Storypath/Cuentocamino: : THE ALAN STOREY MONOLOGUES

THE ALAN STOREY MONOLOGUE: WHAT THE VISITING PASTOR

SAID THE WEEKEND HE TAUGHT IN OUR VILLAGE,

SELECTED LISTENING OF A POET’S EAR

Part One: Early Listening:

My colleagues are ordained to meetings, not the word of God.

We’re going to look at the word. I do not

promise a comfortable weekend.

The Bible calls itself a double-edged sword. We’re going to get cut.

If you’re going to get Jesus, you’re going to get him in community.

Add the metaphors of the past, to get meaning
from the word in the now.

Give me neither poverty nor riches, feed me with daily bread.

Praying the first echoes of what was already there.

Manna and mercy, what Jesus put at the core.

I grew up in apartheid South Africa, born in 1968.

The people who administered apartheid knew

the Bible backwards and forwards.

…nearly a million people killed in Rwanda.

How is it, people dropping drones across the world claim the Book?

This Book is the most bloody book in the world.

To enable us to read the book meant to bring light to the world,

while bringing death and destruction needs to be stopped—

and if we can’t, let’s stop reading the book at all.

My greatest distance from you is my greatest gift.

May we ask to grow, not argue to win.

Receive my assertions as questions.

One of the words for God is impossible to pronounce.

How not to be able to use Scripture for death and destruction…

The Jesus story

The Christ event

The interpretive lens

through which

we read Scripture

Would Jesus say Amen to that interpretation?

Which Jesus?

Some Jesus’ drop bombs quite easily.

Paul says we teach Christ and Christ crucified.

Would your Jesus give one any reason to crucify Jesus?

Where your Jesus challenges hierarchy gets people edgy,

but none of those Jesus’ warrant crucifixion.

If I were to go to Pharaoh, who owns all the gas in the world,

I want to go before him with a fuel

that doesn’t come from Pharaoh’s world.

When you’ve lost everything,

you don’t give a damn how the world was made.

Love breaks out of the facts.

Lives, stories, make believe.

I don’t know if it happened

that way or not,

but I know this story is true.

The snake represents anything and everything in the world

which raises questions about where our salvation is found.

We have to have a story to take us to the truth.

…then you’re Babylonian. That’s what Babylonians believe.

To give your heart to love…to believe

in the assassin’s bullet or the cross.

It doesn’t fill churches.

Death on a cross in a rubbish dump outside of Jerusalem—

that’s what we have to look forward to—

the world sees it as failure.

But you can’t see

resurrection until you’ve been to the cross.

Much of Scripture looks and feels like modern Christianity.

If God is not loving I’m not interested in God.

My still point, here. My immovable…

I am born in love, by love, and for love.

Freedom not to love…in order to have freedom to love.

I don’t know anything about you,

but I know the deepest thing about you.

Our own Scriptures contest the still point.

Because the stories of Mandela were so many,

and so consistently the same, it’s beyond doubt true of Mandela.

But the agenda…this is what we can learn from him now.

You cannot follow Christ as a pastor of only one tribe.

Where is the other? That is my agenda.

Natural born killers? Or natural born lovers—

with the choice to be killers.

Through the lens of Jesus.

What is the real, real, reality?

That’s my immovable point.

I question everything from that point.

I am born in love, by love, and for love.

When we move towards truth

we knock against power.

How we change the narrative.

Jim Bodeen, Listening/Listener

January—April, 2014
Yakima, Wa

ALAN STOREY MONOLOGUE PART TWO, SATURDAY MORNING

IN THE VILLAGE OF THE EMPIRE, WHAT THE VISITOR SAID,

THE SAME SETUP-- HOW IT COMES THROUGH THE EAR OF THE POET

Part II: Through the Lens of Jesus: The Still Point

I am born in love, by love, and for love.

In Hebrew, African languages speak plural.

When we really nail Jesus down

we’ve probably nailed him to the cross.

There is no such thing as out of God.

That whole thing of backsliding. No.

When we can absorb that truth, we’re liberated.

Freedom or death…when you get to that place.

You’re free because nobody can rule you.

God wants to come through you.

When he shows up, he’s not just coming to you.

Salvation for some is not good news to all.

I live in Cape Town, a hot tourist place.

Security will keep you safe

and you won’t even know it’s there.

There is no such thing as private salvation

because sin is democratic.

Sin is personal, but it is also social.

Where have you been, God asks,

with those dirty hands? We’ve even

dirtied the culture of change.

No such thing as privatizing.

Reading Scriptures

with a wide angle

and a zoom lens

bumping into fertility

Can institutions be redeemed

I am addicted to my position

I don’t want to give it up

How do I get out

of the swimming pool

without slipping

I am addicted to a way of life that kills people. I am a killer. Jim is a killer. Destroying this miraculous land, I am like a slave driver 300-400 years ago. Where is your 12-Step Program for economic analysis.

How are we doing

I eat before I am hungry

Can we say, Amen

Take a break

Moses, a redeemed murderer

Prejudice makes you stupid

Midwives bring forth lives

In all oppressive states

If you have been present at the birth of a child,
you know pharaoh is not God.

Put the child on the river, not in the river.
God works behind enemy lines. Don’t paint the enemy with one brush.

Moses grows up

He has no male friends

as a child

living with survivor guilt

in surround sound

of privilege

God doesn’t forsake

even in a God-forsaken place

Moses, David, Saul,

with blood on their hands

What God can do with murderers

Imagine being a teacher

in the wilderness school

We work so we have something to share with the needy. Not an earning but a giving. Earn a giving. I grew up in a Jewish area.What Christians call the Preamble to the Ten Commandments, the Jews include. The Lord is embedded in grace.

Lovers have sacred language

The only way out I know

Find someone you trust

to bring your story to light

If someone comes to you

with their story of division

Shared, a privilege,

a sacred space

In our deepest darkness

we feel a bright light

Enjoy being engaged

in moral courage

When I am in the presence

of people who have too little

then I have too much

We buy houses with people

who have pretty much

what we have

This is the pain of living in two worlds. Fighting Zulu warriors, the few beat the many, giving God the glory (actually it was gunpowder). Hit me as an equal or don’t hit me at all. One thing greater than being naked is causing nakedness. In the doorpost of the kitchen, particularly in the U.S…

God can only play one music

the music of love

Can you imagine Jesus

sending someone to eternal fire?

He didn’t do that to Pilate.

God doesn’t send motor vehicles

to run us down.

Jesus is God’s answer

to a bad reputation.

For love to stop loving

is for love to stop being.

Shalom. Justice.