May 31, 2007

Our Stories

I was listening carefully last Sunday morning as Jan Davis offered her Memorial Day prayer. It was a reminder to me about how powerful the stories are that every person brings to worship, and how often we are totally unaware of those stories. At one point she said, “God, we give you thanks for our brothers and sisters who have given their lives in defense of our freedom” and then she went on with the rest of the prayer. Most people hearing her did not know that, in fact, her own brother had paid the ultimate price for freedom. A West Point graduate, he died in an Army helicopter crash 30 years ago.

Knowing the story brings a whole new meaning to the prayer, doesn’t it? It is no longer the perfunctory “Memorial Day prayer,” but a very powerful statement from a person whose faith has been tested and strengthened by personal experience. The story behind the prayer is as important as the prayer itself.

The older I grow the more aware I am of the fact that each person who comes to worship has a story. Most of the time it is a story that is very powerful, and very personal, and it is that story that interacts with the sermon or the music or the liturgy or the sacrament. I oftentimes see it happening. There will be a certain line in a hymn and I will see someone dabbing the tears from their eyes. Or there will be a point in the sermon and I will see a couple looking at each other in a way that conveys special knowledge and understanding about their own journey. Sometimes I can just see it in a person’s eyes and I know that they are thinking of some powerful thing that happened to them ten or twenty years ago.

When you study the Bible, what you are really doing is reading stories. Stories of remarkably fallible human beings whose lives were anything but perfect. Nothing is held back, and some of the stories border on actually giving us more information than we want. But that is precisely what is so powerful about the Gospel as I understand it. Ultimately, it is the story of a God who knows our stories fully, and who loves us anyway. It is the story of Grace searching for us, the Loving Parent waiting for the prodigal child, Love overcoming everything else.

Having faith means that you can give your story to God and trust that it will be held gently in the hands of One who understands and cares and loves you completely. What better gift than that?