We have 2 words that will guide our time together on Sunday mornings.  Story and Partnership.  

 

The timelessness of stories informs a significant part of who we are: who we see ourselves to be, who we see others to be, and what we see our world to be. Today popular stories seem to focus on violence, ruthlessness and explicit sexuality, but does that reflect what humans really are? Does it really reflect the reality of the creation and the Creator?

 

The modern era has even brought violence into story by teaching us that often there is only ONE “right” interpretation of the story. Only ONE meaning to be drawn from it. Forcing imagination and discernment and wisdom out of the dance. We see this especially in the church when Biblical interpretation is divorced from wisdom, contemplation, imagination, and questioning. “Don’t stray from the ‘correct’ interpretation of this or that passage,” we are told, “or else you will become heretical. You will be worthy of judgment. You might even be condemned to eternal damnation.” Is that what the stories of the Bible are really about? Is all there is to interpreting scripture “figuring out” what the (singular) meaning is of each of the stories of the Bible?

 

On the other hand, stories also convey images of beautiful partnerships—of people working together for good, of people working with creation to heal nature’s hurts, and of people working hand-in-hand with Creator to bring love in Her name to all. Often, in the Biblical narratives, and in the stories of many peoples, places and times, wisdom, compassion, contemplation, imagination, questioning and, seemingly above all, love, go into building these beautiful partnerships.

 

What is God calling us to question? What is God calling us to imagine? Do stories, especially stories from the Bible, need to have one correct interpretation? What love can we learn? How can we see the story anew and welcome it to bring us new ways of being and new partnerships to foster: in the church and in the city of Mississauga, and around the world?

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