I LOVE TO TELL THE STORY

This is a warning. For some of you it comes too late, you’ve already innocently walked into the trap. But for the rest of you, here it is.

I’m heavy into my training for the Boston Marathon on April 17. Putting in major miles on my long runs (16 miles last Thursday morning). Todd Schlandt, over here in the choir is getting ready for the Freescale Marathon here in Austin on February 19—so he’s into it even more heavily than I.

The potential danger for you (and hence the warning) is asking me (or perhaps Todd) how the training is going. Because you are likely to get more information than you wanted to hear. Be prepared for me to obsess. Because at this point in training for a marathon it becomes a major, if not the major, thing in one’s life. It tends to take over. Ask Trish.

And we marathoners love to talk about it. We love to tell you how far we’re running. How miserable it is on some days, and how wonderful it is on others. We’ll tell you how long it takes to go 16 miles (for me last Thursday two hours and 24 minutes). We’ll tell you how we dress to deal with the cold weather, and the warmer weather, and when it’s both on the same morning. We’ll tell you what we eat before a long run, and what energy supplements we take during one.

But I begin to obsess. And you didn’t even ask me how it’s going! You see I love to talk about it. I love to tell the story.

With me and others, at this point in time, it’s the marathon. But each and every one of us is the same way with some subject. Get you started, give you an opening, and you’ll bend another person’s ear beyond recognition.

Woe to you if you’re not a Longhorn fan and you bumped into one since the ’Horns won the Rose Bowl! Or, maybe it’s the kids or the grand kids (look out for me on that one too, by the way). Or a hobby, or politics, or your job, or your dog, or the Texas legislature.

I don’t know what it is for you (well, for some of you I do), but I’m confident that for each of you there is something you love to talk about, you love to tell the story. And you will tell it unabashedly every chance you get, to anyone who’ll listen even some who might not want to listen. And you never get tired of telling it.

I wonder what would happen if, in the words of the golden oldie hymn, we told the “story of Jesus and his love” with that same sort of enthusiasm, excitement, passion, and commitment. Most of the time, I think, we don’t do that—though there certainly are exceptions.

ELCA Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson thinks we don’t do that sort of story-telling, in part at least, because we buy into “the cultural myth that religious faith is strictly a private matter” (Mark Hanson, “Faithful yet Changing,” p. 11)—one keeps it to oneself, and one expects others to keep it to themselves. And, Lutherans, at least, have a solid track record in doing just that.

Or, perhaps we shy away from speaking of Jesus and his love, Bishop Hanson speculates, because we’ve come to associate that sort of “witnessing with a kind of intimidating, interrogating, guilt producing activity, [that tries] to shame people into the kingdom of God.” (Ibid. p. 10). Or, (Karli speaking this time) I think we often just don’t feel confident enough about our own faith or knowledge to tell the story.

There are times when in our reluctance to tell the story of Jesus and his love we are modern day Jonahs. Jonah, who ran in the opposite direction and jumped a ship when God told him to go and proclaim God’s word to Nineveh.

“Not goin’ there, Lord. Not doin’ that. Not my job. Don’t know how. Wouldn’t know what to say or how to say it. And besides those sinful clods in Nineveh don’t deserve your love or mercy anyhow. Find somebody else to tell your story, Lord. Not me.”

Well, after the business of getting thrown overboard, swallowed by that big fish, and spit up on dry land, Jonah decided, the second time God told him, to go and tell God’s story. And the entire city repented and turned to God.

Now, God’s not likely sending us on personal missions to convert the world or even individual parts of it. But each of us does have a baptismal commission from God to tell the story of Jesus and his love in our own lives, times, and places.

In his excellent little book “Faithful yet Changing,” from a few years ago, Bishop Hanson reminds us that telling the story is the “vocation of [every Christian]” (p.7). It’s not a technique we learn, “[but something that] belongs to the fabric of the Christian life” (p.8). It doesn’t mean one has all the answers to all the theological questions, but simply that one sees “God at work in [our] lives, in [our] work, [our] families, the world” (p.5). And then, one “[speaks] the truth about [our] own experiences, what [we] have seen and heard” (p.10) of Jesus and his love in our lives as we have opportunity to do so.

In today’s Gospel reading Jesus didn’t tell Simon, Andrew, James, and John: “Hey guys, follow me and if you decide you’d be comfortable doing it, then you can tell others about your experience and invite them be a part of the kingdom of God.”

No. Jesus said to them, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” Jesus pointed them toward the role they would have as his followers: sharing with others what he taught and gave to them, telling his story, carrying his love to the world.

Which is what Jesus asks of us: to tell the story of Jesus and his love. Not like some obnoxious, arm-twisting, sales person. But as we have opportunity sincerely, honestly and unashamedly to speak of Jesus and his love in our lives. And of the new life we have and experience because of him and his love. To share with others that which we have graciously received ourselves. And invite them to experience it too.

Each of us has those things, those parts of ourselves, those aspects of our lives, which we readily and excitedly share with others. Let me tell you about my marathon training! More importantly, let me tell you about Jesus and his love. AMEN.

Copyright © 2006 Robert J. Karli