Power of Stories

THE POWER OF STORIES

Let me tell you a true story.

It is not a story of mine but one of William Vanstone's which he recalls in his book, Fare Well in Christ.

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The story concerns two brothers, Walter and Robert, who were two parishioners he knew in the Autumn years of their lives.

Walter and Robert were the only two children of parents who were not so much neglectful as cruel. The shared suffering of their childhood created a special bond between them which endured long after they were married and had children of their own. They worked for years in the same mill; never lived more than a few hundred yards from each other and, in their retirement, spent countless hours fishing together in the local mill ponds and canals.

However, on one particular Saturday whilst they were fishing together, some kind of quarrel or difference of opinion developed and was not resolved by the time they parted company to go home.

That same night, the elder brother Walter had some kind of haemorrhage. His wife called the doctor who gave some immediate medication and sent for an ambulance. Sadly, Walter died before reaching the hospital.

When his brother Robert learned of this he went hysterical. He was overwhelmed by shock and grief and particularly by guilt. He was convinced that it was he who had caused the quarrel, that it was the quarrel which had caused the haemorrhage and that had caused Walter's death. In short, he was convinced that he was guilty of the murder of

his brother.

As the day progressed he brooded on his guilt and became more and more distressed. At the mere mention of Walter's funeral, Robert would flare up in anger, claiming he did not want to know about it or even attend it.

In desperation the family tried to comfort him. It could not be denied that the stress of the quarrel might have hastened Walter's death. However, it was pointed out that Walter was a very understanding, kind-hearted and forgiving man and that the last thing he would have wished would have been that Robert should feel as he did. Alas, this was of no avail and did not remove the sense of guilt.

Later on in the same day, Walter's young widow, Alice, came round with a fishing rod in a green case. She turned to Robert and said "Here, Robert, this is for you" but he refused to accept it knowing that it had belonged to his late brother.

But Walter's wife persisted. She told him that after the doctor had gone the previous evening, and before the ambulance had arrived, Walter had asked her to fetch his favourite fishing rod and to take it round and give it to his brother Robert.

Like a shamed child, Robert accepted his brother's final gift. After that he was able to talk naturally about Walter as "my brother" or "our Walter" as they say in the north-west of England. He was able to discuss the funeral arrangements, and later attend the funeral. Afterwards, he regularly used his brother's fishing rod whenever he went fishing.

Vanstone concludes that he was still sad and lonely by his brother's death and it was not long before he himself died. Nevertheless, he lived his last few months free from the terrible burden of guilt which had first laid upon him.

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Now why have I told you this story?

Let me try and unpack the story a little bit. It is obvious that the story which Alice had told Robert had a very powerful effect upon him; it freed him from his sense of guilt and saved him from despair.

Robert already knew that his brother Walter was an understanding, kind and forgiving person. However, when these statements were made by his wife and family they did not alleviate his distress. They were powerless to remove his sense of guilt - in fact they made the burden even heavier.

It was only when Robert heard from Alice the story of the particular things that Walter had said and done before he died, that the burden of guilt was able to be lifted from him. The meaning of the story to Robert could not be distilled into and conveyed to him by general statements about Walter; it could be conveyed only by telling and hearing of the story itself.

Yes, stories of particular events tend to be more powerful in invoking a response than do statements in general terms.

Take, for instance, appeals on the media for famine relief and similar causes. These tend to be more effective when they are focused upon the suffering of a particular family, or a particular child. Factual statements like "a million people are starving" evoke less swift and generous response than a story in pictures of words of what a particular family is going through. The statement itself is not misleading: but the power of its meaning is stronger when it is illustrated or reinforced by the story.

Sometimes the meaning of a story has to be spelled out, as I am doing now in respect of the Walter and Robert story, whereby the meaning is clarified by statements. Nevertheless, the meaning cannot be distilled into statements or adequately conveyed by statements. The meaning of the story can only be received from the story itself: it can only be fully conveyed by attention to the story.

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When I hear the word "story" I automatically recall that old Victorian mission hymn:

Tell me the old, old story,

Of unseen things above,

Of Jesus and his glory,

Of Jesus and his love.

Tell me the story simply

As to a little child,

For I am weak and weary

And helpless and defiled.

Tell me the old, old story,

Tell me the old, old story

Tell me the old, old story

Of Jesus and his love.

And that is exactly what the biblical writers seek to do, and that is why the "hearing, reading, learning and marking of Holy Scripture" to quote the words of the collect are so important. The Bible consists of stories which seek to tell something about God's love for us as revealed through Jesus Christ.

To say that God is love is a statement which does not move you or me. It is factually correct, but it does not have the power to convert or change our lives. But to tell the story of the prodigal son, which reveals a father's love for his son, a love which is prepared to allow him his freedom, and prepared to bear any consequent hurt that may result from giving him that freedom, a love which went on loving and loving and loving him even when the son turned his back on his father, and finally a love which was prepared to forgive him and embraced him when he returned home - such a story has the power to change the lives of you and me.

It was through the original telling of such stories by word of mouth in the market places of the Mediterranean Countries, that the early disciples initially converted men and women from their pagan ways to follow Jesus Christ.

As that great New Testament scholar C.H. Dodd has pointed out, it was not by the moral teaching of Jesus that first preachers offered and presented to their hearers that people were converted and their allegiance won. Rather, it was

the story of particular events involving Jesus that first preachers told, and it was by that story that people were converted. It was only to people who had already responded positively and appropriately to the story that - often at those peoples' own requests - the preacher presented the moral teaching of Jesus.

Dodd came to the conclusion by looking at the first sermons ever preached as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles. When he laid them side by side he noticed a common pattern to the story.

Their essentials were that recently in the land of the Jews a certain Jesus went about doing good and healing all

manner of sickness and suffering: that the authorities for some reason turned against him, brought capital charges against him before the Roman Governor and demanded the sentence of crucifixion; that he died by crucifixion and his body was given burial; but three days later he was raised from death and came again to certain of his friends and was seen by them and talked with them. And at the end of the story the preacher appealed to his audience to respond with

"repentance".

In other words, central to the preaching of the gospel was the telling of the story and its inherent power to change people's lives, as the story told by Alice changed the life of her brother-in-law Robert, by removing his burden of guilt which he had following upon his brother Walter's death.

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My friends, let us never underestimate the inherent power of the story to change people's lives. Let us be prepared to tell our own particular story to others. And let us resolve to familiarise ourselves with the greatest story ever told by the regular reading of the Bible. Forget about statements. Concentrate upon the story.