

For the people of Israel, there was a strong sense that “the story” gave them direction and purpose. They remembered their roots precisely because it was in that story that they learned how to live today. Perhaps that isn’t always obvious to us, but let me give you an example. Here in this passage from Deuteronomy, “telling the story” means remembering that they were aliens in Egypt, and that they were treated harshly and afflicted. Remembering that was important, because it had present day implications. The Jews, perhaps more than any other people in history, were known for being hospitable to strangers. A stranger was to be taken in and given food and lodging, treated kindly—and why? “Because the Egyptians treated us harshly.” Their history, their story, instructed them about how to live! “We were treated harshly as strangers,” it said, “so we know how important it is to treat strangers kindly!”

Another example. Moses’ prayer or creed begins, “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor.” He wanted his people always to remember that their ancestor, Jacob, had no land, no home. He was a wanderer who never was able to settle down, who finally died in a foreign land. That was important to remember, because now the people of Israel, Jacob’s descendants, were about to possess their own land. Would they, like so many of us, begin to take their blessings for granted? Would they forget that this land was given to them by God out of his gracious love, and start to think, as we so often do, that they somehow earned it or deserved it? Not if they remembered the story! “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor!” That isn’t just a note in a family tree, it is a story that helps the people of Israel remember how gracious God has been to them, and how completely they owe all that they have to that grace.

There’s a second reason that “telling the story” is important. It is that this story is not finished. You and I are part of it. One of the most interesting plays in the modern theater is Tom Stoppard’s “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.” Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are two minor characters from Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.” In Stoppard’s play, we watch them in the moments of their lives not depicted in Hamlet—which is most of their lives, since they are minor characters. But woven into the progress of events are these scenes from the play Hamlet itself that contain these two. As the play unfolds, they begin to realize that they are part of a larger story, perhaps a more important story than just what is happening in their own rather insignificant lives. They begin to catch the sense that something bigger is happening here. As much as they might like to live their lives anonymously, they are, in fact, part of a story that is already being told. Whether they like it or not, they are part of it.

Sometimes we read today about various groups in our country who complain that the history of America is irrelevant to them. Perhaps they are part of a group that has sometimes been ignored in telling the story of America, or perhaps they are recent immigrants who don’t see what Plymouth Rock and the Liberty Bell have to do with them. I’ve always thought such disregard for the story of America is wrongheaded. It is no doubt true that historians have often neglected groups and individuals who have played an important part of making America what it is today. But the simple fact is that someone who lives today in this nation is part of the story. And whether your ancestors came over on the Mayflower, or whether they met the Mayflower when it arrived, or whether they came over on some other boat in 1995, is beside the point. If you are an American, things like Plymouth Rock and the Liberty Bell are part of your story! You don’t have to be able to trace your literal descent from the Mayflower passengers for that to be so. We who are Californians, we claim the missions as part of our story—even if our surnames are not Spanish, and our ancestors were neither Conquistadores nor Native Americans. We’ve been incorporated into this larger story, and it is—or it should be—a part of who we are, and how we understand ourselves.

When we were baptized into Christ Jesus, we were incorporated into a larger story. We may think that we are just ordinary people whose lives don’t count for much, but we need to remember that in fact we do not live only to ourselves. We have a past, we have a future, a purpose. We are part of God’s people—that story is our story. Whether it is the Biblical tales, or the great saints of the Christian church, or the ordinary men and women who struggled in frontier America so that churches could be built and the gospel could be preached--all of it is part of our story, yours and mine. If we don’t learn the story, we cannot understand who we are.

Then there is a third thing to say about “telling the story.” It is that you and I are shaped by this story. So much of what we do as Christian people revolves around it. What is it that happens when we worship? We read the Scriptures—the story of God and his people and their dealings with one another. We recite the creed, saying, as Luther explains, that God created me and all that exists. That creed is our story! We sing hymns, wonderful hymns that come from many centuries and many nations, but all written by people of faith who have gone before us or who travel with us now, and all, in their diverse ways, telling the story. We come to the altar to receive the Lord’s Body and Blood, but not before telling the story yet once again, how “on the night in which he was betrayed our Lord Jesus Christ took bread.” That’s our story. In a sense, we were there in that upper room. And so that we don’t forget it, we tell the story.

Have you ever done that in your own family? Have you ever found yourself saying to your parents or your grandparents or other older family members, “Tell me the story again about when grandpa . . .” “Tell me again about the time that we. . .” We are eager to hear those stories—often more eager after the people who can really tell them are dead and gone! But we want to know them because they are part of who we are. They shape us. And that’s how it is with this Christian story, this story of God’s people. “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor”—and your ancestor. The Lord brought us out of Egypt. It’s our story. It shapes us.

We are taking once again this Lenten journey. Each Sunday morning, we will be hearing stories, wonderful stories about God’s people, about us! This Lent, you see, is not just a time to give up candy, but much more importantly a time to remember the story—the old, old story of Jesus and his love. It’s our story.