Perspective: Luke the Storyteller

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Luke the Storyteller

We announce to you what existed from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have seen and our hands handled, about the word of life.

1 John 1:1 (CEB)

Whenever you run away

Whenever you lose your faith

It's just another stroke

Of the pen on the page

A lonely ray of hope is all that you'll need

To see a beautiful history

From "Beautiful History" by Plumb

Not long after Jesus began His public ministry, He started calling people to be His disciples, people who would shadow Him over the next few years and would eventually carry on His ministry after He was gone.  According to the Gospels, the biblical accounts of the ministry of Jesus, the first four of these disciples were a group of fishermen whom Jesus met at the Sea of Galilee.

The earliest of the Gospels is attributed to St. Mark and is believed to have been written sometime between AD 60 and AD 70.¹  In Mark's Gospel, we read the basic facts regarding the first disciples' encounter with Jesus.

• Jesus is traveling past the Sea of Galilee.
• He sees Simon and his brother Andrew fishing.
• He says, "Come, follow me, and I'll show you how to fish for people."
• Simon and Andrew leave their nets and start following Jesus.
• Jesus sees James and John repairing their fishing nets.
• He invites them to follow Him.
• James and John leave their father in his boat and start following Jesus.²

In the decades after Mark's Gospel was written, two other Gospels were written.  These Gospels, which are attributed to St. Matthew and St. Luke, are both based in part on Mark's Gospel but also contain information gathered from additional research.^3 4  Regarding Jesus' calling of the first disciples, Matthew reports the same basic facts that Mark reports.  In fact, Matthew's account, as it appears in English translations, is almost a word-for-word copy of Mark's.⁵

Luke, on the other hand, does not simply report the facts of the first disciples' encounter with Jesus in his Gospel.  Instead, he tells us a fishing story.

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A massive crowd has gathered around Jesus by the Sea of Galilee.  Jesus tries to teach, but the people are so eager to hear Him that they crowd around Him, leaving Him without even enough room to breathe.  Jesus eyes a couple of fishing boats on the shore.  The fishermen who own them are cleaning their nets after a night spent not catching fish.  Jesus climbs into one of the boats, the one that happens to belong to a fisherman named Simon, and asks him row outward a little bit.  Simon obliges Him, and, from the boat, Jesus is able to teach the crowd.

Once Jesus finishes teaching and dismisses the crowd, He instructs Simon to row out to where the water is deeper and to throw His nets into the water.  At first Simon doesn't see the point, reflecting on the bad luck he has had all night, but reluctantly he decides to follow Jesus' suggestion.  Simon and his brother Andrew row out a little a bit further and throw out their nets.⁶  Simon then gets the greatest catch of his life: there are so many fish that the nets begin to break.  He signals his associates, James and John, who row out in their boat to help him.  They fill both of the boats so full of fish that they start to sink.

All of the fishermen are awestruck.  Because of this miraculous catch of fish, Simon can see that this mysterious teacher is indeed a man of God.  He throws himself down at Jesus' feet and cries out, "Leave me, Lord, for I'm a sinner!"

Jesus replies, "Don't be afraid.  From now on, you will be fishing for people."

The four leave their fishing business behind and become Jesus' first disciples.⁷

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Luke's account of the first disciples' encounter with Jesus contains most of the same information contained in Mark and Matthew's account, but, instead of merely reporting basic facts, Luke tells us a story that I think is a lot more interesting and compelling than bare facts.  Many people theorize that St. Luke was a physician.  It seems to me that Luke was also a person who understood the value of a good story.

Stories are important, because our stories make us who we are.  In some cultures, especially in the years before they had written languages, certain people were chosen to be storytellers.  Through their craft of storytelling, it was their responsibility to safeguard the history of their people from oblivion, passing on to future generations the stories of those who came before them and the values contained therein.⁸

We can see from the Gospels that Jesus himself knew the importance and power of story.  His teaching shows that He was very familiar with the stories of His people, and He used parables to convey profound truths that perhaps cannot be expressed directly.  Interestingly, two of Jesus' most moving parables - the Parable of the Good Samaritan and the Parable of the Prodigal Son - are exclusive to Luke's Gospel.⁹  Of course, Jesus was not the first teacher to instruct through storytelling.  For example, when King David destroyed the lives of two of his subjects through his abuse of power, the prophet Nathan used a story to make him see the cruelty of his actions.¹⁰  Even modern-day preachers know the importance of telling stories, for it is the stories that a congregation is likely to find most memorable.¹¹  Stories put flesh and bone on otherwise abstract teachings.

So often we try to read the Bible as a book of doctrine or a handbook for living.  The Bible, in which we read the different accounts of the ministry of Jesus Christ, is, first and foremost, a collection of stories that together make up an overarching narrative of brokenness and redemption, a story in which we all find ourselves to be characters.  The power of Scripture then is the power of story.¹²  Rules give us a reason to be rebellious, and doctrines give us a reason to be skeptical, but stories captivate us.

I believe that story is an extremely important part of one's faith.  Though many Christians like to quote Bible verses, I think it might actually be better to tell Bible stories.  Christians are called to share their faith with others as "witnesses" of Christ.  Though many are taught to "witness" through the use of arguments or doctrine, sharing our faith is more about sharing what God's love and grace means to us personally.  I've heard one preacher say that we are called to be Christ's witnesses and not Christ's lawyers.¹³  We are not called to make cases or arguments for Christ but are rather called to testify to what we have seen and heard for ourselves.

St. Luke is perhaps best known for his concern for the marginalized, and this concern is reflected in the stories he tells about Jesus' love for the people on the fringes of society.  Luke's Gospel was written to share the message of Jesus Christ with people who, at one time, would have been considered outsiders by some of Jesus' own people.  For these reasons, Adam Hamilton sometimes refers to Luke's Gospel as the "Gospel of the Nobodies."¹⁴  Luke's concern for the marginalized and his apparent love of story are not unrelated.  Stories have a way of breaking down the barriers that divide us.  It has been said that "an enemy is one whose story we have not heard."  If you want keep on judging and othering a person, then I would recommend that you do what you must to shield yourself from his or her story; otherwise, you might find that you are not so different.

Stories are very important, for it is our stories that have made us who we are.  As someone who has found great joy in sharing his story, I encourage you, the reader, to reflect on your own story and to consider ways that you can share it with others.  Sharing your story might be difficult, as it would require great vulnerability on your part, but your story might very well be one of the greatest gifts you can give a person.


Notes:

1. Adam Hamilton.  Making Sense of the Bible: Rediscovering the Power of Scripture Today.  2014, Harper One.  p. 97
2. Mark 1:16-20 (CEB)
3. Making Sense of the Bible, p. 97
4. By the way, there is a fourth Gospel which is attributed to St. John, but it is very different from the other three.
5. Matthew 4:18-22
6. Luke does not name Andrew in this story, but the use of plural pronouns in Luke 5:6-7 suggests that Simon is not the only fisherman in the boat.  My assumption that Andrew is in the boat with Simon is based on Mark and Matthew's account.  My focus in this blog post is on what Luke contributes and not what he leaves out.
7. Based on Luke 5:1-11 (CEB)
8. Ray Buckley.  Dancing with Words: Storytelling as Legacy, Culture and Faith.  2004, Discipleship Resources. ch. 1
9. Luke 10:25-37 and Luke 15:11-32
10. 2 Samuel 11:1-12:15
11. Adam Hamilton.  The Way: Walking in the Footsteps of Jesus.  2012, Abingdon Press.  p. 75
12. See N.T. Wright's lecture "How Can the Bible Be Authoritative?"
13. Jerry Temple.  "The Big Five: Your Witness."  Buncombe Street United Methodist Church, 10/18/2015.
14. See Adam Hamilton's sermon series on the Gospel of Luke.

La Pêche Miraculeuse was painted by James Tissot in the late 1800s.