Barbara Brown Taylor is an Episcopal priest who served in parish ministry for years, then left parish work to teach full-time. Then several years ago she left active ministry, while still retaining her priesthood, to explore who she is and who God is. She has written three books since that last move exploring her reasons and what she’s learned. She is an incredible writer and one of the people I read over and over again.
But I’m not here to talk about her today, but the person she speaks of in a quote of hers that is our starting point today.
I’m not sure of the exact source of this quote. This is what she says:
While I am not even close to being a writer of Taylor’s stature, I do share her passion for the magic of Frederick Buechner’s words. Anyone who has sat in my church over the years and listened to me preach can attest to that. I probably quote Buechner more than anyone out there. It warms my heart that someone I respect as much as I do Barbara Brown Taylor respects this man this much.
Well into his mid-nineties now, Buechner’s most recent work was published in 2017, but in his lifetime, so far, his has been a novelist, essayist, preacher, teacher, and theologian, as well as an ordained Presbyterian minister. But more than any of these – or maybe all of these put together – he is an amazing storyteller and it is his way of putting words together and his style of storytelling that I’m looking to find in scripture today.
Buechner respects words and especially the word of God:
Amazing storytellers such as Buechner tell stories in such a way that they ‘stick’. Their stories go to your mind, of course, but they go somewhere a lot deeper. They go to your heart and your soul and you feel those stories taking root there and you know they’re going to stay. These become the stories you remember throughout your life.
Buechner once wrote:
The great tellers of stories speak a truth to us – a truth that may or may not be entirely factual, but yet is true. The Bible is as full of great stories as any piece of modern literature. Take, for instance, the biblical story of the Great Flood or Noah’s Ark. This is not a story of scientific or historical fact. It’s a story that was lifted almost intact from the Epic of Gilgamesh, a story from Mesopotamia that was already ancient when the book of Genesis was written down.
The Genesis story is filled with internal inconsistencies -- saying something in one place and then a little further on, saying something else that contradicts the first statement -- and in spite of the best efforts of literalist believers today, it simply is not factual. But what it is, is true. It is a story that tells a truth about what happens when we drift from our deep connections to the divinity that guides our lives. And it’s a whopping good story, because we all remember it. People have been remembering it for 3000 years or so.
We remember our sense of horror when we realized that all the animals except those on the ark were killed, and the even worse realization that all the people were killed, too, and that somehow that handful left on the ark just wasn’t enough to make us feel better about it all. And we especially remember the promise of the rainbow – God’s promise to never do this again. This is a story that sticks to our bones.
The earliest writers of the Bible understood this – their teachings were not meant just for the moment, but were meant to stay. Listen to their determination to be remembered in one of the first iterations of the Great Commandment as found in Deuteronomy:
At one point in the gospels, Jesus is asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, and he told them that the kingdom of God was already among them. In every word spoken by the prophets in the past and in every word Jesus spoke to them while he was right there with them, the kingdom of God was planted deeply into every human soul and was with and within them right at that very moment.
Jesus himself, of course, was one of the master-storytellers. All those parables he used are just stories – stories told so well that we learn them and remember them and we adjust our thinking to match the revelations we hear in those stories. One of my professors once told me that parables are stories that make us go “huh.”
This is Buechner again, on the power of words:
So, since my goal here has been to connect the life-altering words of writers such as Buechner to the life-altering words of scripture, I’m going to shift to some books some of you may not be familiar with, the four Books of Maccabees. These deuterocanonical books are in the Apocryphal books included in some bibles but not in others.
They tell the story of a group of Jewish rebels who fought and won their freedom from the Seleucid empire – descendants of the Greeks who had conquered the near east under Alexander the Great. The Maccabees and those who fought with them broke free and created a free Judea once again – free until it was eventually conquered by the Romans who remained there through Jesus’ day.
I will let the writer of Second Maccabees have the final word here. His words sound quite Shakespearean to me, proving, once again I guess, the amazing power of words down through diverse centuries:
Very Shakespearean.
Thanks be to God,
But I’m not here to talk about her today, but the person she speaks of in a quote of hers that is our starting point today.
I’m not sure of the exact source of this quote. This is what she says:
- When I forget the power of the word, I read Frederick Buechner. When I forget the deep relief of telling the truth, I read Frederick Buechner. When I forget to look for the holiness all around me, I read Frederick Buechner. When I forget why the gospel matters, I read Frederick Buechner.
While I am not even close to being a writer of Taylor’s stature, I do share her passion for the magic of Frederick Buechner’s words. Anyone who has sat in my church over the years and listened to me preach can attest to that. I probably quote Buechner more than anyone out there. It warms my heart that someone I respect as much as I do Barbara Brown Taylor respects this man this much.
Well into his mid-nineties now, Buechner’s most recent work was published in 2017, but in his lifetime, so far, his has been a novelist, essayist, preacher, teacher, and theologian, as well as an ordained Presbyterian minister. But more than any of these – or maybe all of these put together – he is an amazing storyteller and it is his way of putting words together and his style of storytelling that I’m looking to find in scripture today.
Buechner respects words and especially the word of God:
- Our days are full of nonsense, and yet not, because it is precisely into the nonsense of our days that God speaks to us words of great significance—not words that are written in the stars but words that are written into the raw stuff and nonsense of our days, which are not nonsense just because God speaks into the midst of them.
Amazing storytellers such as Buechner tell stories in such a way that they ‘stick’. Their stories go to your mind, of course, but they go somewhere a lot deeper. They go to your heart and your soul and you feel those stories taking root there and you know they’re going to stay. These become the stories you remember throughout your life.
Buechner once wrote:
- Words written fifty years ago, a hundred years ago, a thousand years ago, can have as much power today as ever they had it then to come alive for us and in us and to make us more alive within ourselves. That, I suppose, is the final mystery as well as the final power of words: That not even across great distances of time and space do they ever lose their capacity for becoming incarnate.
The great tellers of stories speak a truth to us – a truth that may or may not be entirely factual, but yet is true. The Bible is as full of great stories as any piece of modern literature. Take, for instance, the biblical story of the Great Flood or Noah’s Ark. This is not a story of scientific or historical fact. It’s a story that was lifted almost intact from the Epic of Gilgamesh, a story from Mesopotamia that was already ancient when the book of Genesis was written down.
The Genesis story is filled with internal inconsistencies -- saying something in one place and then a little further on, saying something else that contradicts the first statement -- and in spite of the best efforts of literalist believers today, it simply is not factual. But what it is, is true. It is a story that tells a truth about what happens when we drift from our deep connections to the divinity that guides our lives. And it’s a whopping good story, because we all remember it. People have been remembering it for 3000 years or so.
We remember our sense of horror when we realized that all the animals except those on the ark were killed, and the even worse realization that all the people were killed, too, and that somehow that handful left on the ark just wasn’t enough to make us feel better about it all. And we especially remember the promise of the rainbow – God’s promise to never do this again. This is a story that sticks to our bones.
The earliest writers of the Bible understood this – their teachings were not meant just for the moment, but were meant to stay. Listen to their determination to be remembered in one of the first iterations of the Great Commandment as found in Deuteronomy:
- Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
At one point in the gospels, Jesus is asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, and he told them that the kingdom of God was already among them. In every word spoken by the prophets in the past and in every word Jesus spoke to them while he was right there with them, the kingdom of God was planted deeply into every human soul and was with and within them right at that very moment.
Jesus himself, of course, was one of the master-storytellers. All those parables he used are just stories – stories told so well that we learn them and remember them and we adjust our thinking to match the revelations we hear in those stories. One of my professors once told me that parables are stories that make us go “huh.”
This is Buechner again, on the power of words:
- When words tell of virtue and nobility, when they move closer to that truth and gentleness of spirit by which we become fully human, the reading of them is sacramental; and a library is as holy a place as any temple is holy because through the words which are treasured in it the Word itself becomes flesh again and again and dwells among us and within us, full of grace and truth.
So, since my goal here has been to connect the life-altering words of writers such as Buechner to the life-altering words of scripture, I’m going to shift to some books some of you may not be familiar with, the four Books of Maccabees. These deuterocanonical books are in the Apocryphal books included in some bibles but not in others.
They tell the story of a group of Jewish rebels who fought and won their freedom from the Seleucid empire – descendants of the Greeks who had conquered the near east under Alexander the Great. The Maccabees and those who fought with them broke free and created a free Judea once again – free until it was eventually conquered by the Romans who remained there through Jesus’ day.
I will let the writer of Second Maccabees have the final word here. His words sound quite Shakespearean to me, proving, once again I guess, the amazing power of words down through diverse centuries:
- I will here end my story. If it is well told and to the point, that is what I myself desired; if it is poorly done and mediocre, that was the best I could do. For just as it is harmful to drink wine alone, or, again, to drink water alone, while wine mixed with water is sweet and delicious and enhances one’s enjoyment, so also the style of the story delights the ears of those who read the work. And here will be the end.
Very Shakespearean.
Thanks be to God,
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