Heretical readings???

I´m on a mission to finish reading all the books that I´ve started reading and not yet finished (there´s been a fair few over the last couple of years) ... and I thought I´d share a few thoughts about the most interesting ones.

First up is 'The Orthodox Heretic and other impossible tales' by Peter Rollins. It´s brilliant -- and is probably the most recent book that I´ve started and taken a while to finish reading -- not because it´s hard going or difficult - but actually because it´s one of those books that need to be chewed over and digested slowly allowing its ideas and stories to take up residence in your brain for a while - before you work out what they really are and really mean. It´s a collection of stories, parables, tales - whichever description you like best - which make you think.

That´s it really. But they really make you think!

Some are re-tellings of parables that Jesus told -- with a twist or an unexpected ending. It´s funny how reading a well known story retold with a few differences makes you reflect on what the original actually says (or doesn´t say) - and what it might actually mean for us today. (How have we become so convinced of the accepted intepretation of parables that we never stop of really listen and let God speak through them again?) It´s startling to realise that our actions and our lives in response to Jesus are so different to what we say we understand to be his teachings.

Many others are new stories or old stories - but all with that capacity to stop you in your tracks - to take time to ponder and grapple with it. It´s a refreshing way of thinking of God and our relationship with him. As great as systematic theological study is (?), theology (the study of God) comes alive when we think about it within our own stories. We need to see God´s interaction in our schizophrenic lives (aren´t most of us a random and incoherent collections of personalities and opinions?) and our inconsistent relationships with others. That is when stories matter. When so little is black and white. In the midst of messy lives and even messier relationships. When we see God at work - transforming us and others.

I´m sure that this is a book that I´ll be coming back to... but for now I´ll leave you with just one of it´s stories......

"Jesus withdrew privately by boat to a solitary place, but the crowds continued to follow him. Evening was now approaching and the people, many of whom had traveled a great distance, were growing hungry.
Seeing this, Jesus sent his disciples out to gather food, but all they could find were five loaves of bread and two fishes. Then Jesus asked that they go out again and gather up the provisions that the crowd had brought to sustain them in their travels. Once this was accomplished, a vast mountain of fish and bread stood before Jesus. Upon seeing this he directed the people to sit down on the grass.
Standing before the food and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks to God and broke the bread. Then he passed the food among his twelve disciples. Jesus and his friends ate like kings in full view of the starving people. But what was truly amazing, what was miraculous about this meal, was that when they had finished the massive banquet there were not even enough crumbs left to fill a starving person´s hand."