Christianity is a story. Your life is story. Everything is a story.

Pay attention today to your slice of this world—see and hear what stories are being told around you. Will you watch a TV show or see a movie? Stories. Most songs we listen to—whether Kanye West or Johann Bach—are stories set with a tune. Advertisements are all stories—stories about what you could do or be if you only had that product. If you're working right now, your company has a story of its life—where it envisions itself in its industry and how it plans to get there. Our economic crisis is an unfolding story, the ending of which is not yet clear. 

Your life is an unfinished story, too. If someone asks you how your day went, chances are you'll answer by telling a story, capturing the events and emotions. You will set the scene, relay dramatic events, and bring it to some sort of conclusion. If someone asks you how your life will turn out, you might offer them your dreams and hopes... or fears.

Human beings are storytelling creatures. Stories are how we process what is real. We are drawn to stories that are beautiful and useful. But we are also drawn to stories that deceive us--that seem alluring at first listen, but prove damaging or destructive as they unfold over the span of days, months, sometimes years.

What stories are important to you now? Why? Which stories have you memorized and made a part of your own story?  Are the stories you internalize beautiful or useful? How do you know?

Marble Church, like any other institution, is an ongoing story, of which you play a role. It is a living story that draws its life from the story we tell every year during Holy Week. As you come to church next week, on Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday, listen to the story.

Pay attention to where it seems beautiful, useful, even deceptive. Is this a story worth taking in, making part of your own story? In all of its turns and emotion, mystery and terror, where does this story meet yours?