The storyteller was dead. They knew how much they were going
to miss the stories that he always told them. Stories that were
meant to help them understand some point about the Father's
Kingdom. He had told them about the son who left home, wasted his
fortune and then came back to the arms of a loving father. He told
them about the woman who lost her gold talents and searched all day
to find them. He told them about tenant farmers and kings who
invited people to rich and wonderful banquets. No more would they
hear these stories because the story teller's own story had come
crashing down so very quickly and ended so abruptly, so violently.
There would be no more stories from him. Either his parables or by
the way in which he lived.
But just when it seemed that the stories were over, suddenly
new stories were being told. No, not by him, but rather about him.
The women were telling stories, fables really, about how the
storyteller's life was not over, not ended. He was alive and his
story was going to go on. Who could believe these impossible and
improbable stories. But yet it was really true. The storyteller
was alive and he was going to live. Not in the way that it had
before, but rather in a new way. At the right hand of his Father
and in the hearts of those who would be his believers. From now
on, the storyteller would rely on them telling his stories. Both
those that he had told and especially those that he had lived.
Those women were the first to come and tell this most central story
that the book was not ended, but only a new chapter was beginning.
From that first Sunday to the present our faith has relied on the
story being told, first by the women then by the Twelve and then
down the centuries by all sorts of different believers who have
told and explained and spoken the truth of how the story continues
to touch their lives and change the way in which they live and the
manner in which the world operates.
As we have come to this point in our lives because other
people have first told us the story of the storyteller and his
victory over death, so we must always see Easter as that time when
we are called to tell the story ourselves. This book of the life
of Jesus, the storyteller, is one that continues from generation to
generation. His story continues everytime we live in the Spirit of
the stories that he gave us. It lives when we imitate the first
storytellers. But let us do it in the manner that John, the
Evangelist has told us at the beginning of his first letter. Let
us tell the story that we know to be true from our experience of
the Storyteller living in us and continuing to make his story known
throughout the world "This is what we proclaim to you, what was
from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our
eyes, what we have looked upon and our hands have touched -- we speak
of the word of life. This life became visible; and we have seen
and bear witness to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life
that was present to the Father and became visible to us. What we
have heard and seen we proclaim in turn to you, so that you may
share life with us." When we proclaim the story of Jesus alive in
our lives, we do what John calls us to do. We also imitate the
great storytellers of our faith. But most especially, we imitate
the great Storyteller himself.
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Holy Family Catholic Church
705 North 3rd Avenue
Lanett, Alabama
334-644-4405
Email: barsboy@mindspring.com (Father Marty)
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Rectory
300 Sheppard Street
West Point, Georgia
706-645-6783
706-585-2453 (cell phone)
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Immaculate Conception Church: Roanoke, AL - 334-863-4418 |
