“What’s your story?” I was sitting at a pizza restaurant with a group of church leaders who until the day before had been complete strangers to me. But now, after 2 days of conversation and training, we were chatting in a much more familiar tone as we sipped beverages and contemplated returning to our regularly-programmed lives.
“What’s your story?” The question was posed again. I tried to evade answering by saying something like,”My story isn’t any more interesting than anyone else’s. You guys don’t really want to hear it.” But they gently persisted, giving me time, space and attention to tell them how I got from Africa to Florida, from being committed to any occupation besides being a professional Lutheran church worker to being exactly that.
And so I told them my story.
I talked about the anxiety of applying for college while being a senior at a high school in Kenya, the culture shock of trying to adjust to being an American, the theological crisis of realizing really good people had a VERY different understanding of God and faith, and the multitude of questions and experiences that tumbled me into my call to be a public leader in the ELCA.
After 25 minutes or so, when glasses were empty and conversation had shifted to something else, I sat back in awe at the holiness of being invited to tell my story. If ‘holiness’ refers to an encounter with the Divine, I had definitely just touched it. By being invited to tell my story, my life and experiences–the challenges and the joys–were validated. Those things happened to me,and they are part of who I am today. By being invited to tell my story, I was reminded about how many very important people have been part of my journey. I did not get here on my own. Instead, I journeyed along with the support of a cloud of witnesses–each who called something else out of me and pointed farther down the road than I could see on my own. And because I choose to believe that God is involved in stuff, being invited to tell my story helped me see the very sacred truth that God has been with me through everything, and in fact where I am now is also deeply int he palm of God’s hand.
“What’s your story?” It was a question posed by someone who believed there was more to who I am than I had yet shared,a nd who invited to trust that my community would benefit from knowing me better.
The Gospel of Mark begins with the words “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” We could almost read that verse as “Here is the story of Jesus Christ.” If someone was sharing drinks with Jesus after his resurrection, and heard something that piqued their interest, they may have said, “What’s your story? What we have in the Gospel of Mark is one telling of that story.
In 2015 close to 40,000 ELCA youth and adults will spend 5 days in Detroit as part of the ELCA Youth Gathering. And in that week, stories will abound. Individually and as a church, we go to Detroit with the question: “What’s your story?” Detroit is a city with as many stories as you or I have. Some stories we hear about Detroit cause anxiety and desire to keep a distance. It is a city with stories of brokenness, darkness, and death. But because we are a church that tells the story of a God who entered into our brokenness and darkness with a new story–one of new life and resurrection–we know the dark stories about Detroit are not all there is to that city.
And so we go to hear more. We go to listen to how Detroit got to where it is. Because that story matters, and by giving it space and voice, we validate Detroit and Detroit becomes real. Before these people listened to my story, I was just a representative sent from Florida to this meeting. But as I told my story, I became real to them. And as we gather to listen to Detroit’s story, Detroit becomes real to us.
We also go to Detroit to join the cloud of witnesses journeying with that city as it explores its future. Our presence in Detroit will impact that city’s story, and our stories will forever be combined. We will talk of the year we went to Detroit, and Detroiters will talk of that year those Lutherans showed up.
Most importantly, we go to Detroit to proclaim in word and deed the central Story of our faith–that God enters into darkness and brokenness, that God goes to humanity in its sinfulness and despair, and in fact that God hangs on the cross and enters into death with and for an undeserving people? Why? Because the story doesn’t end there.
When all we see is death and all we smell is death, and our grief and despair binds us, Christ in his grace and mercy stands at the entrance of the tomb and cries out, “Come out,” or as the ELCA Gathering declares, “Rise up!”
So…what’s your story? Are you taking youth to Detroit in 2015? Are you interested in volunteering to help those who are taking youth? Are you journeying with the ELCA to help be part of Detroit’s story in a way that proclaims resurrection and new life?
Detroit’s got a story to tell. God’s got a story to tell. YOU’VE got a story to tell.
So…RISE UP!! Be part of the 2015 ELCA Youth Gathering in Detroit.