II Samuel 12: 1-8

Rewriting our stories II: Dialogue

Last Sunday we talked about how we can rewrite our stories by looking at plot.  By changing how we view the plot of our lives (negative, positive, irrelevant, random etc.) we can, in a sense, rewrite our story. As followers of Christ we accept that God places our lives within a larger story, that our lives are, so to speak, subplots of that greater plot God is rolling out in time.  Today we look at stories by considering dialogue.   I have heard it said that “dialogue” is “the wheels” of the story, the thing that moves the story along.  I guess plot would be the engine.  A story without dialogue gets stuck in the mud.  The quality and quantity of dialogue really matters, although there doesn’t have to be a lot of it. 

                  In the text of our lectionary reading in II Samuel, David gets hammered by Nathan for his despicable behavior by breaking up the good marriage of Uriah and Bathsheba.  But Nathan knows he has to do it subtly because this is the King he is talking to and he wants his dialogue with this king David to be effective.  So he tells a story.  It is a brilliant move. David gets pulled in and when he judges the actor of the story, the rich man who steals a lamb, only then does Nathan point the finger.   What’s interesting in this text is that the dialogue IS a story.  I like that because most of the time God communicates to us by way of stories, the sacred stories of the Bible.  Any other dialogue God has with us is much more subtle and not always easy to read or takes place over a long time.

                  There is a tale of young man visiting his friend in a village in south east Asia. The friend has run out to run an errand and the father of the friend invites the young man to sit down and sit in silence together as they view the small livestock in front of the house.  The young man doesn’t like this situation as he suspects the father does not like him very much.  Finally the father of the friend speaks: “ Do you see that one chicken among the group of chickens.  That chicken does not belong there.  I wish that chicken wasn’t there.  The young man gets up, steps off the porch and away from the house, never to return.   Friends, the young man understood he was the chicken. 

                  Friends, while by changing the plot, we can start rewriting the stories of our lives, through dialogue we try to rewrite the stories of others.  We use dialogue to get something we want from someone or rather to get something from them. We use it to try and make people kinder or more considerate. We try to convince them. We try give them confidence, we use it to try to develop or deepen a relationship. Sometimes it backfires.

                  Friends, sometimes it takes a story to really tell the truth to our neighbors. Why is that?  I think it is because everyone’s life is full of stories. We are all a walking, evolving stories. Even our whole national dialogue these days, or should I say the absence of it, is all about stories running headlong into each other, different stories we believe, all dependent on the network we watch.  All the while we hope others will finally see that light.  Instead they just dig in deeper in their trenches.  The others fail to have their story be rewritten.

They just double down on their chosen narrative.

                  Friends, we are walking stories.  We are kind of like the Grand Canyon, with lots of layers (do you notice I am suing the story of geology).  There is the top layer of sandstone, and granite and basalt.  Some layers are only a hundred million years old. Some are as old as 515 million years. On top of it is a layer of scrub brush and small hardy trees.   When you and I talk to each other, we may be very open and truthful, but the person or persons we talk to are like the Grand Canyon: there is a history there.  There are generations of stories in that person, there are painful and joyful experiences, there are layers and layers of beliefs and fears, all drenched through by personality.  Friends, when we engage in dialogue, we are just fooling around with the vegetation on the top, the outer layer, but in fact we are talking to all the baggage people bring with them. I think we all forget about that all the time.  By being in dialogue, we inject ourselves into people’s multi-layered stories.  Others do the same with us.  If we are mindful of that, perhaps we will change how we talk.

Friends, let us be comforted.  God’s dialogue with us continues, even when our dialogue with others keeps hitting the wall.  God desperately wishes to speak to us and be loved by us as God desperately loves us. That is our belief.   May we be moved by this belief and moved to explore more deeply the millions of layers that make up the mystery of God.