Storytelling in the Perfected Kingdom
March 24, 2010
“You can spend 2 hours of a film showing people falling in love or falling out of love, but you can only show 2 minutes of them being in love.”
This is a paraphrased quote I heard someone share from a personal conversation with Sydney Pollack, the late film director and actor. We can observe this dynamic not only in relationship films but in nearly every story humans tell, whether in a novel, play, painting, song, or monologue. Conflict creates story; resolution belongs on the periphery. Even our Scriptures contain mere pages of conflict-free narrative, at the very beginning and at the very end. The rest is one majestic story of conflict and resolution, of brokenness and redemption.
Thus there is something appropriate about Pollack’s quote. Ours is an age of conflict and incompleteness, and if the stories we tell are to be meaningful, they must reflect the realities of the times. At the same time, this reliance on tension for stories to gain traction is only temporary. As followers of Jesus we anticipate an age in which conflict will be past history and resolution will be the new norm. When our King returns to complete the work he began 2,000 years ago, his rule will bring about shalom: perfect harmony, wholeness, peace, flourishing, and prosperity.
Does this mean that story telling will come to an end in the perfected kingdom? I doubt it, for two reasons. First, it seems that the songs sung around God’s throne in heaven will continue to recount God’s redemptive acts throughout eternity. “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals,” the heavenly hosts sing to the Lamb, “for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God…” (Revelation 5:9). Likewise songs of God’s judgment of the nations and rewarding of his people will ring for endless days (Revelation 11:17-18, 16:5-7, 19:1-3). We will continue to sing about conflict, only not within the conflict.
Second, when we live with God in resurrected bodies on a resurrected earth, we will finally have minds that value his glory as the most engaging story to tell. We will be disposed to watch a story of being in love for 2 hours and will need no conflict to garner our interest. Far from being bored with resolution, our glorified minds will spend eternity grasping God’s fathomless majesty, giving us tales to tell well past kingdom come.
As we live in this age of conflict, let us engage the stories our fellow humans are telling. But as we do, let us remain aware of our forthcoming reality in which the glory of God will be the new, recurring theme that makes every story worth telling.
Pastor Chris