Appealing and Complicating Stories

The Gospel of Matthew, chapter 22, verse 1: "Once again Jesus used stories to teach the people."  This Gospel goes from one story to the next, flooding the readers mind with images and ideas that simply overwhelm the imagination. Perhaps that is why the Bible is both a popular and a neglected Christian resource. The stories are appealing but they complicate life by raising issues that challenge individuals and societies.

Jesus tells the story and leaves the content up to the coming generations to interpret as they will. Some of us want clear answers and right now. It takes time and patience to winnow through the labyrinth of feelings and ideas that are opened up by the stories.

At http://walksintheday.blogspot.com I tell a story that simply describes an event on a Minnesota winter day earlier in January, 2011. The story is there for the observer to interpret. I want to learn how to simply describe an event and give over to the reader the opportunity to find meaning in the event.

Experience teaches that the telling of stories gathers up the live of the listener and raises up in each person's mind that which only they know. The really interesting stories are those that rearrange the minds of the listeners and elicits their own story making talent. Jesus was good enough at this kind of story telling to keep billions of people interested over centuries. 

Christ infiltrates the marketplace

"They will be infiltrators of Christ into the marketplace" says Kathryn Doherty in describing a unique understanding of the Christian life in a particular community of believers.

Rather than limiting worship and discipleship to the gathered church, Doherty sets out the vision of Christian believers being the real presence of Christ wherever they work, live, play and pray.

The marketplace is of particular interest because of the assumption that the very nature of a non religious world is the marketplace where buying and selling are the sum total of experience. The religious life is a distraction from the business at hand. In the moment of a transaction when money changes hand many people feel truly alive. The rush of authenticity surges when that magic moment happens. "I purchase therefore I am." "I sell therefore I am."

This market scene of human interchange can be infiltrated by Christ. The believer is more than the agent of Christ. The real presence of Christ is in the midst of the marketplace when the believer is truly and willingly in the marketplace.

This is not so much a social change project as it is an exploration trip by the believer who need not be concerned about what to say or do. The momentary experience in the marketplace appears mundane and unremarkable. Believers who strike out on this infiltration task will find more than they expect.