History vs. Metanarrative

First Wednesday after Pentecost

Lectionary Texts:

Genesis 1:14-19

John 3:1-17

 

Here's an email I received from Vicki Church about Iona. She okayed my putting it on the blog. 

 

"I remember the day we arrived in Iona. It was warm and sunny but that changed very quickly!!! Luckily we didn’t have far to walk to the monastery for the evening service. It was a beautiful service.  I remember it being rainy, windy and cold. The lunch we had at the monastery was wonderfully delicious!!!  I remember there were  no TVs or phones and very foggy the next day looking out the big windows at our hotel. Thank you for knowing where we needed to visit in Scotland. Kin and I didn’t have a clue."

Thanks to April for her comments. Correction: No , I don't know every verse in the NT. My parlor game is that I can ask you to open the Bible to any place at random and start reading aloud. I then tell you what book of the Bible it is. I'm close to 100% right on NT, about 90% on OT. Tricky parts of OT are 1 and 2 Kings and 1 and 2 Chronicles. What's in one will often be in very slightly different form in the other. Then there's Isaiah 36-39, three chapters that are word to word the same as the last chapters of 2 Kings. 

My best of all time was when I had blog reader Frances Casey do this with me. She had a Bible with the Apocrypha. She opened at random and it was a page in the Apocrypha. She started reading and within two or three verses I correctly identified 1 Maccabees.

You know what history is, but metanarrative may be a new word for you. A metanarrative is an overarching story, myth, interpretation, or theory that explains everything. In physics it's called the TOE (theory of everything). We don't have it but the Grand Unified Field Theory is a step on the way. The word metanarrative is more commonly heard in religions and philosophies. Christianity has a metanarrative. It's Biblical. It explains the whole of the world from creation to consummation, beginning to end. There are numerous variations, but it goes something like this:

Sin and Salvation

Creation: humanity is sinless (Genesis 1-2)

Fall: humanity sins (Genesis 3)

The history of sin (The rest of the OT) Even the greatest heroes are sinners: i.e. Noah the drunk,

        Abraham the liar, Moses the murderer, David the adulterer, etc. 

God tries to save humanity from sin by Abraham the covenant, then Moses the Law. Nothing works. 

        Humanity continues to sin.

God finally sends his only son (NT), fully divine but human and in the flesh.

Jesus dies on the cross as a sacrifice for all human sin. Humans can attain salvation through faith in 

        Jesus.

Jesus will come again in glory at the end of time to bring the Kingdom of God to its fullness,

 

That's the basic Christian metanarrative. It does explain everything. But there are problems with it. 

1. Not every book of the Bible fits into. There is no trace of it in Proverbs or Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes, in fact, seems to take the opposite view to any metanarrative. 

2. The Bible can be read without a metanarrative. 

3. Other metanarratives are possible, such as St. Irenaeus's (2d century) understanding or "recapitulation."

4. A significant part of the metanarrative is fear of hell, if salvation is not achieved. No one is afraid of                going to hell anymore.

5. People just don't think in these theological terms any more. If they are Christian, they are more                      interested in how to lead a good life, how to show God's love, how to get closer to God, how to serve           others, how God can help them in this life.

Although the word metanarrative is seldom heard in church circles, its presence is very real in many denominations, especially Baptists and Presbyterians, and fundamentalists. Methodists tend to fall much more into number 5 in the above numeration. 

Tomorrow, let's do some more thinking about this--especially about the history part.

God above all our theories,

Help to understand better what we believe and how it can affect our lives. Amen.

Faithfully,

Christian