For a few weeks now we’ve all been hitting the books, looking at the Bible through different scholarly lenses, and digging into things like historical context, and multi-vocality, and what it means to wrestle with the text in all its complexity. Today our topic is the Bible as story, and that might not seem quite so scholarly, but we need to give stories their due. Stories are an ancient technology, as old as humanity itself. Stories are how we teach our children and pass information from one generation to the next. Stories build connection, gathering us around warm fires to share them with each other. Yesterday at Mary Ann’s funeral I was reminded that when we come together to celebrate a life well lived, we tell the stories of that person who mattered so much to us. We humans are practically made of stories. Every day is like another page, and every year another chapter.

Therefore, stories are powerful things. They shape what we believe about ourselves and about other people. Stories help us to find meaning in life. They can inspire us to act. They can draw out both our laughter and our tears. Stories are an integral part of what human beings are, and the Bible is full of stories. I like to tell our confirmands each year that the Bible is really much more like a library than it is like a single book or even a series. It contains so many different genres of literature, it’s the work of so many different authors, and it contains ideas from people who lived over at least a thousand years, and possibly longer.

If you been coming to the Tuesday night classes during this series, then you might’ve learned already that scholars believe that the Hebrew Bible was mostly written and/or compiled during the Babylonian Exile. So, not during the time of Moses, and not even during the time of King David, but about 500 years after him, and about 500 years before Jesus. The Hebrew Bible was created in a time when they were removed from life as they knew it, their home was destroyed, and they could no longer access their sacred spaces.

In this time when they were so completely defeated, their story became incredibly important to them. They recalled the oldest stories, the ones their grandparent’s grandparents had given them, about how the universe was made, and the first generations of people, and all the things they learned about walking with God. As they wrote them down, those stories were not just about their ancestors; but also, about them. They were supposed to be God’s people too, but something terrible had happened to them. So, they were wondering, was there any coming back from this? Was God done with them or was God still with them even in Babylon? In the stories of their people being lost in the wilderness after Egypt, they saw the wilderness they were in as well.

As they wondered about how God would provide for them in Babylon, they remembered that God could provide manna in the desert. They remembered that the manna God sent was not just food, but also an invitation to trust. Manna had to be gathered and eaten on the same day, the story says. By the next day it would spoil, unless it happened to be the sabbath. This wasn’t a meal that could last you a couple days, which are my favorites. You know that some people tucked their leftovers away in the hope that it would keep, but it did not. God was offering them daily bread. You couldn’t carry it, save it up, or hoard it all for yourself. They would receive what they needed for today and they would have to trust that sustenance would show up again with each new morning, just like God.

When everything felt like despair, the Isrealites remembered the story of their liberating God. The One who had brought them out of slavery. The God of their mothers and fathers who did the impossible and didn’t stop there but kept walking with them from generation to generation. The God who didn’t abandon them. The God who listened, and fed them, and brought them into a land of abundance. The God who wandered with them through the wilderness, and had always been teaching, guiding, and sustaining the people. These stories carry a hope, for all of us, that no matter what – God does not leave us. That’s why we keep telling them. If the people of Israel could find their way through the wilderness with the help of God, then we can find our way through our wilderness too. If we learn to trust and open our hearts and hands, God will provide sustenance for us too.

This is a God whose kingdom doesn’t look like the Babylonian empire that had taken them, or like any other empire of the world. Jesus tells us this through stories too, saying, “the kingdom of heaven is like if a landowner hired everyone in the market, and then paid them all the same amount, whether they had worked for him all day or for just a few hours.” God’s generosity disrupts our ideas of who is and isn’t deserving of grace, of love, and frankly of financial security. God doesn’t measure our worth or reward us based on how hard we work, even though it’s easy to keep slipping into that belief. We are already inherently worthy of all of it, regardless of our faults. God’s grace is an abundant thing, and we don’t get to tell God how to give it out.

Jesus used these relevant, but surprising, and often confusing stories called parables, not to remind us of the past, but to dare us to imagine what it would be like if the world worked differently. What if we put the people who come in last, first? What if our treatment of each other came from a place of abundance, of knowing there is more than enough to go around, instead of scarcity, like paying the least to make the highest profit?

The kingdom of heaven is not the world we have; but it is the world we’re called by Christ to build on Earth as it is in Heaven. Our faith is not a competition to win, or a hierarchy to climb. Our faith is a liberation party, where God frees us, so we free each other from all kinds of chains, with the goal of someday setting everybody free. In the story of the Bible, we find a God who empowers ordinary people to do this, who resists the ways of the empire, and who makes the impossible possible. It’s a good story for all of us to hear in every age, and it’s important even now.

Now, like in Babylon and in the wilderness, there seems to be a widely circulating story of despair. It flutters around the edges of our conversations. It lurks in the back of our minds. A story that says the world is going to burn, and there’s nothing we can do about it. A story that says a world run by AI is coming, whether we like it or not, it’s inevitable and probably going to kill us all. A story that says that our government is too broken to repair, and none of us are rich enough or powerful enough to change it. So, you might as well start building your bunker. Give up on organizing, and voting, and protesting things that are wrong. Stop talking about people who are dying or in need because it’s too political and it just makes some people uncomfortable.

Stories are powerful things, and I know we must be honest about the way things are. Sometimes we’ve got to laugh so that we don’t cry, but don’t forget that stories have power. This story of resignation to the end only serves to protect the people behind the problems and keep them from facing consequences. These are not forces of nature we contend with. These are human choices, and human choices can change. The story that says the world is already over, and our book is already closed feels true, but it doesn’t have to be. If we buy into the idea that we’ve already lost, we stop imagining that there could be an alternative ending for us. When we stop believing that a better story is possible, we lose our creativity, our joy, and sometimes we lose each other.

Standing before a broken world, even Paul seems to consider giving up. I don’t know if his desire to depart meant that he was suicidal, but he tells the Philippians that he’s writing this letter in chains, and we know that despair is a powerful story. Paul weighs the possibility of giving up. Yet he is convinced that Christ is working through him, and that he is needed by God’s people, and that the world needs them to be standing side by side, firm in one spirit, unafraid of those who oppose them. This section of the letter reads to me like a battle cry against despair. Christ has given us a mission, and as Paul says, “God has granted you the privilege not only of believing in Christ but of suffering for him as well.” Because it IS an honor to join hands with each other in the struggle of life. It IS a privilege to belong to community and to care for each other, especially when times are hard.

Know that you are so incredibly needed, and do not give up on your story before you know the ending. Dare to dream of best-case scenarios. Reach for your happiness like a dandelion growing in the cracks of the sidewalk. In the wise words of Natasha Bedingfield, “the rest is still unwritten.” So, friends let us write for ourselves a better story. One where we trust that God will provide what we need even when it seems impossible. One where we imagine new ways to put those who are last, first. One where we are generous and honor the inherent worth of every person. One where we choose to be courageous, and to stand together unafraid of our opposition.

Let us remember all the miraculous kinds of things that God can do through ordinary people who walk in the light of hope. Let us join Christ in the fruitful labor of the gospel which is and has always been good news to the poor and freedom for the oppressed. May it be so, here and everywhere. May it begin with us. Amen.