Dear Brothers and Sisters,
This morning, I read an intriguing quote from scholar and anthropologist Michael Jackson, author of The Politics of Storytelling:
Storytelling is a vital human strategy for sustaining a sense of agency in the face of disempowering circumstances. To reconstitute events in a story is no longer to live those events in passivity, but to actively rework them, both in dialogue with others and within one’s own imagination.
This was in a blog about folklore, but it started me thinking about Bible stories and about a traditional ancient practice for reading Scripture.
Imagine you are in trouble, and you’re just not sure how to get out of it. As you worry and ponder, the story of the woman who has had a hemorrhage for many years, who spent all her money on medical bills and still was no better, comes to mind. In her despair, she reaches out and grabs Jesus’ clothing as he passes by and is suddenly healed. What if you put yourself into the picture? It’s YOU who are at your wit’s end and in desperation you fall down before Jesus, knowing with absolute faith that if you can only put your hand on his sandal, things will turn around. What happens?
Maybe your medical bills aren’t paid off immediately. Maybe, even, the illness isn’t healed. But with the Holy One’s presence and concerned love filling you, you have the strength and hope to continue on and to go the next mile. You are NOT weak. You are NOT powerless. Because you have the Savior strengthening you.
The most powerful of the Bible stories have that power simply because they show us how WE can have power because God is with us.
Try it out. Are you the Good Samaritan? Or are you the person in desperate need of the Samaritan, having been abused and left for dead, by the world?
Are you the one who is trapped inside the walled city of Jericho, perhaps seeing Joshua and his army tearing down the walls to set you free?
Putting yourself into the Bible story is an ancient way of encountering Scripture and now modern scholarship shows us that it can help us in ordinary ways as well as spiritually.
Blessings,
Mo. Laura
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COMING UP!
- Sunday, April 13, 9:00 Palm Sunday (in person and live-streamed)
- Wednesday, April 16, 12:00 Holy Wednesday service (zoom*)
- Thursday, April 17, 7:00 Maundy Thursday service (in person and live-streamed)
- Friday, April 18, 12:00 Good Friday Stations of the Cross (zoom*) – 7:00 Good Friday service (in person and live-streamed)
- Saturday, April 19, 10:00 Holy Saturday service (zoom*)
- Sunday, April 20, 9:00 Easter Day service!!!! (in person and live-streamed)
- May 3: 10:00 Training for LEMs/LEVs at St. Margaret’s