Issue 265
Based on Luke 10:25-37
There is one final character from whom you can benefit if you let the Jericho road run through your working week; we met him before when we started this mini-series. It’s not the expert, the four travellers or the audience; it’s the Storyteller himself. We’ve looked at his use of stories and questions and his brilliant techniques of matching the content to the hearers. However, to glean the last lessons you will need to look at his crafting of the story – for the crafting process itself can give you profound insight into this business of communication with which we are all involved, all of the time. This process has four components to it and you will spot the irony as soon as we look at them.
Firstly, the Master Storyteller’s stories almost always have one main point. I’ll leave you to figure out the main point of the Jericho road,.but the lesson is powerful. Cluttered communication confuses the receivers. So if you want to get something across, put it in focus. By all means illustrate the point from ten different angles, but make the one point. If the communication process demands that you make more than one point, it’s still wise to make one point at a time.
But this is more than just storytelling; this is about living and working. If your life and work is to communicate the Kingdom in a unique and powerful way then you would do well to consider what is your main point. Your fearful and complex design is able to communicate an aspect of the spiritual which no one else can – do you know what it is? This is why it is worth exploring your own mission and life purpose so that you can make, rather than miss, your main point.
To move up a level, each story of Jesus was also connected to the theme of his life which he described in phrases such as “the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many”.
Secondly, when we move into this story you can see that he makes his point using a variety of contrasts and surprises. Contrast the traveller’s attitudes; find yourself surprised at the Samaritan. If you want to communicate anything – and certainly anything as important as what you are about as a person, then explore the contrast and surprises at your disposal. You are a person of mistakes and failures yet rescued and restored; you are dust of the ground and Breath of God; you are fallible, yet connected to the infallible.
The big surprise is that God the Son has built a home in your soul and takes you down road after road, step by step, in step with his heartbeat.
You are a morally concerned yet fun-loving combination. Many will be surprised at a Christian who is for celebrating fun rather than a puritan who is against all pleasure. You want to get things right yet recognise that you don’t.
I suggest you pray every day “Lord let my life at work be full of contrasts and surprises, and never let my life be explicable or explained away”.
The third component we’ve already seen, and it is how the Storyteller bounced his ideas off other people’s questions to make his point and introduce his contrasts. So, the message is to keep listening to the questions in your soul and those of others. Why answer the question, “Was there an Adam?” when your colleagues are asking “how can I make it through the day?” Why answer “is there life after death?” when the question is “how can I build a better company?” Why answer “is the bible the word of God?” when the question is “why do I feel my self-esteem is shattered when I am criticised?”
Unless you answer the questions people are actually asking you will find yourself walking by, accidentally, on the other side of the road and sharing your irrelevant journey with the priest and the Levite.
But there is one final insight to be had here. It is the fourth component of the Craftsman’s skill, and as with the event at Cana, the best wine comes last. This Storyteller’s stories always contain the Storyteller himself. He is in each story – they are dramas about a Kingdom and the King is always in the cast. Once you know this, then the deepest meaning of the story tumbles out into your lap. So where is he on the Jericho road?
The answer, of course, is obvious. Jesus is the Good Samaritan himself – the one who rescues, restores, brings you to safety and pays the price. But this Storyteller is never that obvious. What did he say about the last drama of all, in response to the question “when did we see you hungry and naked?” He said that when you reach out to the battered and broken, you reach out to him.
So now it is obvious: Jesus is the traveller, beaten up, giving his life but also giving us the chance to show compassion to others.
But this Storyteller is never that obvious. The truth is that he is to be found in the dynamic between the two. Jesus is both the rescuer and the victim. He is the beaten and battered and the helper and healer. He is the broken restorer and the wounded healer, the giver of mercy who was shown none.
The Christian faith is a dynamic which moves between brokenness and restoration. It is a dynamic where the brokenness itself becomes the means of mercy. You can’t have a Good Samaritan without a tortured victim, and the tortured victim provides the opportunity for dynamic love.
So the surprise of the Jericho road is that the reckless risk of the tortured and beaten traveller-Christ is united with the reckless risk and merciful extravagance of the rescuer – you can’t have one without the other. The question on this road was “who is my neighbour?” In the end the answer is “I AM”. Christ is found in the kiss between pain and love – I told you he was full of surprises.
Luke 10:25-37
25 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?” 27 He answered: ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.'” 28 “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.” 29 But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 30 In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32 So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’ 36 “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” 37 The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.” Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”
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Geoff Shattock
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