The stories we tell ourselves

John 1: 1-14
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
January 5, 2020

People will argue over just about anything. On New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day I saw a number of posts on Facebook and Twitter arguing about whether 2020 is the end of a decade or not. People who said they had studied history argued that there was no year ‘0’ in the Gregorian calendar. Others said decades begin with a zero, as in the ‘60s began in 1960. On the other hand, I stated that every day is the beginning of a new year, a new decade. I said that January 1st is also just another winter day and that there are also other New Years—Rosh Hashanah, Chinese New Year, as well as 23 others around the world—and got called a “Debbie Downer” for pointing it out.

There’s only one global New Year celebration, on January 1st, based on the Gregorian calendar. The Gregorian calendar was instituted by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 as a modification of the Julian calendar proposed by Julius Caesar in 46 BCE and instituted in 45 BCE. It’s the calendar of empire and power. The other 25 New Year celebrations are ethnic or cultural or religious celebrations, each of which has suffered as a result of empire, colonialism, and power. Each of these celebrations tells a story of some kind, a story that gives identity, meaning and purpose and brings people together.

Right now it is the story of war, a story of fear that some are using to give identity, meaning and purpose and to bring together those who believe that war and fear are what will move the story forward. Some very dangerous evangelical Christians, some of whom advise the Trump administration, believe that war between Iran and Israel will initiate the second coming of Christ. Our president has said he believes that God is on our side. On the other hand there are Muslims in Iran who see the United States as the great Satan or adversary and can you really blame them given the behavior of our government in Iran since the coup d’état in 1953? All of our stories depend on our point of view, on who is telling the story and for what purpose.

The first verses of the gospel of John can also be translated in this way: “In the beginning was the Story, and the Story was with God, and the Story was God. The Story was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through the Story, and without the Story not one thing came into being. What has come into being in the Story was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. …And the Story became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen this glory, the glory as of a parent’s only child, full of grace and truth.” Just as our stories are born out through our flesh; just as grace and truth and love are made visible when we embody them.

Delbert Orr Africa, Aug. 8, 1978, Philadelphia

Then there is the story we remember on Communion Sundays, a story of betrayal and desertion, a story of body broken and blood poured out, a story in which we commune with the death of Jesus. We may not equate this story with salvation because of all the theological baggage that goes with it. And yet if it were not for the broken bodies and blood shed by women suffragettes 100 years ago we would not have the 19th amendment that gives women the right to vote. Bodies were broken and blood was shed to end slavery and the spread of fascism. March 7, 1965, Bloody Sunday, was the first of three protest marches from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, which led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act in August of that year. LGBTQ bodies, black and brown and immigrant bodies, disabled bodies, children’s bodies: when the most vulnerable amongst us tell their stories of suffering, Jesus is there in the midst of them inviting us to be in the midst of them.

It’s important that we hear the stories that disturb us, that frighten us, that we’d rather not hear as much as the stories that comfort us and encourage us. It’s significant that we commune with the death of Jesus because when we do, we also commune with our own death. We commune with our discomfort, our denial, our fear. We commune with suffering. We commune with what it means for each of us to pick up the cross in our own stories and what it means for us as Church to pick up the cross in the story of humanity. We commune with what it means to do harm, even in what looks like a meaningless argument on Twitter. We commune with what it means to be vulnerable, what it means to be alive, what it really means to love.  And this is what can save us.

The stories we tell ourselves matter. I often wonder if the point of this whole existence is that we each live our own story as authentically as we can, honor the stories of others, create stories that bring us together, all without killing each other in the process. I’m not sure what I’m willing to die for but I know there is nothing for which I am prepared to kill or to do harm. “What has come into being in the Story was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”

The light shines through the story of Jesus, through each of our stories and hopefully through the story of humanity. That light is love. Martin Luther King Jr., when he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize said these words:



“Sooner or later all the people of the world will have to discover a way to live together in peace, and thereby transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of [unity]. If this is to be achieved, [we] must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love. … I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of thermonuclear destruction. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality.”



May it be so. Amen.



Benediction – stanzas from “Pray for Peace” by Ellen Bass


Pray to whomever you kneel down to:
Jesus nailed to his wooden or plastic cross,
his suffering face bent to kiss you,
Buddha still under the bo tree in scorching heat,
Adonai, Allah. Raise your arms to Mary
that she may lay her palm on our brows,
to Shekhina, Queen of Heaven and Earth,
to Inanna in her stripped descent.


Waiting in line for the movies, for the ATM,
for your latte and croissant, offer your plea.
Make your eating and drinking a supplication.
Make your slicing of carrots a holy act,
each translucent layer of the onion, a deeper prayer.


If you’re hungry, pray. If you’re tired.
Pray to Gandhi and Dorothy Day.
Shakespeare. Sappho. Sojourner Truth.


With each breath in, take in the faith of those
who have believed when belief seemed foolish,
who persevered. With each breath out, cherish.