I'm heading out in the morning to attend the Festival Gathering of the Network of Biblical Storytellers. Having completed a year-long certification program in December of 2012, I will join my other class-mates who will be receiving their certificates through the Academy for Biblical Storytelling.
I love a good story, and some of the best and most important stories are found in the pages of the Bible. A good story can be entertaining. A really good story can be transformative. Jesus was a good storyteller. He told some that were clear enough to understand, and some that left his audience scratching their heads.
I'm thinking about stories as I prepare to pack and head to Black Mountain NC for the Festival Gathering.
There are two in my mind just now. Neither of these came from the Bible, but both hold truths that are found within its pages.
The first came a few days ago. I was bringing a friend home from a doctor's appointment. I'm not sure how the subject came up, but my friend Jeanette told me of a former pastor she remembered from her childhood from Zion Baptist Church in Mobile, Alabama. They called him Brother Jim.
Brother Jim was visiting with an elderly couple in the church. Though they didn't have much, they wanted to extend hospitality to their pastor. They wanted to provide lunch for him. He accepted their offer to join them at the table.
The elderly woman excused herself to the kitchen to prepare sandwiches for each of them. While Brother Jim continued to chat with the elderly husband, he glanced into the kitchen and witnessed an open can of cat food on the counter, and the woman spreading its contents on the pieces of bread.
As he told the story some years later, he said "I thought to myself, even if it killed me, I was going to eat that cat food sandwich!"
Good for Brother Jim!
The second is a story I heard on the front porch of the church I serve, Rock Grove UMC, after Homecoming Services this past Sunday. We had invited a former pastor back to the Rock Grove pulpit, Rev. Paul Starnes. Now retired, he had served as a student pastor at Rock Grove some 50 years ago.
As I was preparing to lead Paul and his family to the fellowship building for our traditional covered dish lunch, a Homecoming visitor came to speak to Paul. Alex had moved away from the Rock Grove area years ago, but he attended 5 decades ago when Paul was pastor.
Alex recalled and shared a memory he had of Paul from his childhood. After his father's death, he remembered Paul coming to visit the family. But what he most remembered about the pastor's visit was that he spent time with young Alex, flying a kite. Alex shared how much that memory still meant to him today.
Good for Rev. Paul!
And so I'm just thinking right now about the kinds of stories we tell, about those memories from long ago that become stories with the power to shape us and sustain us, to mold us and inspire us.
And though I'm not sure what kinds of stories may one day be told of me, I wouldn't mind a bit if a story or two sounded something like eating a cat food sandwich with friends at a simple table of hospitality, or something like flying a kite with a grieving child.
How about you?
Grace and peace!
Pastor Randy
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