By Carlo Sosa-Ortiz

I remember taking a preaching class during my time in seminary, and all of us were fretting over our manuscripts. We were a classroom of aspiring preachers, and some of us had more experience than others when it came to proclaiming the Word. Needless to say, many of us wanted to leave some sort of mark on each other. I was trying (perhaps a bit desperately) to be a wordsmith, making sure that each word in my manuscript was neatly placed and carefully chosen to get the exact meaning of what I wanted to say in the most poetic way possible. 

Just before dismissing the class for the day, our professor reminded us: “People will remember your stories more easily than anything else you say.”

I’m reminded of the time I tried to teach the kids a lesson during Sunday School, but one of the kids remembered that I once told them a story of how I loved to play my Xbox during my free time. They interrupted the lesson and unleashed a barrage of questions: “Mr. Carlo, what’s your favorite game? Mr. Carlo, does Ms. Grace get mad that you play video games all the time? Mr. Carlo, you don’t live at the church!?” I decided to take a break from the lesson and told the kids all about my videogame hobby. 

Something shifts in us when a good story is told. We become totally engaged and begin to look at a person, group, or situation in a new way as if a veil has been lifted on something ordinary and we’re barely seeing something for what it actually is. In that moment, the kids weren’t very interested in what I had to teach, but boy were they enraptured (and a bit curious) when I told them that Star Wars: Battlefront 2 is the best game ever. Their interest was because they were now seeing me as a person, a person with stories to tell, rather than a teacher with Bible facts to throw at them.

I’m reminded of my friend who, when he talks to his children at the end of the day, doesn’t ask them: “How was your day?” or “What did you learn?” Instead, my friend asks a simple but even more powerful question: “Tell me a story.” Tell me a story of when someone was kind to you. Tell me a story of something that made you nervous today. Tell me a story of someone you admire. Tell me a story.

Storytelling is so embedded in our faith tradition. Like that gospel song I sang every Easter in my Baptist days reminds me: “I love to hear the story.” We can look to Christ as the greatest storyteller who used everyday and common objects like mustard seeds and yeast to dazzle his audience into imagining the kingdom of God. From Christ we learn that each of us have stories that we need to tell.

Frederick Buechner once wrote: “It is important to tell at least from time to time the secret of who we truly and fully are – even if we tell it only to ourselves – because otherwise we run the risk of losing track of who we truly and fully are.”

Every year during Lent, we remember Christ who became fully immersed in our earthly way of life and practices.  Lent is our chance to focus on Christ through little practices that make big changes, a lot like storytelling. 

Have we become people who have forgotten who we are? Do we need an opportunity to remember our own stories that have become lost over time? When we become people who have lost our stories, we end up accepting a highly edited version that we put out before the world, hoping that others will find us more acceptable. To use my favorite Catholic priest’s words, we end up creating a “false self.”

As Pádraig Ó Tuama says, our world is more interested “in being comforted by the damp blanket of bad stories.” What we need more than anything else are “stories of belonging that move us towards each other, not from each other; ways of being alive together.” And the only way to do this is to put away that false self we have fabricated and to open ourselves up to those around us, to share our stories of joy and pain, to remind ourselves of who we are and who we belong to.

God’s story, Christ’s story, your story are great stories to be told. By telling these stories to others, you guide others through a spiritual practice with the potential to bring freedom, connection, and a glimpse of God.

So, practice telling these stories with those you love. Tell of times when you felt Christ in your life and the times you felt abandoned. Share what moves you and inspires you. Look for patterns and themes in your life and discover when Christ felt most real to you.

But remember that the spiritual act of storytelling is just as important for the listener as it is for the storyteller. Keep your ears open! I suspect that those stories we harbor deep inside of us are really not that dissimilar from the stories others carry. When we can reach inside of us and in vulnerability share those secrets, we come closer to the Great Storyteller who is, of all our stories, the most precious we have to tell. 

Great Storyteller, how often we try to hide who we truly are from others and from you. We hide stories of pain, guilt, and inadequacy, afraid that others might shun us or disregard these emotions. But we also hide our joys and loves, afraid that others might not receive them or accept us. Lord, during this season of Lent, push us to become more aware of the ripples of your presence in our daily lives. By doing so, may we see the patterns and themes in our stories and how so often they are weaved together with the stories others treasure in their hearts. Amen. 

Carlo Sosa-Ortiz is Associate Pastor of Christian Education at First Central Presbyterian Church