"It is too bad we know Jesus' stories so well, or think we do. We have read them so often and heard them expanded in so many sermons that we have all but lost the capacity for hearing them, even let alone for hearing what they are really about..."
"The worst of it, of course, is the way we think we know what Jesus' stories mean. Heaven knows people like me who ought to know better have explained the life out of them often enough, have tried so hard to pound the point that, more often than, all you can hear is the pounding..."
"Is the point of Jesus' stories that they point to the truth about you and me and our stories? We are the ones who have been mugged, and we are also the ones who pass by, pretending we don't notice. Hard as it is to believe, maybe every once in a while we are even the ones who pay an arm or a leg to help..."
"Either life is without meaning, or life doesn't mean a damn thing. You pay your money and you take your choice. Only never take your choice too easily, of course. Never assume that becasue you have taken it one way today, you might not take it another way tomorrow."
"One choice is this: it is to choose to believe that the truth of our story is continued in Jesus' story, which is a love story. Jesus' story is the truth about who we are and who the God is who Jesus says loves us. It is the truth about where we are going and how we are going to get there, if we get there at all, and what are we going to find if we finally do. Only for once, let us not betray the richness and depth and mystery of that truth by trying to explain it.
Let us instead tell a story that is the story about every one of us."
- Secrets in the Dark, Frederick Buechner
1 comment:
Good post. I've read something by Buechner somewhere, and I recall I liked it, but I can't find it right now. Ah, old age, it's wonderful.
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