Text speaks to the imagination.
In the scriptures God communicates with us through stories, poetry, drama, proverbs etc. These are all forms of writing that speak to the imagination. This is how God has chosen to communicate with us.
It is helpful to look at the distinction between textbook reading and storybook reading and to explore where the Bible fits in.
When we pick up a textbook to read it we have one attitude or frame of mind and we pick up a story book we have a different attitude or frame of mind. In textbook reading we are looking for facts and information whereas with a story we are looking for engagement and identification. For example we read a textbook to learn that Tallaght is in County Dublin, that Dublin is in Republic of Ireland and Ireland is in Europe. These are objective facts in the sense that this is the case regardless of my opinions or judgements. It is also true that these facts are static in the sense of unchanging. In learning these facts it is the rational part of the brain that is active.
When we read a story it is the imagination that is active. We find ourselves drawn into the story, entering into the story with our thoughts, feelings and emotions, identifying with the characters or actions, liking some disliking others, feeling with them, suffering with them, celebrating with them, wanting to influence their thoughts, choices and decisions, becoming involved in the movement of the story. A good story engages us at many levels: physically, mentally and emotionally. That is the form of story and that is what it is meant to do. That is how a story works.
And the question is sometimes asked which is more important: textbook or storybook? And nine out of ten will say textbooks are more important because textbooks are serious whereas storybooks are only for pleasure and entertainment. But if you think about it stories are much more important than textbooks. Because stories communicate values, nurture our attitudes, form our minds and hearts. They are working on us indirectly and moulding and shaping how we see ourselves, how we see others, the kind of people we want to become, the goals or ideals that we want to live up to.
And the question arises: whether the Bible is a textbook or a storybook. The Bible is story book. Yes, it is possible to read the Bible and glean certain facts and information from it: eg. The names of twelve apostles; that Pilate was the governor in Judea at the time of Jesus etc, but that is not why the Bible was written. The Bible was written to communicate values, to form us and shape us into the image and likeness of Jesus, so that we might put on the mind and heart of Christ, that we might become more fully children of God. We read in one of the prefaces of Lent we read “as we recall the great events that brought us to new life in Christ you bring the image of your son to perfection within us.” That’s it ! That is why the scriptures were written – so that we might grow into the mind and heart of Jesus Christ.
The Bible was written as story and if we teach it as a textbook we are going against the very nature of the Bible. If we read it as textbook we are going against how it is meant to be read. The Bible is a collection of story-books and each story book is itself a collection of stories written down so that we might come to experience the image and likeness of God in which we are made.
Text is Homecoming experience
Reading the Bible stories is just like the experience of looking at an old family photograph album. These are pictures of our family and they help us to appreciate who we are today.
But it is also homecoming, in that it brings us to a deeper appreciation of the world in which we live today. We come to recognize that our stories too are Bible stories; our stories are sacred stories – God is present and at work in our life experience. Jesus is here; the disciples are here; our community is a Bible community. Our bible reading gives us a sense of our identity and our dignity and value as children of God.
As we read in the letter to the Ephesians 2:19-22 –“So you are no longer aliens or foreign visitors: you are citizens like all the saints and part of God’s household. You are part of a building that has the apostles and Prophets for its foundations, and Christ jesus himself for its main cornerstone. As every structure is aligned on him, all grow into one holy temple in the Lord; and you too, in him are being built into a house where god lives in the Spirit.” (Eph2:19-22).
Scripture stories ‘indicate’ or ‘suggest’ rather than ‘define’.
There are stories that are clearly defined in terms of colour, shape size etc. There are stories that are purely suggesting: giving the outline but have to be filled in. We have to do that.
There are no descriptions of Jesus in the gospels. We do not know what Jesus looked like. Of course the first disciples knew what he looked like – how tall, the colour of his hair, whether he wore a beard, the colour of his eyes, the colour of his skin. These are all left out and deliberately so. This allows the listener to fill in the defining details from our experiences. This allows all of us to be Jesus and Peter, and John etc. You cannot say someone looks like Jesus. Because we do not know what Jesus looked like. So no one is excluded from representing the Jesus person in the gospel. The gospel is a little bit like the colouring books we filled as children: we were given the outline of the characters and the actions but we have to fill them in for ourselves from our own life experience. In this way outlining or suggesting stories facilitate our entering into the passages today.