My most memorable moment as a teacher was when I was attempting to get a class of disaffected 15-year-olds through GCSE Religious Education. These were the most difficult students in their year, so it was a small class of a dozen or so, when they were all there, which wasn’t often. I threw it all at them – visual aids, pop music, special worksheets, creative responses. Frankly, what they mostly wanted to do was just copy stuff from the board.
The most difficult of them all was Michael, a bright but entirely negative joker, who seized on every opportunity and used every technique to get under my skin. He sat, of course, in the far corner of the room, so he could observe and dominate proceedings most effectively.
We came to the lesson on the Prodigal Son. Video? Act it out? Retell in a modern context? I decided to just let the story speak for itself, pretty much exactly as I suppose Jesus would have told it – no cheap jokes, no Ferraris, no discos, just a simple story set in a bygone age. I was stunned by the effect on the students. They were absolutely engrossed, living every twist and turn in utter silence.
Until the first and only interruption – from Michael, of course. The son was welcomed back, the party was in full swing. “What was the older son doing while all this was happening?” he blurted out. Moment of magic. “Funny you should ask”, I replied. The power of a story.
Tim Sheppard, a communications consultant from Bristol, has created a fascinating website about storytelling traditions around the world. He says this: “The power of story and narrative is crucial in communication skills, and can turn dry facts or abstract principles into compelling material which is absorbed and remembered by its audience. The principles of narrative tie everything together and give it meaning.”
Jesus was a great teller of stories, and a teller of great stories. People flocked around to hear him, neglecting even to bring their lunch. Crowds of people “listened to him with delight”. Children were attracted to him. I’m sure that what we have written down as his parables are just summaries. I can envisage Jesus embellishing the stories, pointing to examples of what he was talking about, relating to the everyday experiences of his hearers – a sower, a crafty steward, treasure buried in a field, a proud Pharisee, an unjust judge, a cheated widow.
In his parables, Jesus was tapping into a strong storytelling tradition in Judaism. Many of the great stories in the Bible would have been transmitted orally before being recorded in writing. Esther is perhaps the greatest example of storytelling in practice, with the traditional telling of the story at the feast of Purim being accompanied by boos and cheers, and Haman’s name being vilified. In this way, storytelling is a key element in the transmission of culture, as reflected in Exodus 12:26 and Joshua 4:6: “when your children ask you why we do this, tell them this.”
This is increasingly recognised in countries which have a rich and ongoing storytelling tradition, such as many of those in Africa. Tim Penn quotes from the Africa Studies department, University of Pennsylvania: “Kenyan radio and television shows use folklore as part of their daily programming. Oral literature is part of the secondary and university syllabus. Part of the requirement in these classes is for students to collect folklore from their parents and grandparents. Kenyans believe that folklore is an important part of their heritage and culture and are taking steps to preserve and encourage folklore and education.”
In Arabic-speaking areas, particularly Syria, storytellers, known as hakawati, have been part of the culture for centuries. One famous café in Damascus has a continuous three-hundred-year history of storytelling, with the Crusades featuring strongly – from a Muslim perspective, of course! Tragically, there is a possibility that this tradition will die out as cafes are unable to operate because of the civil war.
Storytelling, the pure art of narrating a tale without props or visual aids, has had a major resurgence in the West over recent years. The weekly US podcast, “The Moth Radio Hour“, simply puts people on a stage with a microphone to tell their stories to a live audience. [6] The results can be absolutely gripping. Indeed, in carrying out research on brain functions, Prof. Jack Gallant of U.C. at Berkeley put his subjects into MRI scanners for two hours at a time, and had them listen to podcasts from The Moth. Their synapses were apparently firing right across the brain. There’s a great report of this on the Freakonomics podcast.
Stories obviously produce large amounts of brain activity. It’s clearly a powerful way of communicating with audiences, and should have a much higher profile in our teaching in church.
Wild About Preaching 