The Kitchen Sink
An occasional piece of paper
April 4, 2010
Vol. 13 no. 14
Idle tales have become our strong suit. No matter where it is in the world, people love to tell and hear stories. Whether such stories are true or not is of little interest; that is, whether all of the events and details can be verified by reliable witnesses and/or a television camera. The best stories may indeed be literally untrue - but not false, because even in a fairy tale we listen carefully for the truth contained in what is narrated.
Every novel is an idle tale, and too many a history book promotes more idle tales than cold hard facts. That is because real history, “the Truth,” consists as much of attitudes and thoughts and perspectives, memories and grudges, than can be squeezed into an evening news segment.
It has become even more popular to state boldly that what we read in the Gospels and elsewhere in our religious literature is one long idle tale that should not be paid attention to - and that’s in our churches! Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris, et al, have hit the mass media at full speed, blaring loudly that religious faith is an idle tale, and therefore deviously false.
In order to tell our story right, one must begin by saying, “on the morning of the third day.” What is deeply true here is that something happened not just any Sunday morning, “once upon a time,” but on the third day after a specific historical human being Jesus of Nazareth was crucified, dead and buried. Most of Christianity has forgotten to tell any stories on Saturday, but as it was becoming light an idle tale began spinning. Even the apostles, who would benefit the most from a different story, considered the report of the women at the tomb impossible. So Christianity began with an impossibility; that’s why we have endured.
Preached by Robert Kitchen
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan