Howdy,
On our podcast — I say “our” because Matt Garman and I record our Thursday Night Conversations together, otherwise we’d be two crazy guys mumbling to ourselves — we talk about storytelling, or at least aim to while wandering and weaving through art and creativity, audience and content, or maybe what we had for Thursday Night Dinner with the Garman-side of the family, three-pronged in name: Garman, Schuller, and Hawes. Cousins all crazy, just the same.
Storytelling.
That’s what I was going for. I fear my introduction lacks the precision I’d like to highlight, with an intention to look at a Master Storyteller and elements of a narrative well told.
In parable form, today’s topic, we’ll see story spun sparsely; communication conveyed in the grip of a cultural tale yet amazingly condensed. Clipped and clean, as my master’s thesis mentor professor, Wilfred Martens, used to tell me; clip the “c” off of “clean” and get lean. Definitely still working on that, too obviously at times. (Cut an “I’m” starting that sentence and an “I” on this one, if that counts … )
College now days-gone-by, I need to clip the calories as well, which isn’t fun. Or tasty. Or something I’m great at, to be precise. Get lean.
In a group Bible study from The Rock Church of Turlock, we recently covered a chapter of The Story (a great abbreviated and flowing approach on the epic narrative of Scripture) that included Jesus’ parables from the book of Luke. As I read, I thought, Jesus Christ is such a good storyteller. I mean, look. Look at the ground and truth covered in only a few words:
“So he told them this parable: ‘What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, “Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.” Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.’”
To be fair, the parables we’re honing in on come within a string of parables, but the others are both longer and shorter; and ours don’t even require larger context to speak as meaningful story.
Seen in the photograph, the parable of the lost sheep first appears to be seven verses. But the first two can easily be lopped off as background, giving us the quote above. Yet, then, I’d say the whole line “So he told them this parable” could be dropped for our purposes, which is verse three. Observing only Luke 15: 4-7, four verses, we have a parable, a clipped and clean story. Lean on words, not discourse.
Jesus immediately pulls audience in as character, gives the listener a value and purpose to that character as a commodity owner and one who’d search to recapture and maintain (conquest) his valuable possession (goal) even at a risk (conflict), describes emotion with the tenderness of shouldering the recovered sheep and rejoicing spontaneously alone and again in treasured community, and, with room to spare, wraps with words on a sinner, repentance, and heavenly joy.
Not bad for four verses, right?
Masterful.
But grumbling Pharisees and scribes, religious types — unfortunately that includes me sometimes — don’t usually get it easily. Jesus graciously gives it again, with another take, in three verses. Look again, the next image shows the parable of the lost coin: it’s a somehow-condensed version, with a female lead, of the already sparse lost sheep parable.
Three sentences. Story.
The Master.
I have much to learn.
FYI — For those who’ve been reading along, my Lumbar Epidural Steroid Injection went well on Wednesday. Thank you for your prayers. I’m blessed to be safe and sound and only a little sore.
Don’t know that I will, but I could probably even podcast tonight from the dynamic perch upon an exercise balance ball.
Having found further and further relief for my injured back the last couple months, now on to greater rehab and recovery! Time to get stronger and leaner.
Also, do check out TNC Podcast, to find out that Matt and I are just two crazy guys talking to each other — and you. We’d love to have you listening.
—Lean Machine
Reading. Writing. Living.
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