Challenged by Facts of Worldviews in Stories

Close in reaching age seventy one I find myself challenged, more than ever, by recognizing and accepting the fact that the world belief-systems and worldviews are a complicated playground of stories, storytellers, and allegiances. I assume this is the reason, after reviewing the story line, I ordered and watched the film: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, on Netflex.  Bettyann shut down after the first five minutes, therefore I am not about to recommend it to anyone.  On the other hand, the film certainly attests to a complicated dance. At one point, Dr. Parnassus tells his relentless foe with religious assurance, "You can't stop stories being told." What makes the interplay of story most complicated is perhaps what is often my inability to perceive these interacting powers in the first place.  That which permeates my surroundings, subconsciously molds my understanding, and continuously informs my vision of reality, and not always easy to articulate. The partial living in two distinct cultures; the one on Southwest Florida and the other in Western North Carolina, has caused me to understand though; that the dominate culture shapes my world in ways I seldom even realize, and often cannot realize, until something outside of my present culture comes along and intrudes. Suddenly, the scales fall from my eyes. 

Further complicating the great arena of narratives is the fact that I often do not even recognize certain systems for the metanarratives that they are, or else I grossly underestimate the story's power.  Whatever versions of the story I utilize to understand human history—atheism, capitalism, pluralism, consumerism—their roots are running very deep in my soul.  This is why Kenneth Carder, over a decade ago, in his book, Market and Mission: Competing Visions for Transforming Ministry, referred to the global market economy as a "dominant god," or consumerism, economism, and nationalism as religions. These deeply rooted ideologies are challenged only when a different ideology comes knocking, when a different faith-system comes along and upsets the system that powerfully orders anyone of my dominate culture.  

I’m thinking this morning as I am reading my Bible, that this is perhaps one reason that scripture calls again and again to remember the story, to tell of the acts of God in history, and to bear in mind the one who is near.  For into this world of belief-systems and worldviews, God tells the story of creation and the pursuit of its redemption, and then Christ comes and proclaims a kingdom entirely other. The narrative I am discovering introduces me not only to a new world but a world that jarringly shows me my own. 

 

The signs and scenes of leading to the crucifixion alone challenge many a person’s cultural norms, turning upside down ideas of authority, power, and glory, presenting a kingdom that reverses everything known.  What kind of a king crouches down to his subjects to wash their feet?  What kind of a leader tells those under him that the way to the top requires a dedication to the bottom?  What kind of meal promises to lift me to another kingdom where I am ushered into the presence of the host and then asked to taste him?  Yet this is the story He told and Christians tell.  "And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, 'This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me'" (Luke 22:19).  Not long after their meal, his physical body was broken, too.

My story as a Christian is one that remembers the last moments of a rabbi and his disciples—a meal shared, a lamb revealed, feet washed by one who claimed to be both king and servant.  It is a story that invites anyone who will listen to me into a kingdom entirely different than the many stories before them, connecting them with a God who somehow reigns within a realm that is both here and now, and also approaching. I believe that the Lord's Supper, I am literally "taking in" this kingdom, which unites each follower with Christ in such a way that helps us live as he lived: "in" but not "of" the world of stories.

It’s my belief that when Paul was calling early followers of Christ not to be conformed to this world but to be transformed by the renewing of their minds so that they might discern what is the will of God—"what is good and acceptable and perfect," he was reminding them, and me, today, that there are overlapping and contradicting stories all around, but that it is the story of God that must be the orienting narrative Romans 12:2.  In other words, I, as a follower of Christ, am not left the option of living unaware of all the subconscious ways in which I am formed by the world of stories.  So, for me, living into the kingdom of God means recognizing the power of God's story beside every competing narrative—not necessarily shutting each one out, but interpreting every other story through the Story. Let me say here, this has not become any easier over all these years. But I do find that living further into the story of God’s reign, shows the culture, whether Florida or North Carolina, the subversive power of a narrative that moves far beyond the systems of “cosmopolitism,” “ruralism,”  "postmodernism," "consumerism," or "nationalism."

The way I see it; whether Christian, Muslim, Hindu, or atheist, there is not a person who can avoid being in the world.  They, nor I, can escape the world's formative stories; nor should I want to escape the particular place where I have been planted when I read the prayer of Jesus recorded on St. John 17:15: "My prayer is not that you take them out of the world, but I ask that you protect them from the evil one."  On the other hand, I do not want it to become so much my home that I cannot see all the dust on the windows or feel the draft of a roofless shelter.   

Heavenly Father, the more I find myself living into a different kingdom, a world breathed by You The Father, proclaimed by Christ, and revealed by the Spirit, the unchallenged, unseen storylines of the world come sharply into focus.  And the more I taste and see of the kingdom of God, the more I taste and see of the kingdom of earth as well. These last few days have been kind of like Paul’s in Acts 9. One of those times when something like scales fall from my eyes and the Spirit compels me to get up and re-experience my baptism, going further into the kingdom, where my voice regains strength in telling the unstoppable story.