by Kathy Brasby | Oct 4, 2013 | Hope
I once sat through a 16-hour class in two days and figured it would take plenty of caffeine to keep me awake. I was wrong.
The professor sat on top of his desk and seemed to rabbit-trail into a story at every opportunity. He gave us conflict and resolution, drama and mystery.
At the end of the class, I realized that he had landed all his key points through the story telling. He didn’t need lectures because he had tales to tell.
The Bible uses similar strategy. Stories beckon to our emotions, offering visits to different settings with people we don’t know.
We follow the thread of conflict and drama, eager to see what happens next. Our emotions are captured by the stories.
Whether it’s in a classroom or sitting at a coffee shop, stories always trump lecture.
From the beginning of Genesis, where we are given a dramatic unfolding of the creation of the world, to Revelation where we trek through mysterious accounts to read the final plan for the world, we find the Bible packed with stories about people and events, disappointments and victories, love and conflict.
In Genesis alone, we meet numerous people and their life stories. Noah is well-known today for his faithfulness in building an ark before there was a sign of a flood. We ask questions. How could he devote his life to this carpentry? What did the neighbors say to him? What did he say to them?
Abraham’s story fills much of Genesis and we follow his travels from his homeland to an unknown land. He tussles with his nephew, Lot, and with his wife, Sarah. Promises are made to him that he doesn’t see results for many years.
How did he feel when Sarah asked him to produce an heir through a servant? And, later, did he mourn when Sarah forced him to send mother and son – his son – into the wilderness?
What did the celebration look like when Sarah did bear a son, Isaac? Do we like Sarah? How does she train up her son?
We identify with the people and the stories. We grow in our empathy.
Like my professor who used stories to make his points, the Bible plants meaning through stories.
by Kathy Brasby | Oct 1, 2013 | Hope
These six ducks were to be the start of our duck herd and we were thrilled when three mamas crafted downy nests in the lean-to of our old barn.
We counted down the days until the fuzzy ducklings would emerge from those eggs.
Five days before hatching, we found all three nests empty with just a few egg shells scattered around the edges to reassure us we hadn’t dreamt the whole thing.
After the second time we lost eggs, we decided to set a humane trap.
It took five days or re-setting the trap every night before we caught our varmint because we were rookies at the trapping game.
But early on a Saturday morning, we crept into the lean-to to see the trap had done its work.
We were sure we’d find a raccoon but not so. Instead, a skunk was pacing inside the wire.
My husband was unimpressed. He’d planned to spend the day working on the lean-to. It needed some propping up or the duck nests would be pancakes soon.
The last thing he wanted was a skunk to discharge its displeasure in his work area.
We were not only rookies at the trapping game, but also at the catching game. We didn’t know what to do with a skunk.
Fortunately, a savvy neighbor gave us a hint. The skunk, she claimed, wouldn’t spray if it couldn’t see so cover the trap with a blanket and carry the cage away.
My husband is not ordinarily a delicate man but his care in laying that blanket over the wire rivaled a mother with a newborn. Once he had the cage covered, he summoned our older son.
Armed with a .22 rifle, my husband carried the blanketed cage a quarter mile away into our grassy pasture with our son, who was 8 at the time, trailing badly. Like you’d do if you were following a skunk.
He had no problems with idea of shooting a skunk that had been eating duck eggs. But he did have a problem with what came next.
My husband set the trap on the ground and turned to our son. “You pull the blanket off slowly and then I’ll just shoot the skunk while it’s in the cage.”
Our son walked toward that trap like his shoes were in cold honey. He stopped, leaned forward and grabbed a corner of the blanket with the tip of his fingers. His pull lasted as long as the last 15 minutes of school on a Friday. Then the cage was clear. He took off like he could outrun skunk stink.
Dad took care of the rest.
A month later, three nests full of ducklings hatched. We burned the blanket and left the trap in the pasture to air out.
But the best part was that our son really did outrun the skunk stink.
by Kathy Brasby | Sep 27, 2013 | Hope
Many allusions come from Job’s story and yet we all wonder just what the meaning of the story is.
We’re told, for example, to have the patience of Job but was he so patient? He didn’t deny God but he did some griping.
What was the purpose of those friends and their advice? Why didn’t Job listen to them? Should he have listened? Did his wife have it right when she told him to curse God and die?
How could he, in the midst of his dilemma, craft a phrase that is now a part of well-known Easter hymn: “I know that my redeemer lives”?
And what do we make of the closing chapters of Job? Was God rebuking or instructing Job? Did Job do well – or forget his place?
I might write more on Job another day but I found an intriguing article this week that I want to share instead.
Scot McKnight offers some thoughts: And then God instructs (or rebukes?)…Job and us.
by Kathy Brasby | Sep 24, 2013 | Family
Since my husband is an expert in measures and machines, he was the logical one to ask.
“How much does a Chevy S-10 pickup weigh?” I said.
“Oh, about 3200 pounds.” He was working on a game on his iPad so I didn’t get much of a look.
“And an old Ford half-ton pickup?”
“About 3500 pounds.”
“And a flatbed trailer?”
He still didn’t look up from his game. “About 1500 pounds. And that’d work. The Ford could easily pull a trailer with the S-10 on it.”
“No, the other way around,” I said.
And I had his attention. He’s a protective guy and he shook his head. “Oh, no, you’d never want to pull a Ford pickup with an S-10. Maybe across town if you went slow.”
“Well, I already did it.”
When we were first married, he might have berated my foolishness. But after all these years, his response was, “Oh,” and he went back to his game. He’s met some of my ideas.
I wish I’d known him when I launched the great idea of helping my brother. I owned the S-10; he had the Ford which died at my house.
We lived about 80 miles apart in those days and I figured I could bring his pickup home on a trailer.
Have you seen that Ford pickup commercial where the driver sees a boat on a trailer go by and realizes it’s his?
That was nearly me.
Visualize the dinosaur tail wagging a terrier and you’ll get the idea.
I made it home. On the interstate. At 40 mph. With the monster disguised as the Ford half-ton breathing hot on the back of my neck while it lurched toward the edge of the road every one of those 80 miles.
I get many ideas but let me assure you that this was not one of the good ones.
by Kathy Brasby | Sep 20, 2013 | Bible
Biblical stories use many strategies to convey a message, including ridicule. We’ve looked at humor before but let’s examine a few points of sharp humor in the book of Esther.
Early in the story, we meet Haman, a cocky official of the king. He expected everyone but the royal family (we assume) to bow down and pay homage to him. Even the royal staff had to do so – and this happened “because the king had commanded this to be done for him.”
When Mordecai, Esther’s guardian, refused to bow to him, Haman was filled with such rage that he plotted to destroy all of Mordecai’s people – the Jews. This was a great example of hyperbole. Why not give Mordecai some public service tasks or maybe even put him in the stocks for a day or two?
The drama increases with this proclamation but there is more humor coming. One night, the king asked Haman what should be done for a man who had pleased the king.
This question was a springboard to the huge misunderstanding. Haman assumed this man was him and so he crafted an elaborate parade to honor himself.
But the reversal came soon, when Haman learned that his moral enemy, Mordecai, was the man to be honored. And he endured further insult when the king instructed that Haman lead this parade honoring Mordecai.
The story continues and we find Haman at a dinner with Queen Esther and the king, a dinner he assumed honored him. Instead, his plot is unveiled and, in a desperate effort to plead with Esther, he is found in a compromising position by the king. Another reversal for proud Haman.
The gallows that Haman had built to hang Mordecai turned out to be the very gallows where Haman met his own demise.
These reversals propel the story to its triumphant conclusion, where the Jews were not destroyed but instead rose victorious.
Haman was the perfect foil – a proud, boastful man who tried to use his lofty position to destroy God’s people. Instead, he suffered humiliating reversals because of his own proud position.
He got his come-uppance and I can hear the early listeners whistling and jeering at just the right times as his story unfolded.
They got the humor of the story – and the meaning deepens as we get it, too.