Just a Story

“Jesus is just a story” - read on a fb post this a.m.

just + story = does not compute

When it comes to story, nothing is ‘just’, diminutive, reductive, only, merely, or ‘just’.

Story continues to be the way we humans make sense of ourselves and our world.  The narrative framework sets up how we share ourselves and others with each other.

You may know my father, if at all, only through my stories of him.

Granted, that’s not the same as knowing him, but it’s as good as I’ve got, and at that, it’s actually pretty fine.  When I tell of his life-shaping trip to buy his first pair of shoes (for school), you will know some of his sadness.  When I add the context of the Depression, you will know of his shaping.  If I told you of his penny-pinching ways as an adult without adding the story of the shoes, you would know something of him, but in a very real sense, what you would know would be wrong; worse, it would be false.

So to the unknown fb commenter, all I can say is that Jesus may well be a story, but never just a story.  And what a fine story he is.