Being a Story-Formed Community
I once stumbled upon an interview involving a man who customarily reads about 300 novels each year. When asked why he reads so much, he answered that the illusion of escaping reality mesmerized him with each novel. For him, it was not so much an ambition to read so voraciously but a necessity to keep his sanity. You see, reading novels had become his drug, his means of self-medication. For escaping into these stories — though placed in fantasy realms — numbed his senses from facing the pains of everyday reality.
And there’s something provoking about such honesty. Because at the heart of it, we all nurse wounds and carry trauma living in a world absent from what the Bible calls Shalom (true peace and flourishing). And when I experience something real, something that strikes a nerve, I’ve come to learn that pain has a history that often sets off an automated response. But sometimes, a story into another world can lull our sensitivities. And in some unique way, these stories spare us from nudging the purpling bruises on the surface and instead, reach deeper into the heart and soul to peel what’s been masked and taped over with years of self-preservation. We all need healing, and some of us need deep healing. And deep healing, as expressed by Wendell Berry, among others, happens not just with stories but in deep community.
There’s a movie that I partially watched with my wife Judy some time back called The Jane Austen Book Club. I remember bits and parts of it, as I’m pretty certain our kids schemed a rotation of waking up in the middle of the movie. But the plot of the film is pretty clear — a community is formed around the sharing of a book. And you find all kinds of characters that gather around and into this book club — middle-aged women, single men riding bicycles, divorcees, those looking for love, those taking a break from love. These characters who wouldn’t otherwise be found in regular community with one another made the habit of convening once a week to discuss the words of a dead author from a book published centuries before. And albeit it fictional, something like The Jane Austen Book Club shows us the unique power and congregating effect of stories.
And if a dead author like Jane Austen can create community — a diverse and committed community — then, what might a living author do? Because among other things, that’s what church is. We’re a book club. Our book just happens to be living and active, with an eternally present Author. Which is why Stanley Hauerwas calls the church a text-formed community. We are a gathering of people of different times, places, and spaces. But we share in a common text, a common story that gives definition to who we are as individuals and as a community.
When recounting the distinct purposes with the series, J. R. R. Tolkien described The Hobbit to be an adventure, while The Lord of the Rings a quest, a journey. The adventure, Tolkien explains, is best understood as ‘there and back again.’ It’s filled with fun and excitement involving these moments of thrill that come in spurts. But a quest is one that necessitates not exhilaration but steady preparation and grit. And I wonder if that’s why life is sometimes so difficult to manage — because we expect an adventure without proper vision for a journey.
But to last on the road, we must all prepare for the quest, the journey. And we need a compass to help us keep our paths. Some of us have broken compasses, but by God’s grace, we’re called into community. We walk, we stumble in community. Sometimes, we wander off from community. But our broken compasses find recalibration through a voice that calls out to us. And it’s a Shepherd’s voice that calls out to His sheep. And He not only assembles to Himself a diverse gathering, He commits to walking alongside us as our guide. As I’ve heard Douglas McKelvey say, the best of stories rhyme. And when our lives converge with the Bible, our needs find our every rhyme in Jesus, who is our Shepherd, our guide, and the Author of life.
So, we commit to walking together with Jesus as a Story-formed community. For He has not only written the pages, He’s written Himself into the plot. And thus, He’s paved the roads He’s called upon us to walk, the very grounds He Himself has traveled in deepest experience. While we fret over beginnings and ends, He’s seen this journey through, and so He’s locked in on our present. So, let’s together take steps in confidence, though we may often lack courage. As C. S. Lewis reminds us, as long as we have the will to walk, God is pleased even in our stumbles.
And there’s something provoking about such honesty. Because at the heart of it, we all nurse wounds and carry trauma living in a world absent from what the Bible calls Shalom (true peace and flourishing). And when I experience something real, something that strikes a nerve, I’ve come to learn that pain has a history that often sets off an automated response. But sometimes, a story into another world can lull our sensitivities. And in some unique way, these stories spare us from nudging the purpling bruises on the surface and instead, reach deeper into the heart and soul to peel what’s been masked and taped over with years of self-preservation. We all need healing, and some of us need deep healing. And deep healing, as expressed by Wendell Berry, among others, happens not just with stories but in deep community.
There’s a movie that I partially watched with my wife Judy some time back called The Jane Austen Book Club. I remember bits and parts of it, as I’m pretty certain our kids schemed a rotation of waking up in the middle of the movie. But the plot of the film is pretty clear — a community is formed around the sharing of a book. And you find all kinds of characters that gather around and into this book club — middle-aged women, single men riding bicycles, divorcees, those looking for love, those taking a break from love. These characters who wouldn’t otherwise be found in regular community with one another made the habit of convening once a week to discuss the words of a dead author from a book published centuries before. And albeit it fictional, something like The Jane Austen Book Club shows us the unique power and congregating effect of stories.
And if a dead author like Jane Austen can create community — a diverse and committed community — then, what might a living author do? Because among other things, that’s what church is. We’re a book club. Our book just happens to be living and active, with an eternally present Author. Which is why Stanley Hauerwas calls the church a text-formed community. We are a gathering of people of different times, places, and spaces. But we share in a common text, a common story that gives definition to who we are as individuals and as a community.
When recounting the distinct purposes with the series, J. R. R. Tolkien described The Hobbit to be an adventure, while The Lord of the Rings a quest, a journey. The adventure, Tolkien explains, is best understood as ‘there and back again.’ It’s filled with fun and excitement involving these moments of thrill that come in spurts. But a quest is one that necessitates not exhilaration but steady preparation and grit. And I wonder if that’s why life is sometimes so difficult to manage — because we expect an adventure without proper vision for a journey.
But to last on the road, we must all prepare for the quest, the journey. And we need a compass to help us keep our paths. Some of us have broken compasses, but by God’s grace, we’re called into community. We walk, we stumble in community. Sometimes, we wander off from community. But our broken compasses find recalibration through a voice that calls out to us. And it’s a Shepherd’s voice that calls out to His sheep. And He not only assembles to Himself a diverse gathering, He commits to walking alongside us as our guide. As I’ve heard Douglas McKelvey say, the best of stories rhyme. And when our lives converge with the Bible, our needs find our every rhyme in Jesus, who is our Shepherd, our guide, and the Author of life.
So, we commit to walking together with Jesus as a Story-formed community. For He has not only written the pages, He’s written Himself into the plot. And thus, He’s paved the roads He’s called upon us to walk, the very grounds He Himself has traveled in deepest experience. While we fret over beginnings and ends, He’s seen this journey through, and so He’s locked in on our present. So, let’s together take steps in confidence, though we may often lack courage. As C. S. Lewis reminds us, as long as we have the will to walk, God is pleased even in our stumbles.
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