Tell Me a Story

Stories permeate our lives. We hear stories from our families and friends about what is happening in their lives. We read stories to our children and read books filled with mystery, romance, and history.  We hear stories in sermons to teach us and programs to entertain us.

Jesus taught important truths with stories or parables. He used the parable of the Prodigal Son to teach about unconditional love and forgiveness. He used the story of the woman kneading bread to instruct how we are to be leaven in our world. The woman seeking a lost coin and the Good Shepherd going after the lost sheep show how God searches for us when we are lost. Familiar images like a woman kneading bread or searching for a lost coin fill the parables in Scripture.

Stories have a way of conveying abstract concepts and making them clear. They also make them easier to remember through the familiarity and even humor contained in them. Who could forget the mustard seed, the smallest of seeds, growing into a large tree for birds to nest? Or the lilies of the field that neither sow nor reap, yet are more beautiful than Solomon in all his glory.

Jesus wanted us to see God in the ordinary events of everyday life, to see how God permeates our world. He is present in our pain and loneliness, in our heartbreaks and misunderstandings. He is present in the beauty as well as the turbulence of nature. He wants to be with us even when we are unaware of his presence. May the stories we hear during this Lenten season bring us closer to our God who loves us and wants to help us to be our best selves.