In a journal I only recently saw for the first time, my Granny, deceased many years now, writes of an older relative who would tell her juvenile self and siblings ghost stories at night. The stories, she says, were so terrifying that at bedtime she and the other young ones could not sleep. How does she describe the storytelling ogre who robbed them of their sleep? “He was real fun.” For other entertainment, by the way, the siblings would throw bull nettles at each other until they were in such pain they had to jump into cold water for relief.
People we assume to be elsewise sanguine who seek out stories to frighten them or competitions to challenge their bodies may appear slightly daft. Yet focusing on disruptions and difficulties is not an oddity in human nature; it is the norm. No story begins and ends with a pacific calm unbroken by storm. The storm makes the tale. In a world without flaw, perhaps interests would be different. But a worthless physician receives a patient only to exchange pleasantries. The bad news and the prescribed treatment (which is often its own bad news, though slightly less so) are often the essence of a patient’s hope.
Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? (Luke 14:27-28)
To those interested in following the rabbi disrupting first century Palestine, Jesus tells stories of ghastly executions and promises daunting tasks—not because each will literally be crucified, and not because any of them will likely build an expensive tower. He describes danger and risk because their lives and their world need healing, need change, need disruption. Following him means pursuing the challenges and risks which might make us look a little daft—might keep us up some nights; might even have us plunged beneath cold water to reset our lives and begin again.
May the challenges and risks our Storyteller and Physician gives us bring life to this week.