There was a very interesting talk on Radio 4 last week as
part of their ‘Four Thought’ series.
Philippa Perry, a psychotherapist and columnist, was talking about the
importance of story telling. The stories
that we tell and hear shape our minds. And
what is more the more we hear certain sorts of story the more we come to
interpret the world through that narrative.
The flip side of this is if we don’t hear certain types of story we
become unable to hear them. So, at an
extreme level, someone who has only heard and experienced stories that don’t
have positive endings or ways of behaving won’t be able to hear stories that
do. They won’t have the neural pathways
to assimilate them. This affects how we
approach life, how we hear what others are saying and how we make sense of the
world around us. It also affects how
others hear what we are saying.
There are lots of stories around. We hear them through the news and sometimes
at home we play ‘death and destruction bingo’ to see how many of the headlines
are gloom and doom laden. We read stories
in newspapers and some newspapers are really bad for your mental health because
of how they tell the stories with excessive negativity, paranoia that everyone
is out to get us and attitudes that don’t lead to wholesome living. We hear stories from our politicians as they
create narratives of strivers and skivers, deserving and undeserving, false
dichotomies between employers and employees – actually their interests are aligned
and without that both suffer. At the
cinema the other week we were subjected to a tidal wave of apocalyptic film
trailers before watching the film ‘Noah’, which was pretty apocalyptic itself,
especially the way it was told. The
point of the story of Noah is that it doesn’t work; the rainbow is the key. God
decides that a different tack is needed and so patriarchs and prophets come on the
scene to remind them of their covenant relationship, the way they are to live. These are presented through stories to help
us see and understand the point.
What kind of stories do you hear and where do they come from? What is the story that you tell
yourself? We all have such a story or narrative
and at its most simplistic are we a glass half-empty or a glass half-full
person? Is life filled with purpose and
hope or pointless and ultimately despairing?
How is your sense of awe and wonder focused and shaped? How does the story of faith affect what you
see and how you see it? Philippa Perry
outlined how stories are presented, the key elements: there is the content, the
scene setting of names and places; and then there is the structure, how it
goes, the roles that are taken, what usually happens. It is understanding the structure, how it
goes, that tells us what kind of story we are hearing, what kind of story is
being told, how our outlook is being shaped, reinforced or challenged.
Worship, coming to church, is extremely important in shaping
the story that we tell ourselves and therefore the one that we live. Worship is rooted in praise and thanksgiving
because God is to be praised and being thankful makes us generous in response
to the generosity of God. It is a faith
that is open and realizes that common purpose is better than selfishness and
standing alone. In this season of
Easter, we fill our worship with ‘alleluias’.
Last Saturday I went to St Paul’s Cathedral for the National service celebrating
the 20th anniversary of women being ordained as priests alongside
men. The response, the acclamation ‘He
is risen indeed, Alleluia’, the ‘alleluia’ at the end, resounded round the dome
and hung in the air as if to reinforce its importance. And so it should, because we are a people who
tell the story of alleluia, we sing the praise of God and are thankful.
Our first reading (Acts 2:42-47) gave
some subtle clues to the type of story that we tell, to ourselves and through
the way we live tell to others too.
Those who were baptized devoted themselves to the apostles
teaching. They wanted to learn and grow
in faith. They took scripture seriously,
they took who they were seriously and needed to be rooted and grounded in the
story of salvation through Jesus Christ. They came together regularly for
fellowship, to break bread (which is a reference to sharing Communion). And they prayed. They held things in common, looking not to
their own interests only but the common good.
With an election looming, this ‘goods held in common’ asks what we think
profit is for? The old lines of left
verses right, which have their origins in parties for workers and parties for
bosses produce a false split. When
someone is paid this week $40m in shares as an incentive to join the global
computer company Apple, you have to ask just how much money is needed to incentivize. How can anyone spend that; it is on a scale
that is beyond incentive. It shows that
these large pay packets are actually not really needed because with a fortune
of that size she doesn’t need to work again, so that she does means money is
clearly not the main driver. A former
investment bank CEO wrote in the Financial Times last week that the idea that
top executives need this money otherwise they will go elsewhere is nonsense
because they won’t. And if they do, none
of them are that special that they can’t be replaced. What is the story we tell about the use of
money? And today is the beginning of
Christian Aid week which brings other stories into focus.
The common approach was taken further in distributing aid
and helping the needy. Above all they
ate their food with gladness and generous hearts. I didn’t realize until this week that New
Zealand lamb is slaughtered according to Halal practice because most of it is
exported to Muslim customers. We tend to
eat British lamb, because we like to support British farmers and apply the
principle of sourcing locally as far as we can.
But the Halal slaughter, with stunning, means that a lot of lamb eaten has
been slaughtered with a prayer of thanksgiving, albeit to Allah, and a spirit
of generosity. While I would prefer my
food to be blessed with thanksgiving to God through Christ, and there is a
narrative behind Halal which is different, it does have a common ground of
acknowledging God. And there is only one
God. Allah is the Arabic name for God and God is God. That said its use comes with a story, a narrative
which rejects Christ and so is not one I would choose to buy into which is
where St Paul’s comments (1 Corinthians 8) become relevant
about abstaining from food dedicated through another religious tradition so as
not to cause confusion and to be clear. The
words used are “In the name of God, God is the Greatest”. There is nothing inherently offensive there
for people of faith. And what is really
more offensive, the prayer said at slaughter or the intensive and cruel
conditions much livestock endure before?
Halal will not harm us but it carries a different narrative, one which I
don’t wish to proclaim, in fact which denies Christ because it sees him as a
superseded prophet, which is a stance we clearly don’t agree with.
So stories are all around us and we are constantly
encountering them. They shape us and
challenge us. As with the first
disciples we are reminded this morning to refresh and school ourselves in the
story of our faith: salvation through Jesus Christ, the importance of prayer
and sacrament, the common good and being thankful. The story we tell is a major part of our
mission. It is the good news we proclaim
and through telling it is a major way we seek to be agents of God’s
transforming presence in the world. It
may be that we have to keep telling, because it is a story that is difficult
for others to hear, but tell it we must.
Sermon preached at Peterborough Parish Church, Sunday 11th May 2014
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