A Holy Festival of Storytelling

Psalm 107:1-16

Let the redeemed of the Lord tell their story—
those he redeemed from the hand of the foe,
those he gathered from the lands,
from east and west, from north and south.
- Psalm 107:2-3

The Psalmist issues an invitation to a post-pandemic family reunion, when the redeemed of the Lord, summoned from the corners of the globe, gather together, whether that’s in a worship service or a coffee time circle or around a campfire. Finally back together again, having traveled the highways and byways of life during a year like no other, we get to gather and tell our stories.

We don’t do this enough. If there’s something we’re starving for, it’s this. We live fragmented lives, wending our way to and fro amid little fires everywhere, detached and withering on the vine. The Psalmist beckons us to come, our quivers full with gripping tales of God’s leading, eager to circle up and spill the tea, testifying with stone cold sober honesty, amid happy tears, of God’s deliverance.

Some of our stories are set in “wandering deserts” we didn’t welcome, our sojourns thick with family estrangement or financial calamity or the wasteland of plaguing doubt, times of parched wilderness threatening to starve our very souls. Things just didn’t go our way. Maybe tragedy met us when we least expected it. Maybe disappointment dawned. Maybe a twist of fate left us clutching worry and fear with a ferocity that we don’t like but one that we can’t release on our own. We look forward to hearing our brothers and sisters share God’s deliverance “from their distress” and how in the midst of despair, the Lord performed “his wonderful deeds for mankind.”

Some stories though might be set in “Darkness, utter darkness . . . because (we’ve) rebelled against the Lord’s commands.” We’re essentially enslaved in prisons of our own making, our questionable choices imprisoning us into the equivalent of bitter labor, alone and helpless. Maybe our petty preoccupation with silly church minutia instead of being focused on serving our neighbor has left us trapped in the solitary confinement of Anger and Bitterness. We want to blame, but when we’re starkly honest, we realize that the shadows we inhabit are cast by our own ignorance and self-centeredness. Thankfully the God we serve is not a petty, vengeful God content to let us live knotted and ensnarled by the fetters we’ve tied ourselves. Even when we toil behind self-constructed walls, he “breaks down gates of bronze and cuts through bars of iron.” There’s nothing our God won’t do to bring us back where we belong, nestled close to his heart.

These stories that dance and sing amid the flickering firelight, illumined with contented sighs and happy tears - these are the standing stones, the narrative altar of redemption.

We need these stories. We need to hear each other’s tales of rescue and salvation, the stories that stamp us as “the redeemed of the Lord.” They strengthen and inspire. They feed our souls. And they cement us together as those wandering desperate pilgrims who’ve been graciously plucked from obscurity and incarceration by the glorious redemptive work of our great God.

But maybe gathering doesn’t magically turn us into storytellers. Maybe we just need to pick up the phone and offer the following words to a trusted brother or sister, “Let me tell you my story.”

When such a conversation occurs, heaven rejoices. And, well, so does the church on earth.