Re:Verse passage – Mark 4:1-20 (day four)
David Brooks, the famous Christian journalist, once said, “Rather than asking someone what they believe, ask them how they came to believe the way that they do.” This causes the other person to speak about themselves in a narrative. They might tell you about their upbringing, or formative experiences they had. The conversation often goes better when we frame something in a narrative, because narratives are the primary way that we see and experience the world.
We may not have an audible voice narrating our life like in the movies, but we often view ourselves as characters in a story that’s playing out in real time. This isn’t just a quirk of the human imagination, it’s how God designed for us to think and experience the world. We are part of a larger cosmic story of God’s work in the universe, a story that is revealed to us in Scripture and one in which we are certainly not the main character.
Jesus reflects this cosmic narrative by speaking to his followers in narrative. As Bryan said, Jesus is the master storyteller. My hope is that we will place ourselves in the stories we read in Mark and respond to Christ accordingly. This week, we find ourselves as seed among soil. Where are you in relation to the sower? What kind of soil do you find yourself in? What must happen in your life for the seed to take root and bear fruit? How does your place in this story reflect your place in the larger story of God’s work in the world?