What Is Your God Story?

Proper23 – Cycle B

I know of a pastor who does this thing.  He goes to a coffee shop, orders his coffee, sits at a table, and pulls out a sign that he puts on the table.  The sign says, “Tell me your God story.”

Then he drinks his coffee.  People sit down.  They tell him a story.  They tell him all kinds of stories.

I remembered that pastor as I have been reading a book that will be part of diocesan convention next week.  The book’s author, Dwight Zscheile is our keynote speaker.  The book is called The Agile Church.

The chapter that engaged my imagination is “Disciplines of a Learning Church.”  The first discipline is: Cultivate places for conversation and practice.  The author writes about how the church typically approaches nonchurch members.  Typically, we invite them to come to us so they can hear our story.

Now let me say, it’s a powerful story.  In fact, the fourth discipline he names is: Interpret the present in light of the past.  Our story, the one we are living now, is part of a bigger story.  When we read Scripture every Sunday, we are connecting to that bigger story.  And we draw from it.  The bishop described this two weeks ago – the Book of Exodus, the people of God on the move from their settled past to an unknown future.  Their holy place, their sanctuary was a tent.  They folded it up and they moved.  And Jesus who did not have a place to lay his head, whose ministry was always on the road, or in somebody’s living room for the evening.

On the move is part of our past and it sustains us as we fold up our tent and move into our future.

But that’s the fourth discipline.  Let’s go back to the first.

Zscheile encourages us to go out, so we can ask people who have not come to church to tell us their story.  Because, you know what, God is active in their lives, too.  Our story is just part of God’s story.

A week ago, Nancy and I were changing the sign outside the church.  It now says, What is your God story?  As we were pushing the letters around, make sure they’re centered, a young man walked by.  His ear buds were around his neck, not in his ears.  So Nancy said, How you doing?  The young man answered, Okay, I guess. Could be better.

We didn’t pursue it, he was walking away.  But as he walked beyond us, he said, Thanks for asking.

Now, not exactly a deep encounter.  But I noticed that he noticed that she asked.  Next to our sign that says, What is your God story? I took it – as a sign.

Seems simple, but honestly there is a risk to asking somebody to tell us their story.  We might not like the story we hear.  It may not use the vocabulary that we recognize as religious, or even spiritual.  We’d like to hear about healing, comfort, strength, faith, peace, something that will strengthen our faith, give us peace.

But that isn’t everybody’s God story.  For some there is pain.  For others, deep anger.  Or even, disinterest.  It’s hard to listen to those stories, to not rush in to fix, or throw a cliché at it, or somehow shut it down.

I suspect many preachers will skip over Job’s story today, or rush to give the answer, or label it, “The Problem of Suffering,” turning it into an intellectual exercise.

We don’t want simply to sit with Job’s story.  The lectionary doesn’t sit with it, gives us just a few glimpses of it.  Last week the reading told us about his skin disease.  Stopped short of the deaths of his ten children.  Ten children, dead.

His friends did listen.  They listened for two weeks.  Then they thought it was time for him to get over it.  Ten children.  Dead.

But he persisted.  He went on for chapter after chapter after chapter.  His friends get criticized, but really, how long before we would tell him to go talk to a therapist, somebody he would pay to listen.

About ten years ago, as I was diving into the depths of a depression, I started writing a book that explored faith issues around severe depression.  It drew heavily on Job and on the Psalms.

I suspected I would not publish.  People don’t want to read about how faith fails.  They want to read how faith fixed it.

And that simply was not my experience.  It’s still not.  My faith does not fix my depression.  Which really pissed me off for a long time.

Coming out on the other side of that experience, I concluded that I really didn’t know as much about God as I used to.  That still is my story.  I just don’t know as much as I used to.

The thing I do know is that I don’t have to know.  God, whatever that word means, is big enough not to be harmed by the puniness of my intellect nor even the puniness of my faith.

Another thing I do know is that I am part of a bigger story.  There are millennia of people who know they are part of God’s story, who are held and sustained by being part of the people of God, even when we can’t make sense of our pain and sorrow, and where on earth God is in it.

I mean, there was Jesus, hanging on the cross, almost his last words were from today’s Psalm, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  If he didn’t know, I figure I can simply tell my truth.

So these two things held together:

First, Job, the Psalmist, Jesus and I, maybe you, not knowing where God is in our darkest hour.

And second, nevertheless quoting the Psalm, because we are in this darkness together.

That’s my God story, and I’m sticking to it.

Now you see, I have a place where I can tell my story.  Once a month, you listen to my God story.  And one of the strengths of this congregation is that there are a handful of us who have that opportunity.  You don’t listen to just one person’s version of the Gospel.

But what about you?  I suspect it strikes us as odd, the notion of asking somebody else, What is your God story?  I suspect it strikes us as odd because we haven’t practiced telling our own.  Maybe at Cursillo or in a fourth day group.  But not everybody’s done Cursillo.

So we were talking at vestry this week.  We didn’t have anyone to lead worship on the 28^th.  By the way, it would be really great if you would think about taking on the task of filling out that worship schedule once a quarter.  Think about whether you could do that, so we don’t have to scramble from week to week.

But anyway, the 28^th, Steve was already committed to next Sunday and the first Sunday in November.  But he said he could celebrate on the 28^th, too, if he didn’t have to preach.

Cultivate places for conversation and practice, Zscheile says.

We have some practice at conversation in church here.  We’re going to kick it up a notch on the 28^th.

Over the next two weeks, think about that question, What is your God story?  For Job on the 28^th, finally it is about restoration.  In the Gospel, it’s healing.  Your story might be a solid rock.  Or an unanswered question.  Or a turning.  Or amazement.  Or silliness.

Don’t plan to tell your whole life story.  Honor the time.  Give your neighbor time.  Three minutes.  My story this morning took just over two.  If you are willing, tell one slice of your life that has meaning for you, a place, a scripture verse, a mentor, an experience, a question, something to do with God.  That’s all.

See, this congregation is going places.  Like Jesus, the followers of Jesus are on the move.

The Agile Church, the man calls it.  Two weeks from now, in a safe place, a place where you haven’t kicked me out, so nobody’s kicking you out, think of it as stretches, practice, for the followers of Jesus on the move.

Amen.

Job by William Blake, in public domain