Jeremy L. Berg

I can only answer the question, “What am I to do?” if I can answer the prior question “Of what story or stories do I find myself a part?”

– Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue

My granddaughter loves to act out the stories she hears.  She is the heroine of a seemingly endless stream of mysteries, adventures, and tragedies.  She boldly invites any ‘innocent’ bystander into the story – sometimes as the victim, sometimes as the bad guy, and sometimes as the loyal sidekick.

Recently we watched “The Wizard of Oz” together.  For the next 2 weeks she was Dorothy.  My wife, my daughter, and I were the Tinman, the Cowardly Lion, the Scarecrow, the Wizard, and the Wicked Witch of the West depending on what the story required at any given moment.

In his book Washed and Waiting Wesley Hill notes how the early Christians were known for their countercultural lifestyle – selling their belongings and giving to the needy; visiting the sick,  the imprisoned, and outcasts; and participating in a weekly church service when the world around them focused on accumulating wealth, ostracized the undesirables, and participated in orgies and drinking parties.

Hill asks, “What was it that motivated a lifestyle so radically out of step with the prevailing norms and customs of the surrounding Greco-Roman culture?”  Hill’s answer is:

“Becoming a Christian in those days meant learning the story of Israel and of Jesus well enough to interpret and experience oneself and one’s world in terms of the story…The early Christian countercultural allegiance to Christ doesn’t make sense apart from a set of theological convictions presented in scripture (the goodness of God’s creation, the covenant with Israel, Christ’s defeat of evil, sin, and death)…For the early Christians, the story of God’s work through His son, Jesus, provided that bigger picture within which their strange, unnatural choices and actions made sense.”

In other words, the early Christians chose to remove themselves from a story that was based solely on their own lives and live in a story based on something bigger than themselves.  What the world viewed as strange made perfect sense within the context of their own story.  Their actions were not sacrificial, they were the only rational choice within the story they were a part of.

My question to you is simple, “What story are you living in?  Are you living the world’s story of materialism, selfishness, and self gratification, or the much larger story of a triune God who loved us enough to send His Son to die for us and the Holy Spirit to comfort and guide us?

Read other posts by Mike Fox here.