Why We MUST Tell the Story
If I say, “I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,”
then within me there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones;
I am weary of holding it in, and I cannot.
(Jeremiah 20:9)
A sermon by Siegfried S. Johnson on the 10th Sunday after Pentecost, August 17, 2014
(Volume 4 Number 6)
St. James United Methodist Church, 321 Pleasant Valley Drive, Little Rock, AR 72212
In many ways this message (Why We MUST Tell the Story) continues a theme I explored with
you last Sunday when we focused on the word, Tell, tracing the history of Sunday School from
Gloucester, England, its nearly 250 year tradition of Telling the Story. My title, More
Wonderfully Sweet (Each Time I Tell It), was based on Katherine Hankey’s beloved hymn, I
Love to Tell the Story.
And is it not More Wonderfully Sweet, this that we have done today, passing to our 3rd graders
the most sublime Telling of our stories, for in this bible are the stories that have shaped our faith,
stories that define us. Third Grade Bible Sunday is a delightful, colorful, youthful and hopeful
enactment of a trait which is characteristic of our humanness -- that we MUST Tell the Story.
Putting the bible into the hands of our third graders (as Rev. Ed Harris placed this bible in my
hands 51 years ago), is to share our story, and to invite them into the story. Actually, we all
know that in the bible are many stories. It’s an old Hasidic saying, God created humankind
because he loves stories. No wonder, then, that stories that still captivate begin to emerge from
Eden. It’s Adam and Eve in innocence, enjoying paradise, walking with their Creator. Then,
paradise lost. We read of Cain and Abel, the first set of brothers whose differences grew into the
first story of human violence: “The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the
ground” God said to rebuke Cain. Is it not a story even yet all too real within the human family?
It’s a story of sin, of such debauchery that God destroyed human life with the flood, except for
Noah, whose ark brought him safely through, finding salvation in the midst of divine
repudiation, even divine sorrow, the rainbow God’s promise never again to destroy by a flood.
This story is one of sovereign chosenness, Abram called from Ur in Babylon, leaving all behind
to travel in faith to a land God promises to show him. Father Abraham is but the first of the
patriarchs, and love stories abound – Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Rachel.
Yet, also Jacob and his brother Esau, where not much love was, a story, once again, pitting
brother against brother. Jacob’s beloved son, Joseph is sold into slavery by his brothers, but rises
in Egypt, a favorite of Pharaoh. But after Joseph’s death a new Pharaoh arises who knew not
Joseph, oppressing the growing Hebrews so that they become slaves yearning to be free.
It’s a story of Moses and Aaron, leaders of the Exodus, of Passover night when the firstborn of
Egypt are taken. God brings the Hebrews through the Sea and into the Sinai peninsula to the
Mountain of God. God’s finger inscribes stone tablets with the Decalogue and the Hebrews
pledge their allegiance to the covenant when Moses comes down from the Sinai.
It’s a story of wandering in the wilderness, forty years, until God at last leads them across the
Jordan into the Promised Land under Joshua. It’s a story of the prophet Samuel resisting the
people’s desire for a king to unite the tribes, yet still anointing and then rejecting Israel’s first
king, Saul, only to anoint another, David of Bethlehem, whose son, Solomon, builds the temple
in Jerusalem.
It’s a story not only of kings, but of prophets and priests. Levitical priests make atonement in the
shedding of sacrificial blood. Prophets, ambassadors speaking in the name of Yahweh, call the
people to morality and justice, envisioning a day when weapons of war will be beaten into
plowshares.
But not yet, for it’s the story of a temple destroyed in 586 B. C. by the rampaging Babylonians
under Nebuchadnezzar, Judah in exile, but returning in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah to build a
second temple. Four hundred years later this temple would become known as Herod’s temple
because of his massive public works projects, a piece of Herod’s retaining wall yet standing, and
known as the Western Wall. But when it was sparkling new, a child was born in Bethlehem, a
descendant of David, and we believe he is the sent Messiah, combining the offices of prophet
and priest and king. As a prophet he taught and called all to morality and justice and to love our
neighbor. As a priest he offered a pure and innocent sacrifice as the Lamb of God. And as King,
the Lamb that was slain is raised to life and ascended to heaven to sit at the right hand of God,
King of kings and Lord of lords. This King receives praise of all creation, “Worthy is the Lamb
that was slain to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might, and honor and glory and
blessing.” It’s a story of a New Jerusalem coming down from heaven, the bride of Christ
rejoicing at the Marriage Feast of the Lamb.
All these stories (and I’ve just taken you from Genesis to Revelation) and many more we have
just placed in the hands of our children. Many are the stories which define us, but the overall
theme of the divine/human relationship is clear throughout, as Paul sums up the story in our
reading from 2 Corinthians 5, that the old is made new in Christ, for in Christ God has reconciled
us to himself. Reconciliation. Beautiful word! Paul seemed not able to write it enough, five
times in these few verses we read. To make friendly again. It’s a story worth telling. It’s a story
that we, as Christians, are sent, as Ambassadors, to Tell.
I told you last Sunday that, as we were leaving Dublin last month, on the way to the airport early
Saturday morning, I took the microphone on the bus one last time to thank them for coming on
the Wesley Heritage Tour, and to ask for their help in developing sermon ideas. I told them I
was pondering using some of the unique phrases we had heard on our journey. Last Sunday I
incorporated into my sermon the phrase, Mind the Gap.
Today, I want to tell you about another phrase to which we were introduced , To Chance Your
Arm. In Dublin we visited St. Patrick’s Cathedral, a 12th century church, and saw this display, an
15th century door of the church known as the Door of Reconciliation. It’s quite a Story, and I’d
like to share it with you this morning.
The door, as you can see, has a rectangular hole crudely cut out of the middle. The story is told
how in 1492, two prominent Irish families, the Butlers of Ormonde and the FitzGeralds of
Kildare, were in the midst of a bitter feud. The feud began
simple enough, but the tensions grew and the feud became
violent. The two tribes built up armed militias and the bloody
conflict escalated with each skirmish in a cycle of violence.
At last, the Earl of Ormonde was over-powered, his family and
militia taking refuge in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, awaiting their
doom. With his sworn enemy trapped, the Earl of Kildare
began to reflect, “If we had been overpowered, we would be
taking refuge in the same church. We are two families
worshiping the same God, living in the same country, trying to
kill each other.” His heart was inexplicably moved toward
peace and reconciliation, so he called to the Earl of Ormonde to
leave his refuge that they might be reconciled. The Earl of
Ormonde, of course, was convinced that this was a trap to get
them outside of the door for easy slaughter. So the Earl of
Kildare took a spear; chopped the rectangular hole in the door
and stuck his hand through the door, giving birth to the phrase,
To Chance Your Arm, because it was a risk, exposing himself to danger. But the gesture of
reconciliation was met with the hand of the other, and the feud was over.
In the bible’s stories I recounted for you, were many conflicts between brothers, families. The
human family is so grossly fractured. What will be the pathway to reconciliation? It seems so
hopeless. The voice of innocent blood calling to God from the soil of the earth is today’s news,
as radical Islamists are slaughtering innocents of minority faiths in a quest to establish a
caliphate. Who will Chance Their Arm? When radicals are determined to exterminate those they
view as infidels, this pathway of peace seems not likely to end well. Indeed, the prophet’s vision
of swords beat into plowshares seems, evenyet, too distant to contemplate.
Let me tell you the story of one who Chanced his Arm, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. This
story is also about the one on the other side of that door, Israel’s Prime Minister, Menachem
Begin. Yesterday, August 16th, would have been Begin’s 101st birthday, and I happened, on his
birthday, to finish a new biography of this amazing Jewish leader. In his younger days, in the
late 1940’s just after World War 2 and the Holocaust, the British named Begin the No. 1 terrorist
for his resistance to British occupation of the Holy land during the British Mandate, due to his
part in the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. The British Mandate would end in
1948 and, eventually, Begin would become Prime Minister and even win, in 1978, alongside his
partner for peace, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, the Nobel Peace Prize.
How could that be, these two enemies who had warred with each other so violently? The Six
Day War in 1967 when Israel captured the Sinai Peninsula, and when Sadat launched another
War on Yom Kippur (October 6th) 1973, sending his troops crossed the Suez Canal, attempting,
but failing, to regain the Sinai? How did such reconciliation of enemies come about?
Anwar Sadat, at great risk, reached through that Door of Reconciliation. On November 9, 1977
Sadat startled the world by announcing his intention to go to Jerusalem and speak before the
Knesset. The Israeli government cordially invited him to come to Israel and, ten days later, on
November 19, Sadat arrived for a groundbreaking visit, launching the first peace process
between Israel and an Arab state.
It was an opening through a solid, seemingly impenetrable door. The next year President Carter
gathered Sadat and Begin at Camp David, culminating in the Camp David Accords, signed by
both Sadat and Begin on September 17, 1978, Israel giving the Sinai peninsula back to Egypt.
For this, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to both, but it was Sadat’s Chancing of the Arm that
initiated this reconciliation, an act that would, in fact, cost Sadat his life. He was assassinated on
October 6, 1981 as he viewed a military parade celebrating his launching of the Yom Kippur
War. The assassination was carried out by radical Islamists who could not imagine peace with
Israel, the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, ancestor of the Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda and of the new
acronym we’ve all just this summer added to our vocabulary, ISIS. I recall the day of Sadat’s
assassination very well. I had just begun seminary in Memphis and all students were called to
the chapel for the announcement of Sadat’s assassination, learning that 11 had been killed and 27
injured. I’ve since had the opportunity to visit the site of the assassination and the memorial.
William James once wrote, “Many men think they are thinking, when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.” Indeed, that is our nature. But what Sadat and Begin did was more
than that. Something new was actually taking shape, and it really changed things, bringing a
peace that still holds, however delicately at times, in a difficult part of the world beset by
radicalism. These leaders would have been more popular at home, with their people, not to reach
out in peace, NOT to Chance their Arm by reaching through that door, but there was a fire shut
up in their bones and that, I think, is a story that MUST be told.
The prophet Jeremiah knew this fire in the bones, a story that MUST be told, even at great risk.
His unpopular message to the king of Judah, that God was giving Judah into the hands of the
Babylonians, was not received well. Jeremiah was cast into the pit. It would have been easy for
Jeremiah to recant, cease from Telling the story. But he couldn’t. Even in the dark, cold, stone
pit, the story was like a burning fire shut up in his bones that MUST be told.
Let me tell you the story of another who, in a pit, had a story he MUST tell. This past Tuesday,
August 12, marked the 14th anniversary of the day in 2000 when the Russian nuclear submarine
Kursk sank after an accidental onboard explosion in the icy waters of the Barents Sea, taking a
crew of 118 men to their watery graves. The powerless sub became a great iron pit, dark and
cold. All communications with the world above were severed. When divers at last recovered the
Kursk, one of the discoveries was a note scribbled by Lt. Captain Dimitri Kolesnikov, a dying
message to his wife. He told the harrowing story that 23 of the 118 crewmen had survived the
initial explosion, huddling together awaiting certain and agonizingly slow death. “I am writing
blindly,” he wrote, then told the story, even though he knew rescue was impossible.
Here’s the question: what caused Kolesnikov to write, not knowing if his message would ever
be found? What passion possessed him to tell the story? Roger Rosenblatt, in a TIME magazine
essay published shortly after the tragedy that I found insightful and have kept in my August files,
lo, these many years, said, “In the first place, and in the last place, that is what we humans do.
We write messages to each other. We are a narrative species.”
“What Kolesnikov did in deciding to describe his entrapment, others have also done . . . When a
JAL airliner went down in 1985, passengers used the long minutes of its terrible, spiraling
descent to write to loved ones. When the last (Jewish) occupants of the Warsaw Ghetto had
finally seen their families and companions die of disease or starvation, or be carried off in trucks
to extermination camps, and there could be no doubt of their own fate, still they took scraps of
paper on which they wrote poems, thoughts, fragments of lives, rolled them into tight scrolls and
slipped them into the crevices of the ghetto walls.”
“Why did they bother?” Rosenblatt asks. “With no countervailing news from the outside world,
they assumed the Nazis had inherited the earth; that if anyone discovered their writings, it would
be their killers, who would snicker and toss them away. They wrote because, like Kolesnikov,
they had to. The impulse was in them, like a biological fact.”
Yes, that’s it. “The impulse was in them, like a biological fact. It’s what Jeremiah said, “Within
me there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I am weary with holding it in, and
I cannot.”
It’s one of the most fundamental of human traits, a characteristic distinguishing us from all other
creatures, that we pass notes to one another! Lover to lover, parent to child, churches to 3rd
graders. Notes R Us! Hallmark has made a booming business of the fact that we pass notes to
one another.
A fundamental characteristic of our being human is to Tell the stories that shape us and define us.
We must Tell the story. Rosenblatt was right. We are a narrative species, created so in God’s
image. God, too, is all about narrative. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with
God, and the Word was God . . . and the Word was made Flesh.” Yes, and being made flesh, was
God not Chancing his Arm for reconciliation?
One last word from Rosenblatt’s excellent essay. Speaking of the passion to write he comments,
“I sometimes think one writes to find God in every sentence. But God (the ironist) always lives
in the next sentence.” I love that. Writers know what he is talking about. I sometimes think I
write to find God in every sermon. But God always lives in the next sermon! Of course, and
that is why we MUST continue to tell the story. There’s always another layer to be added, just
as there is always another 3rd grade class to receive the Story.
So here’s the question I’ve been pondering – uniquely framed for a pastor – If I Must Tell the
Story, WHAT Story Must I Tell? What Story is so vital that it’s like a fire shut up in our bones?
It’s a theme I’ve lived with pretty much every day for 40 years. Every sermon. Every funeral.
Every wedding homily. Every class. Every devotional. The question, “What MUST I Say?”
becomes a part of our DNA. All pastors have felt led to certain texts and themes, experiencing a
tug of head and heart, a pull in which we sense a divine element. That tug, in fact, is sometimes
more of a yank. And what pastor has never felt a tinge (or a mountain) of Jonah-like guilt in
NOT saying what they felt led to say, what they felt that God was calling them to say?
To ask the question “What Story MUST I tell?” is, in essence, a quest for relevance. In other
words, What Can I Say that will really make a difference in lives?
Shall I tell stories from history and archaeology? Yes, for stones speak, they have their own
stories to share, and from their voice we can learn many lessons. When Joshua crossed the
Jordan he had the 12 tribes place a monument of 12 stones with the words, “When in the future
your children ask, ‘What do these stones mean?’ you can tell them . . .” Yes, stones speak.
Shall I offer literature and art? Yes, there is much enlightenment in the arts that can thrill the
soul and rapture us into a new dimension of experiencing God.
What about theology and doctrine? Of course, for these basics provide the infrastructure of our
faith. Ors, shall I emphasize the “Means of Grace” leading to spiritual growth? Yes!
How much, especially as a large church pastor, should the story I Tell focus on vision for church
growth, on missional strategy, and the faithful and generous giving of members that makes our
vision a reality. That’s certainly a not-to-be neglected area, and oftentimes a challenge for
pastors.
Or are there stories I MUST Tell, stories that really, really burn to be told, even at great risk,
even if Chancing my Arm? Speaking up on political and social issues of the day can incur great
risk. Consider Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Germany, whose resistance to the Nazis led to his hanging
on April 9, 1945, only two weeks before Allied forces liberated the camp where he was
incarcerated. Consider Martin Luther King and those ministers who advocated for justice during
the days of the Civil Rights movement in America.
The political and social divide in our day is no less pronounced. To speak to such issues as the
current situation in Gaza with Israel responding to Hamas rockets, or to speak at home on issues
such as same gender marriage or homosexual ordination, can feel like Chancing your Arm.
Which is why we may breathe the prayer, “Lord, give us clarity in discerning the message you
send us to Tell and, once we have such confidence, give us a burning not to allow your message
to be Untold.”
Sources:
“I Am Writing Blindly,” an essay by Roger Rosenblatt in TIME, November 6, 2000.