{"id":5216,"date":"2026-02-09T09:07:43","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T14:07:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/?p=5216"},"modified":"2026-02-09T09:07:43","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T14:07:43","slug":"a-new-way-to-tell-an-old-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/09\/a-new-way-to-tell-an-old-story\/","title":{"rendered":"A New Way to Tell an Old Story"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a>
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Last week, Mary Sue and I watched an hour-long special on the state of Indiana.
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We were born in the Hoosier state and have lived here most of our lives.
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We cherish genuine affection for this place \u2013 the way one can be unflinchingly loyal to a family member even while being intimately acquainted with their secret faults.
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When it comes to America\u2019s 50 states, Indiana is rarely classified with the elite. We have no canyons, deserts, mountains, or exotic species of birds and mammals. Nor are we typically a swing state when it comes to national issues. Indiana is bordered by Michigan, Illinois, and Ohio \u2013 three heavyweights, to be sure \u2013 which means we can only tell jokes about our neighbor to the south, Kentucky.
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Mostly we have corn and soybeans. Lots of corn and lots of soybeans. Approximately 70% of the world\u2019s popcorn is grown within our borders, which is pretty impressive.
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The TV special spotlighted the Indianapolis \u201c500\u201d and a number of our 143 colleges and universities. Special mention was made of Abraham Lincoln, Michael Jackson, and Larry Bird, all of whom have called Indiana home at one time or another.
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To cap it all off, my wife and I can speak from experience that Indiana is a wonderful place to live, raise a family, grow a church, and retire.
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The screenwriters, however, chose to include some details that can only be described as the dark side of Hoosier history.
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White settlers broke the treaties that indigenous tribes had signed in good faith. Federal troops prevailed at the Battle of Tippecanoe, one of the \u201clast stands\u201d of Indians in the Midwest. The city of Gary and the steel industry that had made it grow summarily collapsed. Bank robber and murderer John Dillinger became the FBI\u2019s Public Enemy Number One.
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Is Indiana a great place or a dismal place? It all depends on who\u2019s telling the story, and what details they choose to include.
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Siblings can remember their family of origin in dramatically different ways. So can spouses who are looking back on their marriage.
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For instance, I can cherry pick some stories in which I look like a gracious, considerate, romantic hero. Or I can emphasize how long it took for me to address my chronic workaholism, then recount the time I was so angry I hurled a broomstick in our garage, leaving a hole in the drywall that was still there when we sold our house last year.
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The Smithsonian Institution, which is tasked with telling the story of America, has been pressured over the past year to spotlight only positive and \u201cpatriotic\u201d aspects of the national narrative. Is America\u2019s tale one of never-ending triumph and freedom? Or does our legacy include slavery, unchecked territorial conquest, and broken promises?
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How do we get that story right?\u00a0
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One thing\u2019s for sure: When people fall in love with what they consider an important story, they aren\u2019t very happy when someone else comes along and changes the way it\u2019s told.
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That sheds light on the ministry of Jesus \u2013 and helps us understand why he made so many people so very angry.
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British theologian N.T. Wright points out that a number of Jesus\u2019 parables are \u201cretellings\u201d of the story that the people of Israel had been telling themselves for centuries.
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Here\u2019s how that story went: God created a magnificent world. But the world is fallen because of human sin. Therefore, God chose one man, Abraham, whose descendants were specially called and blessed to fulfill a unique vocation \u2013 to bless humanity by introducing the nations to the God of Israel.
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During the time of Jesus, people were waiting for God to bring this all about.
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Yahweh would vindicate Israel, trounce her enemies (like the occupying Roman pagans), and make Jerusalem the political and spiritual center of the world. This would happen because the Jewish people would be God\u2019s righteous and faithful instruments \u2013 perhaps by means of revolutionary violence.
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God would use the Jews, in other words, to save the world.\u00a0
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Then Jesus came along and told the old story in a new way.\u00a0
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Yes, God would keep all his promises. Yes, the whole world would be blessed through Abraham. But not because his descendants were faithful. They were anything but.
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Wright offers a memorable illustration. If the world is a sinking ship, desperately in need of God\u2019s rescue, then the Jewish people were the rescue boat sent out to save them. But what if the rescue boat starts to sink? What if the rescuers themselves need to be rescued?\u00a0
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That was the twist in Jesus\u2019 teaching. God would rescue the world and the Jewish people through the one and only truly faithful Jew \u2013 Jesus himself.<\/em>
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Violence would not bring about God\u2019s reign, he said. The need of the hour was praying for enemies, welcoming strangers, and forgiving those who hurt us.
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This startled Jesus\u2019 listeners. Who did this guy think he was? As Wright puts it, \u201cSomeone who is telling strangely familiar stories and meaning the wrong things by them<\/em> [Wright\u2019s emphasis] will end up in trouble.\u201d
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When you change the story \u2013 especially if the self-described heroes are suddenly portrayed as villains \u2013 you can make people really upset.
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Jesus made a lot of people really upset.
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No wonder he added, after a number of his parables, \u201cWhoever has ears to hear, let him hear.\u201d
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Or, to put it another way, \u201cDo you really understand what I\u2019m saying? Do you realize how this changes everything?\u201d Wright adds that it was a good thing it took most people a while to get the picture. Otherwise, \u201cthere might have been a riot.\u201d
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As it was, those who consented to Jesus\u2019 death presumably felt satisfied that justice had been done.
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This is what happens to people who mess with God\u2019s story.<\/em>
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Unless, of course, this is God himself telling the old story in a compelling new way.
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Such a retelling is worth hearing again and again \u2013 especially if you happen to have a big bowl of Hoosier popcorn.\u00a0

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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here\u00a0Last week, Mary Sue and I watched an hour-long special on the state of Indiana.\u00a0We were born in the Hoosier state and have lived here most of our lives.\u00a0We cherish genuine affection for this place \u2013 the way one can be unflinchingly loyal to a family member even while being intimately acquainted… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5217,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[177,634],"class_list":["post-5216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-parables","tag-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5216"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5218,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5216\/revisions\/5218"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}