The Rev Roddy Hamilton urges us to view faith stories from other perspectives

WE all like a good story and we have a plethora of them. Stories are one of the greatest gifts faith has to give the world: stories that play with meaning, explore our humanity and our place in the world, and express the dynamics of all our relationships.

They stand on their own. Stories. We often fall into the trap of thinking we ought to explain them once we have told them. Bang goes the impact! They are never meant to be told the same way every time. They aren’t tied down to a single outcome that is locked in for all time. Perhaps that is why we have stories that are thousands of years old and are still speaking into life today. They grow through many layers which we hear in different contexts and different times.

One of the ways we control religion is by dictating how stories are understood. Yet, are not all God’s People capable of listening and exploring such stories, without an ‘authorised version’ being all that is on offer? Might we dare offer a style of worship where different understandings of the same story are honoured?

I remember being at a number of services in KwaZulu Natal in South Africa. I was given a passage and had to preach on it. Then we sang. Immediately someone else from the congregation stood up, and spoke on the same passage. After more singing, another, and another and another, all the way through the night. The same passage was handed to the congregation, and each was invited to express what they felt, or experienced in it. It was a generous way to explore the gospel, recognising the power of it is found in the sharing of it, listening to the diverse ways a single story is heard.

Our style in Scotland is more generally to tell a faith story and explain it. What would happen if we did the opposite: explained first the background of the era, the culture of the people, the environment in which it was told and let people hear the story? What new things might we hear?

For example, the Good Samaritan: who would the first hearers identify with? It wouldn’t be the Samaritan who is our contemporary go-to person. The original hearers would identify with the one who was beaten up. They knew what that felt like, so how do we hear the story from their context? How should we treat our enemy when one day our life might rely on them? The story now feels different.

Or, Peter confessing Jesus as Messiah in Caesarea Philippi, a place surrounded by Roman and Greek gods. Jesus is looking round at all these statues and asks, “So, who do people say I am?” It shapes a different context and a reason for the question and comparing himself to the powers of the world.

“ Might we dare offer a style of worship where different understandings of the same story are honoured?

Or Jesus entering Jerusalem on a donkey at the same time Pilate does on his white stallion on the other side of the city. The romanticised children’s story of palms being waved in some merry display is not so innocent. Jesus is placing the kingdom face to face with the powers of empire.

Less explanation. More context. Our stories find new life. It is almost like hearing them for the first time. Again.

The Rev Roddy Hamilton is minister at Bearsden: New Kilpatrick.