God loves stories

There's a Yiddish proverb that says, "God made people because He loves stories." And, as we should know, everyone has a story. Everyone IS a story. We don't just tell and hear stories, we ARE the stories we tell. Our view of the world and of ourselves and how things work and why things are, all of it, is shaped by the frame through which we perceive the world, and stories provide that frame. Not that truth is entirely subjective -- there is Truth outside of ourselves, Protagorus -- but our understanding of it (and our misunderstanding of it) is.

To illustrate, let me tell you a story. In the year 612 BC or so, Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon conquered the tiny state of Judah and deported all the good-looking, smart princes of the Hebrews to Babylon. But they were not maimed and enslaved; no, they were given free scholarships, room and board at the University of Babylon (you can read about it in Daniel chapter one). Why was Nebuchadnezzar so generous? Well, he wasn't. The 'catch' was that the young men could choose only one major: Babylonian Language and Literature. He knew that people's identity and perceptions are shaped by stories and songs and language itself, and so the plan was to turn these young leaders into loyal Babylonians. They would cease to be Hebrew, because they would no longer remember their Story.

This is why we have Genesis chapter 1. An unknown priestly writer in Babylonian exile knew the Hebrew Story needed to be preserved and taught. So he composed this wonderful liturgical poem (yes, it's basically a song) to counter the culture's story of how Marduk defeated the competing gods and goddesses in battle, cut a major female deity in pieces to make the world and formed the first humans from the losers' blood drops to be his slaves. In a striking contrast, we have this beautiful poem arranged in typical Hebrew parallelisms (a pattern of repetition and balance) to describe a single, sovereign and all-good Creator who calmly spoke the worlds into being, making three habitats, then three categories of occupants for those habitats, with humans as noble vice-regents, and finally resting on a '7th day' to indicate completion, peace and wholeness. The Universe is personal, purposeful ,balanced, and beautiful, and humans are God's creative co-partners in it. How's that for a contrast?

(Yes, there's a second creation tale that follows it, very folksy, but that's another -- ahem -- story).

I suppose the basic point here is this:  When God wanted to reveal something about Himself, we got stories, songs and poems. Most of the Bible as we have it is in the form of story, one way or another. And the human writers, diverse and distributed over centuries, were not interested primarily in 'history' as we understand it, but in HiStory (I mean, "High Story"), storytelling with a higher purpose. And what we have is high art, as well. There are fewer stories in world literature better told for character and suspense than Joseph in Genesis or Saul and David in First Samuel, for example, or The Gospel according to Mark which is full of rhetorical skill. And let us not forget that when Jesus taught in the Gospels, He employed folksy, funny and insightful short stories that we call The Parables.

So maybe this is why we are compelled to tell stories. They give us meaning. And God loves them.