Living in The Story

You have heard the old saw “forgive and forget,” but I will argue that not only is it impossible, forgetting also is unwise. God may be able to forgive and forget, but that’s not usually how it works for us humans.

Experiences that have been seared into our souls leave indelible marks that change us in deep ways, and because we are human, those events stay with us. Some things we just cannot forget.

Besides, I think there is something biblical and wise about remembering—remembering who we are, what we have been through, and what we’ve learned along the way.

I believe a key part of faithful and wise living is our remembering, remembering even past hurts. For one thing, remembering honors the pain we have borne. We shouldn’t dismiss and downplay our pain because betrayal hurts deeply and the remembering of it acknowledges how damaging and deadly sin can be.

In remembering we do not stuff our feelings or dismiss the hurt, rather we honor the significance of the wrong that has been done. We grieve the damage done to relationship: we grieve the loss of trust. We don’t say it’s okay, that it doesn’t matter, because it does matter. It matters to us. It matters to the health and to the witness of the entire community. It matters to God.

For another thing, in our remembering we hold each other accountable to right behavior and Christ-like living. We don’t make excuses for people who have hurt or harmed someone else or let them off the hook.

Destructive behaviors need to be exposed and confronted. Healing happens in the light while toxic festering is what happens in the darkness of denial . . .

Right remembering not only recollects the wrongs done to me, it also remembers how easy it is for me to inflict hurt on others. Right remembering makes us wise and keeps us humble . . .

Read more at Charlotte Vaughan Coyle. Living in The Story: A Year to Read the Bible and Ponder God’s Story of Love and Grace (pp. 106-107). Resource Publications. Kindle Edition.

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Living in The Story readings Week 7

Genesis 37-50

Psalm 55

Psalm 75

Psalm 107

Galatians

Mark 8-10

I dislocated my shoulder during the week I was preparing to preach the Genesis story about Jacob’s encounter with God by the river Jabbok. That entire week, I was moving slowly with a fair amount of pain; all that week I was living with my own limp, so now I have much more sympathy for Jacob than I had ever had before.

As I studied Genesis 32, I kept thinking about the ways we all wrestle with God—at least the ways I know I wrestle with God.

• I struggled mightily with my call to ministry. It took me years to be able even to hear a call; then more years to know how to say “yes” to that call; then even more years to lean in wholeheartedly to God’s call to ministry.

• I struggle to understand why cancer, dementia, and hopelessness continue to be epidemic; why some babies are born much too early and some people die much too soon; why violence and arrogance and divisiveness seem to be valued in our society while compassion, cooperation, and humility are scorned.

• Sometimes I struggle to forgive; I struggle with insecurity; I struggle with discouragement.

It seems like I am always living my life with a limp and I imagine you have your own list. I’ve come to believe that if we are human then there will always be ways we wrestle with life; ways we wrestle with God.

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Read more at Charlotte Vaughan Coyle. Living in The Story: A Year to Read the Bible and Ponder God’s Story of Love and Grace (pp. 93-94). Resource Publications. Kindle Edition.

Readings for Living in The Story Week 6

Genesis 27-36

Psalm 46

Psalm 47

Psalm 117

Romans 14-16

Mark 1-7

We’ve considered the faithfulness of father Abraham on his journey of faith and we’ve been impressed by his commitment to follow God; to trust and obey. But this? This story of the binding of Isaac stretches me beyond my comfort zone.

Who is this God who would ask such a thing? Who is this father who would do such a thing? Who is this beloved son who would give himself willingly—and why? . . .

The Living in The Story readings for this week juxtapose the Binding of Isaac with the Passion of Christ because this way of reading provides an important and intentional theological perspective. Consider Jesus as the beloved son, but for Jesus there was no ram in the bush; he truly died on that cross. He died as a human knowing that when people die, they stay dead.

Even so, Jesus died holding onto a tenacious, stubborn, absurd resurrection faith, a faith so grounded in the faithfulness of God he believed God’s promise could never be annulled.

Ever since, followers of Jesus still grapple with the mystery: What does this mean?

Read more at Charlotte Vaughan Coyle, Living in The Story: A Year to Read the Bible and Ponder God’s Story of Love and Grace (p. 85). Resource Publications. Kindle Edition

Readings for Living in The Story Week 5

Genesis 21-26

Psalm 22

Psalm 34

Psalm 116

Romans 9-13

John 18-21

Journey is and has always been a primary paradigm for the way of the people of God. Journey is an important metaphor that stands in opposition to seeing ourselves as a settled people. Because settled faith can be comfortable, safe, and predictable, we too easily can become set in our ways; we become stuck.

That’s why an intentional and disciplined faith journey is crucial. Even when we journey in fits and starts as Abraham did, even when we don’t know where we’re going or exactly what we’re doing, even when we make mistakes or refuse what God is unfolding before us—even so we, like Abraham, can “hope against hope” that all this is going somewhere, somewhere good and right.

Like Abraham, who saw the fulfillment of God’s promise not with human eyes but with the eyes of hope and confidence, we too entrust ourselves to the one who is our Eternal Center, the one who generates all hope.

That faith reminds us why we need each other, why we need spiritual community: to encourage each other and to embody hope for one another throughout life’s journey.

Whenever we see ourselves journeying with Abraham, on the move with Paul, following Christ as the Way, then we can live with confidence that in this journey of understanding, of thought, of theology, of practice, of life, then we are on the way with God.

Even though we may feel sometimes like we’re going around in circles, maybe what we really are doing is progressing through the spiraling path of a cosmic labyrinth God is unfolding before us.

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Read more at Charlotte Vaughan Coyle. Living in The Story: A Year to Read the Bible and Ponder God’s Story of Love and Grace (pp. 75-76). Resource Publications. Kindle Edition.

Readings for Living in The Story Week 4

Genesis 12-20

Psalm 23

Psalm 25

Romans 4-8

John 13-17

We humans are naturals at self-righteousness and we have excellent skills at self-deception. Martin Luther (and Augustine before him) talked about sin as “the self curving in on itself,” Homo incurvatus in se.

This “curving” I think is part of what it means to be human, each of us individually and all of us together. The nations we build, the societies we form, even the churches that are supposed to offer a radical alternative to this universal human tendency—even the church all too often is a “self curving in on itself.”

When the apostle Paul wrote his letter to the church at Rome, his description of human sinfulness was stark and startling. Something like the Genesis description of the downward spiral of humanity in the days of Noah. Something like the heart breaking cries of the psalmist. Something like the systemic brokenness of the world of Jean Valjean in Les Misérables. Something like the ugly realities of ovens of Auschwitz, or killing fields of Cambodia, or slave ships in the Middle Passage. Something like the gut wrenching stories we keep hearing every time we open the newspaper or turn on our TV.

The human condition is shot through with a sense of separation from God, with a reality of estrangement from one another, and with a deep awareness of fragmentation within our own souls. Our bending in upon ourselves is an embedded pattern that perpetuates itself from generation to generation.

Awareness of these realities can spiral us down into despair.

Or this awareness can be the soil within which grace grows roots and redemption bears fruit.

Surely Paul wrote Romans in conversation with the Adam and Eve story in Genesis 3: “Where are you?” the Creator calls, walking in the garden in the cool of the evening. “Where are you? I miss you.”

This sad story says the humans were hiding, their eyes opened to the estrangement that had now come into existence. Their eyes opened to their new independence that felt a lot like isolation. The humans were now untethered and set adrift from the Source of their life. That’s what broken relationship looks like and feels like. These broken relationships are everywhere we turn, and they break our hearts. Or at least, I hope this breaks our heart; I daresay it breaks God’s heart . . .

This God of Justice and Grace is the one upon whom we are called to bend ourselves so that our lives will align with that which is true and good and right and just; so that we may be the body of Christ working God’s work in the world.

Like the priest who offered radical grace to Jean Valjean, we are called to be God’s partners, offering new possibilities in life’s impossible circumstances; called to do God’s work in our broken communities, created to shine God’s light into this stubborn darkness, challenged to inject grace into the vicious cycles of whatever Jean Valjeans may show up on our doorsteps.

And we don’t stop. We don’t stop entrusting ourselves and our families and our communities to the Creator who is still creating and recreating goodness out of our every chaos . . .

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Read more at Coyle, Charlotte Vaughan. Living in The Story: A Year to Read the Bible and Ponder God’s Story of Love and Grace (pp. 61-63). Resource Publications. Kindle Edition.

Readings for Living in The Story Week 3

Genesis 3-11

Psalm 5

Psalm 10

Psalm 53

Romans 1–3

John 9-12

In the first creation story of chapter 1, we see Israel’s testimony that God is the Transcendent One, outside of creation, speaking and willing everything into existence, while in the second creation story in chapter 2, God is the Immanent One, intimately bound to creation.

God is both/and, unsearchable and yet, at the same time, known. Unreachable and also near like a friend in a garden.

In this conception of a purposely-crafted creation, the biblical authors claim that we humans are God’s creatures, God’s desire, God’s beloved—and ultimately God’s responsibility.

These stories remember the one who is Source, Sustainer, and Goal; they remind who we are and why we exist. They remind us whose we are—creatures of the creation intimately bound to the Creator. The stories remind us who we are and they remind us whose we are.

The stories teach us that God is God and we are not.

This re-writing, re-telling, re-imagining became Israel’s Scripture, and these creation stories continue to be foundational stories for Jews and Christians alike because they affirm that our very existence is gift and grace . . .

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Read more at Coyle, Charlotte Vaughan. Living in The Story: A Year to Read the Bible and Ponder God’s Story of Love and Grace (pp. 51-52). Resource Publications. Kindle Edition.

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Readings for Living in The Story Week 2

(Follow the links to read in BibleGateway)

Genesis 1 and 2

Psalm 29

Psalm 33

Psalm 104

Psalm 148

Proverbs 8

John 1-8

Colossians

Our first week of reading the Bible with Living in The Story begins by considering the nature of Scripture. Together we will ponder the question, “what kind of book is the Bible?” as we read this week.

A popular aphorism says: “We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are.” I absolutely believe this. We all interpret. We all interpret everything. There is no such thing as un-interpreted awareness. We all have some lens or another through which we see the world. We all have a framework with which we make meaning. This was as true of the biblical writers as it is true of us Bible readers.

The authors of these ancient texts began with faith. They started with a confidence that God was somehow in their story and as they collected and recollected the stories of their life together as God’s people, they sought to understand its meaning.

The biblical writers are not, for the most part, apologists, arguing for their faith in a way that was designed to convince nonbelievers. Rather their writings were intended to confess and explore their faith within a community of faith . . .

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Read more at Coyle, Charlotte Vaughan. Living in The Story: A Year to Read the Bible and Ponder God’s Story of Love and Grace (pp. 32-33). Resource Publications. Kindle Edition.

Readings for Living in The Story Week 1

Deuteronomy 6-8

Psalm 119

2 Timothy 3

John 5

Do you know how many creation stories are told in the Bible? This is not a complete list but it gives a sense of some of the Bible’s rich complexity.

Most people probably know about the version we find in Genesis 1. The Creator creates from a distance and outside of creation.

In the beginning— was God, creating the heavens and the earth . . . Then God said, “Let there be light.”

And God said. And God said. And God said.

Like a brilliant composer, imagination becomes palpable reality, and the music of the cosmos is created. Like a master conductor, with a nod to the string section, and then a wave to the woodwinds, and now a sweeping movement toward the brass section, a complex, polyphonic symphony of harmonies and melodies comes into existence.

“And God said.”

And then God created the humans in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female God created them. And God blessed them . . .

And God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good.

Then there’s a different creation story in Genesis 2. Here the Creator is close by and intimate, like a potter with dirty hands bending over her clay breathing life into her creation.

Then the Lord God formed a human from the dust of the ground, and breathed into its nostrils the breath of life; and the human became a living being.

Here’s a poetic version of the creation story from Psalm 33.

By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all their host by the breath of his mouth . . .

He gathered the waters of the sea as in a bottle and put the deeps in storehouses. Godspoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm.

Quite a few of the psalmists retold the creation story with extravagant poetry. Listen to Psalm 104.

O Lord my God, you . . . are wrapped in light as with a garment. You stretch out the heavens like a tent, you make the clouds your chariot and ride on the wings of the wind . . .

How manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all.

And then Wisdom herself speaks, telling her own creation story. Hear these words spoken from the mouth of Sophia/Wisdom in Proverbs 8.

When God established the heavens, I was there . . . when the skies above were made firm . . . and the sea was assigned its limit . . .

When God marked out the foundations of the earth, I was there, like a master worker; rejoicing always in the inhabited world and delighting in the human race.

Then centuries later, when the New Testament theologians wanted to tell the story of Jesus, the one who had completely changed everything, they were challenged to re-read their Hebrew Scriptures and reconsider everything they had known before. The prologue to John’s gospel is bold as he now saw the Genesis creation story through the lens of the Christ. John dared to re-write his Holy Scriptures when he said:

In the beginning—was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  The Word was in the beginning with God. And all things came into being through him; without him not one thing came into being.

John 1:1-3

And then the soaring poetry and high Christology of the writer of the letter to the Colossians:

Christ Jesus is the image of God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him.  Christ himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

Colossians 1:15-17

Creator-Redeemer-Sustainer: One God, forever and ever. Amen.

Living in The Story

So this is a quick summary of Week 2 of Living in The Story: A Year to Read the Bible and Ponder God’s Story of Love and Grace. 48 weeks to read the Bible by reading across the Bible.

When I developed Living in The Story, it was important to me to read the Bible in the Big Picture and to see how the Bible has been in conversation with itself over its many centuries. I want to understand how the Torah and the Prophets and the Wisdom writers explored and interpreted their own journeys of faith. How they asked the age-old questions: Who is God? Who are we?

And then I want to see how the New Testament theologians re-read their Holy Scriptures in light of their experience with Jesus, the one they understood to be the promised Christ of God. How did Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Paul re-think and re-imagine the ancient questions of their faith: What does this mean?

Read the Bible Through in 2022

A few weeks ago, a local pastor and I sat down for coffee and I was pleased to realize these questions are important to him as well. He invited me to come to his congregation to invite them to read the Bible through in 2022. Or maybe just read part of it. But it’s important for all of us Christians to read the Bible for ourselves because this is the book we claim as important—as guide and teacher, as comforter and confronter.

Living in The Story is one way to do that. The reading guide is the core piece of this project—a weekly plan that leads us across the sweep of the biblical story. The reading guide and several essays are available on the LivingInTheStory.com website, open to the public. The just released book Living in The Story offers all those resources expanded and edited into one convenient place.

But the main thing I want people to get from the Bible is The Story, The Cosmic Story of God’s Love and Grace to which the Bible bears witness.

Very Human Stories

I’m quite aware that many of the stories we find in Scripture are not stories of love and grace. There is plenty of violence and cruelty, greed, betrayal, and arrogance. But I think the very fact that these absolutely human stories are included in the church’s Holy Scriptures proves the point that this is not a magic book. Rather it’s a very human book written by humans for humans, a library of books that tell our human story honestly—the good, the bad, and the ugly.

That’s why the witness of love and grace is so remarkable. Within and beyond these limited human words, the church confesses that The Eternal Word is still speaking and Spirit is still inspiring and breathing life. We confess that God is still creating goodness and beauty and order out of every dark and ugly chaos. 

The Bible is not magic, but it is mystery. Much as the church confesses that Jesus the Christ is “truly human and truly divine,” so is the church’s book. Truly human words through which the truly divine Word still speaks. To us. Now.

Bold New World of Faith

I’m ever so grateful for this faith journey that has led me into a bold new world of faith where the journey keeps going “further in and higher up.”

I’m grateful for new eyes to see and new ears to hear with fresh insights the promise of Isaiah’s God: “I Am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” (Is. 43:19)

To hear Paul’s claim that: “if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” (2Cor. 5:17)

To hear the witness of the Revelation that the One seated on the throne is in the process of “making all things new” (Rev. 21:5).

This journey into newness, This Story of love and grace keeps unfolding before us and inviting us to come closer, go deeper, soar higher, and live larger.

Like Abraham, we’re invited to walk away from some of the things in our lives that seem settled and safe in order to journey into new awareness, new opportunities, new possibilities.

Like Jacob, we’re invited to wrestle with this God who calls us. To hold on with a stubborn, even stumbling faith in the God who changes us, re-names us, and re-claims us.

Like Mary, we’re invited to once again (and again and again) birth Christ into our own dark and desperate world. Even with our questions that echo Mary’s own questions: Who am I? How can this be? we, too, with Mary, are invited to risk everything and say “Yes. Let it be.”

God is Not Finished

The Story tells us that God is not finished. That Creator keeps creating love and grace in all sorts of unexpected places and unlikely people. The Story gives witness that the One True God: Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer will continue to form, reform, and transform everything until all God’s creation is brought together in a final conclusion of love and grace.

That’s the Big Story of the Bible I want to help others see and hear and understand. That’s The Story I want to live in.

Amen

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A version of this sermon was preached at Calvary United Methodist Church in Paris TX on November 14, 2021.

Living in The Story: A Year to Read the Bible and Ponder God’s Story of Love and Grace is available at Wipf and Stock publishers, Amazon, and Kindle.