Story Telling [part one] ...

Movies truly “move” the world.  The art of storytelling accentuated with visual effects, soaring musical scores, dramatic portrayals, and carefully scripted story lines combine into a 2-hour presentation that absorbs the senses and instructs the mind.  An entire industry exists to edit, package, and market a film.  Some films intended to entertain, others to offer the quick stimulus of fear, still others to make us feel kinship and empathy with a character who suffers injustice, or triumphs in spite of the odds.  But at the end of the day, a movie is nothing more than taking the art of storytelling to its highest level.  And this art did not originate with the birth of the camera, it has been a part of our culture from Adam to now.  The children of Adam never experienced the Tree of Life for themselves.  By the time they enter the story of our world, Adam and Eve had been forced to leave the Garden of Eden and build a home outside of it.  An angel stood there guarding the entrance to Eden with a flaming sword.  And despite the level of evil that would grow to cause the destruction of the world by flood … no human or dinosaur would ever challenge that angel for access .., and live.

So for Cain, Able and Seth to know what the garden was like, Adam and Eve would have to tell them about it from memory, and thus the art of the story was born.  It would be an oral tradition handed down all the way to Noah.  The grandchildren of Noah had never seen the angel who stood guard at the entrance to the Garden of Eden before the flood.  They never knew the world before it had been destroyed by water, and then abated to start over.  They never saw the creatures born of the evil of the minds of men, nor witnessed the abomination of altering DNA into things that should have never existed.  We discover the bones and the evidence of such atrocities now, but God chose not to preserve them in the great flood, to end those things that should have not existed but for the wickedness of men.  So to understand how evil, evil can be, the grandchildren of Noah would have to be told the stories of life before the flood.

Without the written parchment to record the recounting of witnesses who would pass on, stories tend to decay and pass away.  Even now, films of antiquity must be preserved with great care, or they too would disappear from our ability to enjoy them.  Oral traditions tend to have a much shorter shelf life.  When Moses would appear on the scene, the Law of God would be written in stone.  This would erase a complete dependence on oral tradition, and introduce something of permanence in the recounting of God’s saving love.  Stone does not decay.  The redemption of Israel from the slavery of oppression would be chronicled in books that would be meticulously preserved until our day.  Moses would be given a recounting of the important parts of the Genesis story, and it is through his record we understand what we do about our creation and our beginnings.

But outside of a documentary, no one expects a movie to be a truly accurate accounting of the story it attempts to portray.  The characters in it, rarely quote their inspiration word for word, second for second, as the story may have originally occurred … or a movie would last years instead of hours.  Instead paraphrasing main ideas occurs, symbolism is employed to accentuate a point, and what might have taken years in real time to relay can be condensed into a digestible time period to sit in a theatre and enjoy the spectacle.  This needed condensation of time is not intended to destroy the point of the movie, or lessen its emotional impact, if it does the movie is discarded as “bad”.  The condensation of time must be used to effect, the symbolism well employed, in order that we remain emotionally invested in what we perceive, and that our learning is accentuated not destroyed.  Often elements of a story may have never actually happened, they are “made up” to help move the story along, or help us understand the real dilemma of the characters portrayed so that the main point remains intact.  Audiences understand this phenomenon and do not stomp out of the theatre because one of the Marvel Super-heroes strays off the story line for a minute or two.

The reason why movies exist today, why oral traditions of storytelling began with Adam and Eve, why Moses wrote down the recounting of history in his age remain the same … storytelling is effective.  While we recall a favorite book, or movie, or time at the feet of our grandparents so long ago; we can remember new elements of the story, or new interpretations of what was relayed.  In point of fact, the original story was never changed in its telling to us … what has changed is our perspective, our own experiences, and the truth we can now perceive in the same words, and same stories, we heard or experienced so long ago.  The story remains the same, but our ability to understand more of its truths is brought about by our maturing process and life experiences.  It is perhaps for this reason that Jesus chose to reveal some truth about the gospel in the form of parables, or storytelling, to those who sought to hear Him.

In our day, I have often joined in the voices who wish He would have just spoken plainly instead of through parables.  But then I must remember the Bible is full of plainly worded speech and language, and it is perhaps my own resistance to truth that keeps me from accepting those ideas.  So perhaps “I” needed Jesus to preserve the art of storytelling for “me”, in order that I too might return to the same stories and discover new truths in them, because my own experiences have changed since the last time I read them.  They are the same truths, the same main themes, the same ideas that Jesus wished for me to learn.  The stories and parables of Christ are not point for point, exactly accurate literal words; that I must mimic with precision in order to understand what Christ was attempting to communicate.  They are instead like the movies and storytelling of my own day, without all the production quality, but with a far deeper scripted story line, that offers me truth like no movie I have ever seen has been able to do.  As I begin to grasp His main themes, I begin to get a different perspective on truth, and salvation, and what it means to be made free from who we are.

Peter recounts the storytelling technique of Christ to teach truth about salvation for the first time in John Mark’s gospel in chapter 4 and verse 1.  Up to this point, only literal recollections of events that had occurred were cited by Peter through Mark.  “Plain speech” had formed the record up to this point, so chapter 4 was a departure from the style of the gospel till now.  However, there was a reason why Christ chose to teach us through stories, and Peter was keen to preserve them for us.  So he begins his recounting in verse one saying … “And he began again to teach by the sea side: and there was gathered unto him a great multitude, so that he entered into a ship, and sat in the sea; and the whole multitude was by the sea on the land. [verse 2] And he taught them many things by parables, and said unto them in his doctrine,”  The doctrines, or the truth of redemption as taught by Christ would be slowly revealed in parables.  This would allow His audience to digest them over time, and not be inundated with too much too quickly.

Imagine the alternative for a moment.  You and I know, through the study of His word, that Jesus Christ is the literal Son of God almighty.  He is God on earth at this time, in the flesh.  If the crowds had grasped this concept thoroughly and believed it with all their hearts, how could they allow the Romans or the Jews to put God to death?  They, like you and I, would have fought to the death to protect their God from human stupidity.  You and I know that it is only through the power of the redeeming love of Jesus Christ, that we can be made free, even from the desire to sin.  Had the crowds of that day embraced this idea with all their hearts, the world may have been made ready for saving right then and there.  No need to delay His coming, and again yet another fight to the death to protect the savior of our very souls and nature, from the stupidity of those steeped in evil.  These truths necessitated time to understand and adopt by those being taught (including us), in order that we build trust with our God, and do not react in haste to the truth that is revealed to us, interfering with the plans God has for our own redemption, and the redemption of others.

So the story begins by Jesus in verse 3 saying … “Hearken; Behold, there went out a sower to sow:”  It is easy to simply continue with the story here instead of pausing for a bit.  But the point here is critical.  It is God who takes the initiative to go out and sow the seed of His Word in us.  We did NOT ask for this to occur.  We were instead steeped in our embrace of sin and self-love.  We were not really interested in asking for redemption from our condition.  Instead, we were where the story finds us in just a few moments.  However God, was keenly interested in our redemption.  He does not wait for an invitation from diseased souls who are incapable of asking for what is good for them.  Instead He goes about His mission to see His precious children redeemed, even when they do not know this is good for them, or do not have the good sense to ask for the freedom He offers.  God initiates the process of our salvation.  Lest you think your faith originated in you, it did not.  Lest you think your desire for God originated in you, it did not.  Your ability to even make a choice to find the freedom God offers, began with Him taking up His role of sower of seed.

The story continues in verse 4 saying … “And it came to pass, as he sowed, some fell by the way side, and the fowls of the air came and devoured it up.”  To better understand this part of the main theme, I will recount the words of Christ to explain this passage found in verse 15 below as He says … “And these are they by the way side, where the word is sown; but when they have heard, Satan cometh immediately, and taketh away the word that was sown in their hearts.”  Ouch!  For a brief fleeting moment, nearly before a decision can even be reached, there are those of us who squander our opportunity to be saved by Jesus Christ, to be made free from the sins we have chosen to embrace through our addictive love of self. 

These may well be those poor souls who have no one praying for their salvation, and have only a limited opportunity to ever hear the word of God.  The one single chance presents itself, and in nearly an immediate response, the love-of-self Satan sells us, floods over them to quickly take away the adoption of the seeds of salvation.  It may represent an even worse scenario where the love of God is misrepresented by someone bearing the name Christian, and the hate of Satan that spews from the mouth of the supposed “Christian” robs the unbeliever of even a motive to begin to seek change.  We might pray to be vessels of His love, and not thieves of souls spouting the hate speech of the enemy.

You will note, this story is not about a gardener who is transplanting fully grown trees.  That symbolism does not work.  The process of salvation does not begin with maturity, it ends with it.  The removal of sins from our lives does not happen in full in an instant because we won’t let it.  For us to bear fruit will take time with God to mature, we will need to learn what it means to love like He loves.  We are too ignorant to know that is what we need.  We are too stooped in our addiction to self-love to recognize how bad off we are, and how desperately we need to be saved from ourselves.  So the process of salvation begins with a seed, with a still small voice, with an inclination to seek something more, to end the pain we bring upon ourselves.  It begins with something small, but it ends with something huge and magnificent.  It is worth considering, that repeated attempts to get us to find the salvation God offers are themselves an added blessing.  For this crowd described in this first allegory received only the one invitation, squandered it, and were never able to find another attempt.  There is a finality that comes from choosing to continue to embrace the self-styled-salvation Satan offers.  That finality ends in our destruction, not in our self-based-salvation.

Jesus continues in verse 5 saying … “And some fell on stony ground, where it had not much earth; and immediately it sprang up, because it had no depth of earth: [verse 6] But when the sun was up, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away.”  The explanation Christ offered is found in verse 16 saying … “And these are they likewise which are sown on stony ground; who, when they have heard the word, immediately receive it with gladness; [verse 17] And have no root in themselves, and so endure but for a time: afterward, when affliction or persecution ariseth for the word's sake, immediately they are offended.”  There is a depth to the story that is revealed in this scene.  The Word is Jesus Christ.  It is not the accumulation of our interpretation of doctrines or the wealth of our memorization of scripture that is described here.  It is our willingness to submit ourselves to Jesus Christ, and allow Him to remake our desires and who we are.

There is a class of Christian who appreciate the theory of salvation.  They believe in the power of Jesus Christ to save them, and they profess to accept His offer.  Immediately the Word sprang up in these souls.  They did not allow Satan to take it from them, as the first group willingly did.  But they did not allow the seed to penetrate into the core of who they are either.  These are the Christians who want God to solve some particular sin they struggle with … but not all of them.  They are willing to give a part of themselves over to Christ to be saved, but the stone of their hearts remains unconverted.  The benefits of following Christ and lessening the pain of their self-love appeal to them.  But to truly change everything about themselves is just something that is a bit too far for them.  These Christians are able to give to the poor what they have in excess, but not everything they have.  These Christians have 50/50 marriages made up of give and take, not a marriage based on giving everything all the time no matter the response.  In short, these Christians are living with a “balanced” idea of salvation where being “reasonable” about how much we give, and how much we allow Christ to change our hearts seems like the right approach to them.

But the problem with withholding parts of ourselves, and entry into our hearts of stone from Christ, is that the disease we suffer from remains within us.  When the trials of life, and the desire of Satan to hurt God by hurting us enter our lives, we run from God, instead of running to Him.  We compromise beliefs and ethics in order to lessen the pain the world brings.  We align with the world to lessen its hatred of us.  We become offended at the idea of giving “everything”.  We become offended at the idea of having to change “who” we are for the sake of our salvation.  We believe we should be able to change parts of us, and leave the other parts intact.  Having to become someone else entirely is offensive to us, as we see ourselves as “good people” who are plainly “good enough” and if that is not enough for Christ, then that is His problem instead of ours.  Who is He anyway to ask us to give “everything”, nobody gives “everything” … except … well Jesus Christ did to redeem us.  Giving everything was what our God did for us, and it is in giving everything to others, that our hearts of stone begin to melt into hearts of flesh, that are moved by the needs and pain of others, not just ourselves.

Scene 3 in our story resumes with the work of the Sower continuing His efforts for our redemption and begins in verse 7 saying … “And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up, and choked it, and it yielded no fruit.”  The explanation of Christ found in verse 18 saying … “And these are they which are sown among thorns; such as hear the word, [verse 19] And the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful.”  This is the horror scene of this movie.  It might be frightening to think of Satan’s evil crows stealing our salvation with our gleeful willingness at the outset of this story.  It might be scary to think we might embrace it partially, and then find we have lost it to the stone of our hearts in a brief time.  But this is the horror scene altogether.  Jason, Freddy, and Manson together conspire for this scene of the movie.

A few things to note.  The ground of these souls is not condemned as was the stone of other recipients.  They did not immediately reject the word, or allow Satan to steal it from them.  All indications are the ground looks like good ground.  These souls embraced the salvation of Christ, or so it would appear.  They spend time with Christ.  Weeds do not kill in an instant, they take time to grow up as well.  In fact the distinction between the seeds of grass and the seeds of weeds is hard to tell in the infancy of the life of the plant.  They both look green.  They both look pretty.  They seem to equally decorate the lawn we hope to enjoy.  But there is a distinction.  The plants are actually different.  One is rooted in the salvation of the Lord, the other only looks that way.  The Christian in this scene looks like a good guy, and seems to be doing the right things.  His only problem is that it appears his best friend is Charles Manson.  And when Chuck is not around, he looks for counsel from Freddy Kruger, and Jason to get advice.  Of course to the Christian, these ruthless psychopathic killers look as harmless as the cute little yellow Minions.  But they are not, they are in fact, ruthless killers, who leave no one left alive.

An “innocent” Christian considers the needs of his own life as he makes decisions about his future.  His job, the needs of getting a promotion, and a good increase in pay are important to him.  He worries about the repair costs of his Mercedes, and whether he can afford to buy the necklace for his wife.  The pressure of wealth is no less a burden to him, than the advice of Charles Manson.  Jason and Freddy stand ready to inform him about where money should be invested in the stock market, and that becoming a millionaire is not as rewarding as becoming a billionaire.  The horror of this scene, is that it is not the poor who are its victims, it is those who consider themselves successful Christians.  Americans meet this criteria in no small quantities.  We live in a country of relative wealth, or at least comparative wealth.  We have ease, vacations, weekends and pools.  We eat out, and drive advanced automobiles.  We work in industries and jobs that require better education, or offer better pay than any contemporary in any other nation.  Our families need our financial support, and we are blessed enough to be able to provide it. 

The horror story of this scene, is that it looks to impact those who are NOT in great need, instead they look “normal”.  The condition of this horror does not impact the poor, it impacts the rich, and even more terrifying … the middle class.  This could well describe the state of Christianity in every denomination in our nation.  We have our poor, and sometimes we consider ourselves to be in need, but most of us are surviving.  And in our survival, we consider the cares of this world that begin to choke out our ability to spend our resources on others.  We can afford to give less and less instead of more and more.  Our blessings look more and more like Freddy Kruger, an anchor around our souls, than an opportunity to make a real difference in the life of someone else who neither deserves our love, nor can repay it.  The deceitfulness of the lure of our wealth, is that no matter how much we have, we will always “need” just a little bit more.  We lie to ourselves, that if we get that raise, or bonus, we will surely use part of it as a gift back to God.  But for every dollar we acquire there is always a destination in mind for it before it even touches our hands.  Our “needs” always find a way of outpacing our supply.  And thus the lie of the lure of wealth chokes our “ability” to give.

Had the movie ended in scene 3 with the horror of losing salvation slowly insidiously and over time, choked out by the Charles Manson’s of the world who look like regular guys and seem to offer practical advice; this would be a horrible story.  But fortunately, in the movie script Christ was relaying, the movie had one more act.  A scene 4 was ready for entry on the big screen as follows beginning in verse 8 saying … “And other fell on good ground, and did yield fruit that sprang up and increased; and brought forth, some thirty, and some sixty, and some an hundred. [verse 9] And he said unto them, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.”  The explanation Christ offers beginning in verse 20 saying … “And these are they which are sown on good ground; such as hear the word, and receive it, and bring forth fruit, some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some an hundred.”  This is the redemption scene.  This is the scene that is the main point of this picture, and the reason why the story was told in the first place.

The intent of this story was not to leave any single audience member in the danger of immediate loss, or quickly withering away, or even losing the battle over time to the lie of wealth in this world.  The intent of this story was to get it right.  To find salvation, and witness the results of what it does.  In this scene, the seed grows up and does something the other scenes have lacked.  It bears fruit.  The amount of fruit for these souls varies.  It is not uniform.  It is not exactly the same for each of us.  But it is common to each of us.  It is unavoidable.  We cannot help but bear fruit.  It is His fruit in us.  This is the end state of maturity not the beginning of it.  When we grow up in Christ, we become like He is.  We begin to love others like He loves others.  When we love this way, we cannot help but to meet another’s needs.  We don’t look at it as a burden to us financially but as an opportunity to us to love someone else.  The fruit we bear is “real” wealth.  It is the wealth of providing for others, for loving others like He loves them.  This is the only “real” currency in heaven.  When we love like Christ loves, we regret that giving our all, is so meager.  If we had one more penny, we would share it, even if it were our last one.  God does everything for us.  He loves us that much.  This story was designed to show us that.  It was not designed that any should be excluded, but that ALL should be in the good ground category.

But there was more Christ had to teach His disciples and us that we will soon learn …